Hispanic Fanatic

The lawn mower went for twenty bucks…

Because of our recent cross-country excursion, my wife and I needed to get rid of every item that had no bearing on our new life (eg, we don’t need a snow shovel in a Los Angeles apartment) or that wasn’t absolutely vital or that didn’t bring us enormous quantities of joy. So a couple of weeks before we left, we held our first moving sale.

The end table went for ten dollars…

It was liberating to dispose of so much junk that had cluttered our lives. And the cash was nice, although when we figured out how many hours we poured into the effort, we figure that we made minimum wage. Perhaps it’s a question for the “Freakonomics” guys: Does anyone actually make decent money having a garage sale?

My neighbor carted off the entertainment center…

In any case, the biggest surprise of the weekend was the makeup of our customers. I had assumed that most of the people who frequented rummage sales were old women eager to interact with strangers or suburban guys looking for good deals on power tools or middle-class people who think it’s fun to haggle. Indeed, many of those types of people showed up.

The Asian tea set went to a pre-adolescent boy who was either shopping for his mother or is gay…

However, among the first people to saunter onto our lawn that warm Saturday morning was a quiet Latino who milled about for a moment before asking how much the microwave oven was. It was clear that his English was fledgling, so I had to call upon my piss-poor Spanish to make the sale. He seemed delighted at the everything-must-go price.

Minutes later, a car pulled up, and several men spilled out. They were clearly trabadorjes, and they spoke excitedly about the power vac and the ladder and the box of bungee cords. To pay for their acres of items, they presented me with a crisp hundred-dollar bill. Obviously, they had just been paid, in cash under the table, and our moving sale was their Home Depot and Target and Tiffany’s. They culminated the transaction by buying one of my guitars, which I assumed would offer them some entertainment in their shared tiny apartment.

My ex-boss took the fake Christmas tree…

Throughout the day, more of my Hispanic brethren showed up. Latinas looking for costume jewelry and little girls enamored with baubles for a quarter and burly men who bought three t-shirts for a dollar – they poured over our discards eagerly. All seemed thrilled with our approach to pricing.

And I don’t know whether I was happy that we could help people who were obviously short on cash, or saddened that whole families of Hispanics had to resort to yard sales to fulfill basic needs.

The pooper scooper went for a buck…

My wife and I didn’t have the sale as a backdoor to charity. But that’s what it felt like at times. And the recipients were people who looked like me, but who were still trying to figure out how to achieve the privileged position of getting rid of all this junk rather than buying it.

The last things to go were a pair of folding chairs that a middle-aged Latino lugged to his car. After that, the sun began to set, and my wife and I carted the rejects inside, where they would sit until we donated them to someone who really needed them.

So I’ve arrived at my new place in Los Angeles. As such, I hope to get back to regular blog updates soon, although for the time being, my top priority will be digging us out of the heap of boxes that overwhelm our home.

The whirlwind experience of finding an apartment featured myriad phone calls and frantic acceleration through the streets of LA, with the always pleasant task of flying across the country thrown in there for bonus stress points.

I had gone so long between airplane trips that I had forgotten how fun it is to be “randomly” selected for an extra pat-down by the TSA. Perhaps I should have explained that I’m Hispanic and not (as they clearly assumed) Middle Eastern. But this would have implied that I agree with right-wing zealots that there’s something inherently wrong about being Middle Eastern. And in any case, it wouldn’t have made a difference to those on perpetual watch for the next Mohamed Atta. I do think it was a bit excessive, however, to wand me while I was buckled in my seat on the airplane. But I was assured that this is standard procedure.

In any case, my wife and I are happy with our new home. Because we live in a neighborhood in which I spent little time during my first stint in LA, I did some research online to discover what I’m getting into. I found out that some famous past residents of my new hood include Anais Nin, Tom Waits, and Kiefer Sutherland – all of whom I’m sure had nicer digs than our humble abode.

