Appreciation and dismay

Re “Coming home to a new America,” Column One, Dec. 5

Travel away from the things you love seems to be necessary to truly understand and appreciate them for what they are.

You have painted a portrait of the things that make America unique. It’s not the language, wealth, religion or the terrain that makes America what it is -- it’s what we expect of ourselves.

Dennis Mitcheltree

Santa Monica

::

I am starting to think that The Times publishes articles like this on its front page to get a rise out its readers. While the Column One piece was meant to come across as a reflective observation on how a writer sees Los Angeles after living in Latin America for the last seven years, it was in fact a most depressing commentary about how far things have gone awry.

To see Mexico City and Los Angeles as “twin bad brothers of North American metropolises” is sadly all too true and horribly depressing. To try to spin it as a positive urban evolution by saying “Americans seem mellowed and slightly more humble” was insulting. We are not mellowed and more humble -- but simply overtaken and beaten down by what uncontrolled immigration has done to this city.

Laurie Trainor

Los Angeles