National Day of Action for Immigrant Justice
Today is the National Day of Action for Immigrant Justice. There are major marches in Washington DC and a host of other cities. I wanted to go - I planned to go - but I've been sick all weekend, and it's probably the fucking flu. I have a doctor's appointment at 4pm, and I'll find out. Meantime, the show goes on. The Washington Post has an article with a route map. They're expecting as many as 180,000 people. If you are in the DC area and want to go, you can either meet up at Meridian Hill Park (aka Malcom X Park) before the 3:00 step-off - an email I got from PFAW had a call time of 2:00 pm - and march down 16th street, or meet the group at the Washington Monument around 4:00 or 4:30.
I want to talk a little bit about why this is an important issue. For anyone who has a doubt that racism is at the heart of this fuss over "illegals" I want to tell a story. Immigration was something of an issue during the 2005 governor's campaign in Virginia. I worked for the coordinated campaign for a few months, and canvassed every day. In certain areas - invariably the most McMansiony areas, mostly in and around Herndon, I started to find people who would name "Illegal Immigrants" as their issue. In Herndon at the time there was a big fuss over a day-labor center that had been proposed as a place where day laborers could gather, to prevent them gathering at gas stations and the like, which the property and business owners did not care for.
"Immigration" wasn't as big an issue as "Traffic" which was far and away the #1. But I got enough of this that I, and other canvassers, started to bug the higher-ups for talking points on "Immigration." Canvassers are very loathe to improvise, you see, because we get that instinct beat out of us very early on in our field careers. It's a very uncomfortable thing as a field staffer to be asked a question over and over that you haven't been given a ready answer to.
I was made all the more uncomfortable by the fact that I sensed that the real concern with "Illegal Immigrants" was something more along the lines of "I don't want those brown people living in my neighborhood." Then one day I had this confirmed for me in beautiful clarity. I was in a neighborhood of townhomes in Herndon. It looked like a nice neighborhood, a comfortable one, not upscale, but hardly a place where poor folk could afford to live. About half the residents (who answered the doors) were white, and about half were Hispanic. I'd been there for an hour or two when I knocked on the door of a white woman.
"Hi, my name's Joanna, and I'm here in the neighborhood on behalf of our Lieutenant Governor, Tim Kaine. He's been working with Governor Mark Warner to keep Virginia moving forward. Tim's running for governor this year, and he's interested to know what issues people here in Northern Virginia are concerned about."
Immediately the woman started in on how all these "illegal immigrants" had started moving into her neighborhood, and how they went and stood outside the 7-11 looking for work (presumably these had their status stamped on their foreheads) and on and on and on and on... especially focusing on them invading her neighborhood, which used to be really nice.
When I could get in a work edgewise, I said, "Actually, ma'am, a lot of the Hispanic folks here in the neighborhood are registered to vote. The information on my list here comes from the master list of everyone who is registered, and I've been talking to a lot of them today."
The woman looked confused. "How could they register to vote?" she asked me. "Don't you have to be a citizen to do that?"
The people who are screaming about "illegal immigrants" don't know if the brown people they complain about are citizens. They don't care if the brown people they complain about are citizens. They want them to strip their basement carpet when it gets flooded, paint their houses, and clean up their garbage. But they don't want them to live in their neighborhoods. That is what this fight is about.
Maybe it's a little easier for me to see because I grew up in Louisiana. There's a lot of denial out there about racism. But let's not kid ourselves. That is what this is. Tim Kaine gets it, and that's something to be said for him, if there's a lot that can be said against him (and there is).
So if you believe as I do that racism is to be fought wherever you find it, then please use google to find a march in your area and join. I'll be with you in spirit!