In my 2012 column “New Beijings,”
I speculated more than half seriously on a possible cure for the depopulation
of the Illinois countryside. I proposed to add a few New Beijings to our
New Berlins by building housing for the
middle class of newly-emergent economies eager to qualify their kids for
in-state tuition rates at institutions such as the University of Illinois.
Fanciful? Some five thousand or so Chinese nationals are now studying
at the U of I’s main campus; no other university in the U.S. has enrolled more.
Dusty Rhodes, now occupying the Education Desk at WUIS,
alerted me to an Inside Higher Ed article
detailing
their lives in Urbana-Champaign. Their experience there is a
fascinating new version – good and bad — of the immigrants’ dilemma familiar
from Illinois’ past.
Well worth reading.
This article appears in Jan 8-14, 2015.
