When US cities were white, non-white immigrants sought to assimilate with whiteness.

The idea was US is essentially a white nation but open to others as well.
The idea was that white people had the power, wealth, and good stuff. So, whiteness was the ideal, the standard. Quintessentially American. John Wayne stuff.
After all, the immigrants left their own nations. And they didn't want to go to non-white nations but to white majority nations, especially America.

So, as long as whites had the numbers, prestige, and power, all non-white immigrant groups shared something in common: respect for whiteness and wish to merge with whiteness. Whiteness lessened non-white vs non-white tensions because all non-white groups could ignore one another and move toward whiteness.

But over time in many cities, whites lost the numbers, the prestige, and the power. So, in a city like LA, there is a lot of non-white groups living alongside one another. But none of them represents something that all non-whites want to move to or merge with. Non-white groups once considered the movement-toward-whiteness as the process of 'Americanization', but the same cannot be said for movement-toward-non-whiteness(even though the official narrative is that 'American' is purely ideological and has nothing to do with race or even culture). (The exception is movement-toward-blackness in style and attitude, but it's certainly not in jobs, schools, and residence.) It was once considered(and still is, albeit mutedly) prestigious for non-whites to merge with whiteness --- synonymous with becoming 'Americanized' --- , but the same cannot be said for merging with, say, Mexicans, Cambodians, Vietnamese, Hindus, and etc. Even though the official ideology says Mexican-Americanism and Vietnamese-Americanism are just as American as white-Americanism, no one really feels this way. Diversity really means the desire by non-whites to be included in the White or White-made world. Diversity without whiteness would be like building a model without glue. It wouldn't hold together. It's been said that Diversity means 'no more whites', but that is self-defeating because it's like a model set without glue. Indeed, diversity without whiteness itself isn't appealing to most people. Latin America and North Africa are very diverse, but neither has enough whites. India is very diverse, but Hindus prefer to move to a white nation.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41HICBc0vZL._SL500_AC_SS350_.jpg

If an Asian-American moves to a white community, he or she feels 'Americanized'. Indeed, he or she is(or was) willing to surrender his or her own identity to take up this new prestigious ersatz-white identity. But would Chinese-Americans want to give up their identity to merge with Mexican-Americanism, Hindu-Americanism, or even Korean-Americanism? I think not.
Indeed, it's interesting that Chinese have been in SE Asian nations for so long BUT they've mostly retain their Chinese pride and identity. In contrast, so many East Asians in white nations instantly surrender everything about their race, culture, and language to merge with whiteness or 'westernness'. People will surrender their culture for something higher but not for something lower. Chinese will surrender Chineseness to become 'white' or 'western' but not to become 'Filipino' or 'Indonesian'. Maybe Sephardic Jews mixed more with Muslims and Arabs cuz they weren't all that smarter, whereas Ashkenazi Jews in Europe were less willing to merge with goyim because they were smarter. I dunno.

If LA had lots of whites, this 'fancy' vs 'jungle' dichotomy wouldn't matter. Both the fancies and junglies would focus on merging with whiteness as ideal. But since whiteness is becoming a more precious commodity in places like LA, the fancies and junglies are more ghettoized in their own identities. Vanishing of whiteness means less of something for which Asians(or other non-white groups) are willing to surrender their own identities in order to merge with something higher or more quintessentially American.

Replies: @Mike Hunt, @rob, @Romanian