But something disturbed me when I performed my due diligence. According to reputable online sources, the neighborhood in which I now live has a high percentage of Latinos. Even more alarming, it is also home to, as one source put it, “numerous creative types.”

I’m at a loss at how I got into this situation. I mean, surrounded by both Latinos and “creative types”… surely those two demographics will be the death of America.

How will I survive with my values intact?

I am hitting to road to California this week, so the computer is getting packed up. This means that it may be a little while before my next post. Trust that it’s coming, however.

In the meantime, here’s a picture that my good friend, the infamous Nichole, sent to me. Maybe it’s Photoshopped, but I’d like to think that it’s authentic. It should keep you entertained until I get back.

As we know, President Obama has announced that immigration reform will have to take its place in line behind a sputtering economy and a faltering war.

At the risk of showing off, or lapsing into complete egomania, I will now quote myself. Months ago, I wrote that, in the near future “not much will come of the new president’s apparently sincere desire to make this country a better place for immigrants. There simply isn’t the bandwidth.”

I would like to think that this means that I am smarter, or at the very least, display psychic abilities. In truth, it just means that I made an educated lucky guess, or I’m just more cynical than other commentators.

But let’s not beat up on the president too much over his reprioritization. He still has three years in which to help right-wingers morph into irrational fear mongers with bulging carotid arteries who lash out at anyone who disagrees with them. Of course, when immigration reform happens, it will make the healthcare melee look like a junior high debate.

Once more, here’s a short post to keep you up to date while I pack furiously for my move to California.

My friends at TC Daily (which carries my posts) had an interesting article about the continuing healthcare crisis among Latinos.

We all know that Hispanics are far more likely to get diabetes. But genetic predispositions are only part of the story. According to the article, Latinos have less access to healthcare in general (and certainly less than the old white people losing their minds about the “socialized medicine” boogeyman). As such, we’re looking at a major public-health disaster down the line.

Granted, the article is more about immigrants than Hispanics in general (and as we all know, the groups are not synonymous). However, its conclusion, which is that “society will have a high price to pay if access to medical and behavioral health care isn’t provided to immigrants regardless of their resident status,” is timely… and more than a little scary.

This one comes courtesy of our friends at Fail.org (a damn funny site).

No, there isn’t some organization out there with a master plan to combat the obesity epidemic by ostracizing Hispanics. A cursory examination of the picture shows that the word “Eating” was vandalized to change it into “Latino,” leading to the racist non sequitur.

I’d like to say that the sign indicates deep-seeded sociological problems, but it’s probably the work of some bored teenager who got tired of defacing the instructions for hand dryers (yeah, changing “press button” to read “press butt” never got old…). As such, it means little, but makes for an attention-getting picture. It’s worth noting, however, that the perpetrator used white-out, which is a heavy-handed way to make a racial point.

In any case, before we try to figure out why both “food” and “eating” are prohibited (what else is one to eat other than food?), let’s address a more pressing question: Is the act of drinking, or black people, allowed past the sign?

If all goes according to plan, the Space Shuttle Discovery will lift off this Friday morning. Two Hispanic astronauts – Jose Hernandez and Danny Olivas – will be aboard, marking the first time that multiple Latinos will be on the same shuttle.

I imagine it drives racists insane. Not only are Hispanics spreading out beyond their home countries and inner-city barrios, now they’re taking off into outer space.

Watch it, there’s no place where Latinos aren’t poised to take over!

In any case, much of the media attention has been fixed on Hernandez rather than Olivas. There’s a good reason for this. Hernandez has an amazing life story: As a child, he worked in the fields with his immigrant parents and didn’t even learn English until he was twelve. When he was a teenager, Hernandez read about NASA’s first Hispanic astronaut (a man with the truly cool name of Franklin Chang-Diaz). Thus inspired, Hernandez applied himself and moved beyond a lifetime of manual labor.

And now, he and Olivas will become two of the few Latinos to ever work in zero gravity. It’s a compelling saga, and I now look forward to hearing about the first Latino on Mars.

