over the last couple of decades, because of post 1965 federal immigration policy, there been a sizable amount of immigration into the Los Angeles area from this huge region once ruled by the Ottoman, Soviet, or Persian empires—a vast yet contiguous expanse for which we don’t have a name. You could call it the Caucasian East, because it’s centered around the Caucasus Mountains. The kind of people I see at stores near where these homicides took place look like a mix of the people I’ve seen on trips to Istanbul and Moscow. I’ll call it the Land of the Defunct Empires: Ottoman, Persian, and Soviet.
This influx has largely gone unremarked because the immigrants are technically Caucasian so they don’t show up in the main diversity statistics. Moreover, the newcomers are seldom terribly poor. And they are generally not illegal immigrants, most using the family reunification or refugee loopholes.
The Defunct Empires immigrants aren’t from any single religious background. Some are Muslim, but generally from the more secular sectors of Islamic cultures. (I’ve only seen one woman in full burka in LA.) This new class of immigrant is generally not sprung from peasant stock in the old country. Instead, they tend to hale from middleman minorities, differentiated from the masses by religion, ethnicity, or class.
The main cultural common denominator found among the immigrants from the Land of Defunct Empires: a pervasive cynicism about whom you can trust outside your own extended family. These are not cultures of strong civic engagement and broad volunteerism.
