waking up to 21st century America

Until immigration was pushed to the forefront by President Bush in a last ditch effort to revitialize his ratings, many Americans were probabbly ignorant as to the extent of immigrants (illegal or legal) who have recently come into this county.

These massive protests proved that the First Amendment still works and that there are Americans who care a lot about this issue. Notice I said Americans. All of the protesters, illegal or not, consider themselves Americans and Mexicans, or Chinese or Purvians or whatever. What was also amazing for me was that while a few people showed up to protest the Iraq war, this turnout has been impressive for how widespread, how large, and how grassroots it was. This was not a bunch of Unions and immigrants rights members marching around, like the war protestors were mostly members of certain peace groups. Nor was this organized by partisan officials. Rather, this was something talked about on Spanish-speaking radio, flyers in mom-and-pop businesses & churches. This was the real deal.

I would imagine, contrary to what Rep. Tom Tancredo belives, that most of the protesters were legal immigrants. There is a lot of solidarity amoung immigrants, both illegal and legal, not because they are all from the same county or speak the same language, but because they are related through mutual friends, marriage, and they are all struggling to make it in strange land. Granted, they came here willingly and are overjoyed with the oportunties in America.

This is just what you want in an American, someone who believes in the American Dream. Those who marched against the war were mostly middle-to-upper class folks who had maxed out all of what America could do for them. They aren't hanging out next to the Home Depo hoping some Gringo will hire them as a day laborer under the table. They aren't using fake tax IDs to get a job picking vegatables. But that's who marched on Sunday and Monday against the Sensenbrenner bill.

In politics, like if life, decisions are made by those who show up. Will the hundreds of thousands who marched the last couple days show up to their polling place in November? If they are illegal, the answer is no. Will it encourage folks like Chinese-Americans, many of whom have lived in America for a long time and have sympathized and marched with Hispanics on April 9th and 10th, to vote this time? That is the $10,000 question.

Democrats have new reason to hope that is the case, as most who marched remembered only that Republicans are the ones that supported the Sensenbrenner bill, but Democrats shouldn't count on these votes putting them over the top. The GOPers should be nervous however. The counter protests by Minutemen groups have been pathetically small in comparison when they even occured.

Maybe there is a Nixonian "silent majority" wanting to criminalize undocumented workers and those who protect them, as well as a burning desire to deport them. But I bet they only exist in GOP primary voters and not the public at large.