By the way, “First Latino on Mars” would be a great name for my autobiography. I’ll just have to make clear that I’m speaking metaphorically.

I’m going with another brief update today. But it’s good news. With all the chaos about the economy and healthcare dominating the news, you may have missed this little morsel: Apparently, the whole debate over immigration is over.

According to “Newsweek,” a study has proven that immigrants, even illegal ones, add more to the economy than they take.

According to the study, done by the right-leaning Cato Institute, “The net impact on U.S. households from tighter border enforcement is unambiguously negative.” The article says that “even low-skilled immigrants expand the economic pie and create jobs farther up the ladder.” In fact, the Cato Institute says that tightening the border could cost America up to $250 billion.

So that’s settled….

Except, why do I have this nagging suspicion that the argument isn’t over?

Recently, I wrote about the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, an incident that has resuscitated the issue of racial profiling. In that post, I said that I’ve had run-ins with the police, but they’ve been rare.

What I didn’t mention is that non-authority figures – like storeowners, next-door neighbors, fellow riders on the subway, and the like – also engage in racial profiling from time to time.

I was reminded of this last week when I stopped in a new wine shop that recently opened in my neighborhood. I thought it would be a good idea to support the local merchant (plus, I really like wine).

The only other person in the shop was the white, middle-aged woman behind the counter. I browsed under her suspicious glare for a moment before spotting the open bottle of red before her.

As you may know, many wine shops have free tastings to encourage people to buy. It was the standard set-up, complete with little plastic cups, so I asked, “Are you having a tasting?”

“No,” the woman said.

Then she grabbed the bottle and put it under the counter.

Now, this was odd. In fact, I could think of only three reasons why she would hide the wine from me.

• The bottle was hers, and she gotten sloppy in concealing her day drinking. Naturally, stealing from the inventory and getting blitzed on the job is something you want to keep from the customers.
• The bottle materialized from another dimension in some kind of time-space anomaly. The woman, an amateur scientist, recognized the cosmological implications, and instead of calling Stephen Hawking at once, she hid the bottle rather than acknowledge the frightening paradox that its existence posed.
• The bottle was for a tasting. But she just didn’t like me.

I couldn’t decide which of these scenarios was true. So I just nodded and left. And of course, I didn’t buy anything.

Now, the shop is a brand-new establishment, locally owned and without the benefits of major corporate sponsorship. It is no doubt heavily in debt from start-up costs, and it has opened in the midst of a devastating recession. And it was not exactly crawling with customers. So why would an employee take even the slightest chance on offending one of the few people who walked through the doors (a person who was, until the moment of refusal, ready to buy something)?

Well, if it wasn’t scenario one or two, above, I can only figure that the woman thought, “We may be on the verge of financial ruin, but damn it, if we let in browsing Latinos (unemployed ones at that!), it will just be a matter of time before all kinds of riff-raff are shoplifting Chardonnays.”

No, you can’t be too careful.

I’m continuing my recent trend of highlighting news stories that haven’t gotten enough publicity.

So let me tell you about the Mira family of Minnesota, who come from my family’s homeland of El Salvador. They crossed into America illegally to flee MS-13, which is a homicidal gang of heavily tattooed thugs who run wild in that nation.

The Miras say that deporting them is a death sentence, because MS-13 members will kill them upon arrival. So they’ve applied for political asylum. The case has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Any ruling could have a major effect upon immigration law.

Now, we can argue whether their plight rises to the level of granting political asylum. I think it does, but perhaps a lawyer or sane conservative would like to educate me why it doesn’t.

However, I imagine the common rejoinder is “They came here illegally, so it doesn’t matter if we send them back and they get killed.” That argument, often made by people who consider themselves pro-life, only showcases the level of hostility and irrationality that the immigration debate brings out.

In any case, maybe it will work out for the Miras. Or maybe we’ll just send them packing because we can.