Growing up in the 70s, I distinctly remember one of the many ways the international community bashed the US was over its treatment of immigrants and "non-whites." Now, the US wasn't the best it could've been then, probably isn't now, but I always wondered how much of that criticism was coming from people who didn't even know what an immigration problem looked like. Now I know:

"We're trying to avoid development of ethnic neighborhoods. One ethnicity cannot dominate an entire neighborhood. There cannot be a Chinatown in Rome," said Maria Grazia Arditto, spokeswoman for the commerce adviser to the mayor and the department in charge of regulating trade in the city.

For the Chinese, the issue is one of civic and human rights. "These rules are simply discriminatory. They apply only to Esquilino and only because of the Chinese," said Daniele Wong, an Italian-born Chinese activist who has mediated with city hall over the issue. "There's an atmosphere of yellow peril hysteria in Rome."

I would make a comment about glass houses and motes vs. beams, but nobody'd notice anyway. I wonder how long it'll take them to blame it on the Bush administration?