Golden State Residents Get Cool Reception in Oregon

Listeners jammed the radio station switchboard to unleash their venom on “them” and their funny-talking, bad-driving, gangbanging ways.

“We’re glad you like Oregon. Now pack up and get out!” one caller fumed.

This wasn’t some fringe forum for supremacists. It was KOTK-AM Hot Talk in Portland, and Oregonians were taking aim at their favorite target: Californians.

Even though the much-maligned migration from the Golden State to its rainy neighbor to the north has slowed by the thousands from its peak in the early 1990s, the anti-California undercurrent still courses through Oregon and the Northwest.

As the state struggles to absorb an estimated 1 million more residents over the next 20 years, there’s a new effort underway to revive the “stay-out” sentiment made famous in 1971 by then Gov. Tom McCall.

“Come and visit us again and again,” McCall said at the time. “But for heaven’s sake, don’t come here to live.”

Nearly 30 years later, one lawmaker wants to take the message and make it the first thing would-be residents see.

State Sen. John Lim, a Republican and an himself immigrant from Korea, introduced a bill in March to erect signs at the state line telling incoming motorists: “You are welcome to visit Oregon, but please don’t stay.”

Lim said the bill is a first step toward preserving Oregon’s livability, which he believes is threatened by growth.

An admirer of McCall, Lim said it’s time to take the former governor’s cue and roll up the welcome mat to California and other states.

“I would like to send a message, and this bill is just a starting point,” he said.

Californians still represent about a third of new residents, although the numbers have been steadily dropping as that state’s economy has improved. Using driver’s licenses as a rough indicator, the net migration--the number of Californians to Oregon versus Oregonians to California--is half of what it was, from 23,000 in 1993 to 11,000 in 1998.

But most of the growth-related blame remains focused on the Golden State, said John Findlay, a University of Washington history professor.

“It’s kind of a scapegoating thing,” he said. “It’s these outsiders coming in, especially Californians, that are forcing up home prices, clogging freeways and bringing gangs.”

Findlay, who teaches a course on Northwest history, devotes several lectures to the anti-California attitude because he says it tells a lot about the Northwest.

“They are the ‘other,’ the negative reference point,” he said.

The sentiment doesn’t seem to have mellowed over time. Over the last 10 years, when he’s asked his students for words associated with California, they’ve consistently come up with the stereotypes: bad drivers, pollution, overcrowded, pushy, vain, rude, disrespectful and superficial.

The bias is amazingly still vibrant, Findlay said. “Californians learn pretty quickly when they get here to change their plates and take off their UCLA sweatshirt.”

Some say the criticism is justified. Mike Kozlowsky, who moved to Oregon from New York when he was 8, said he has come to resent Californians’ bad driving.

“You leave an inch between yourself and the next car, and they take it as an invitation to cut in front of you,” he said, although he admits his resentment has mellowed since he met his wife--a Californian.

Even those from other places quickly learn the value of disassociation.

“All I need to say is, ‘I’m not from California,’ and no one gives me any trouble,” said Allana Morgan, a waitress who moved to Oregon 5 1/2 years ago from Virginia. “There’s just this bizarre California prejudice thing.”

Gov. John Kitzhaber confines his California bashing to comparisons, repeatedly pointing to Southern California as an example of what not to do.

“On the issue of growth management, we’ve done it right,” said Kitzhaber’s spokesman, Bob Applegate. “If that means pointing out that our neighbors to the south have not done it right, then our apologies.”

Working under the philosophy that growth and prosperity go hand in hand, the governor has nothing against Californians who choose to move here, Applegate said.

“They’ve made the right choice,” he said. “They came to the right state. Of course we can’t take all 30 million of them.”

Those who do come should expect some prejudice when they get here, according to a study by a UC Riverside doctoral student in sociology.

In 1996, Glenn T. Tsunokai took a survey designed to measure prejudice against minorities and inserted the word “Californians” for “blacks” or “gays.” He then mailed 600 surveys to Oregonians, and received 319 replies.

Among the findings: a large majority of Oregonians said Californians would create “problems”’ in their communities by moving there. Most thought Oregon’s natural environment would deteriorate if more Californians move into the state.

Meanwhile, respondents were much kinder to Washington residents, describing them almost as nicely as they did themselves.

Those dedicated to stopping the state’s growth insist they aren’t singling out Californians.

“It doesn’t matter where they come from,” said Andy Kerr, president of the zero-growth group Alternatives to Growth Oregon. “If we want to maintain the quality of life we have in Oregon, we should not grow anymore. I don’t care if you’re a Californian or Idahoan.”

But even Rick Emerson, the host of the KOTK radio show who hears his share of outrageous things, said he was taken aback by the “zealot-like” nature of Oregonians’ dislike of Californians.

“I didn’t expect it to be quite so vitriolic,” he said. “I’ve lived in a lot of places, and they all have a feeling of propriety over their state. But I have never seen such a rabid fear.”

“It almost causes them physical pain to see these Californians coming here.”