Americana: Bumper Wars

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Tired of seeing their state overrun by outsiders, members of the Colorado Native Society (membership requirement: a Colorado birth certificate) took to the road with bumper stickers resembling the state license plate but proudly emblazoned with the word NATIVE. Longtime residents, naturally, felt left out. Equally resentful of the newcomers, they hit the highways with a sticker of their own: SEMI-NATIVE. The immigrants decided to fight back, and before very long, Coloradans were sighting ALIEN vehicles and others labeled FOREIGNER or TRANSPLANT. RESTLESS NATIVES were seen roaming the interstates. Some, lacking a native sense of humor, asked WHO CARES? Came the inevitable answer, I CARE.

Who is winning the battle of the bumpers? Entrepreneur Eric Glade, 26, for one. The Utah transplant has a flourishing sideline marketing the stickers and matching T shirts. The profits are private, but Glade says that retailers J.C. Penney's and Joslins have placed orders totaling $50,000. Now he is planning bumper crops in other "snob state" markets: California, Texas, Oregon, "anywhere there is a native population worried about the influx of outsiders."