Si, Se, Puede















Yesterday was the great walk out day for emmigrant mexicans in America. Lets call it what it was. While the groups maintain other agendas, such as human rights, or hispanic or latino rights; it really is about mexican emigrants. Its about a one way path from mexico to the united states for permanance. There wasnt chanting about sweat shop labor, or ship breakers in india. There wasnt anyone of Spanish descent. See the term Hispanic really means a person from the Iberian penninsula, a place in latin, known as Hispania. Latino is a generic term often afforded too, but it means a localized geography of latin american states. No one was from El Salvador that I met. No one was from Columbia. Everyone was from mexico. And when I say "i met", I mean yesterday there was a large demonstration from Illinois crossing the Mississippi River to Iowa, culminating in a rally of sorts. And I attended.

I wasnt sure what to expect. For my generation, there really only was Rodney King, as far as ethnic uprisings to watch. King had a different circumstance. People probably should be outraged with what happened to him. However, I remember being in 6th or 7th grade, and watching all the black kids get up and walk out. They were angry. Some started running around yelling "black power" but in reality it was nothing. Since then, I sat through who-knows-how-many hours of classroom work in sociology. Even one course just on Social Movements. So for me to see this type of situtation develop, was like taking Einstein and giving him a seat for atomic testing. It gives him the result of everything he sat and contemplated, but could never really see happen. So I wanted to see it happen. The entire issue has blown up to national focus. But all along, its keeping a strong locally rooted support from interested parties. So when they declared some sort of action, i wanted to watch. And i found myself sitting on the steps of the Rock Island County Court House, watching nearly 3,000 people line up to walk across the Centenial Bridge.

I thought about why it mattered. It didnt really matter to me. In what I do with my daily life, illegal immigrants dont really have much impact. And I dont necessarily buy into the arguments of "human rights" they had been talking about. For me, there was that academic connection; watching lightning strike. That. And there is a historical connection. My great-grand parents were illegal. Its very likely that they never registered and became documented. Victor and Felicetes Alvarado came here from some small town near north-central Mexico City, sometime from 1900 to 1919. The story goes that he came here looking for work, hitched his way up on the railroad, wound up in bumblefuck illinois and got work in a farmfield, and eventually a factory, then sent for his bride back from Mexico to meet him in Texas. Problem was, the wrong sister came to the Rio Grande, and floated across the river with him, and by the time he saw her it was too late; and he ended up marrying the wrong sister. But the first offical documentation we have found between them and any branch of government, is their listing on the US Census. They were marked as undocumented. My dad tells stories of visiting his grandparents; and his grandmother who would never answer the door. She would always run upstairs to the attic and look out a small window with a curtain. She was worried, even at that age, of the immigration officials. He also says that she would follow the railroad tracks to walk into town, never using the lit, public streets and sidewalks. She wanted to remain unseen, where the police or who-knows-whom, couldnt find her. Ive seen their house. Its unused, and abandoned now. But the window and its curtain are still their. And the railroad tracks, also gone mostly forsaken now, still run not far from the house. I could hardly visualize it. A dark haired, spanish speaking woman walking along the rails at night, taking the back way into a town as small and sleepy as Kewanee, IL, in the 1950's. A woman so entrenched in fear, she would always look first before opening the door to her own home. They never owned a phone. She never really learned english. But she was family to me, even though she died 15 years before I was born.

As I sat on the steps, I felt like I should be moved. That I should have been moved to wear a white t-shirt and walk with these people. Or, that I should be moved to protest against it. Again, there is a strong pull from myself that recongnizes the problems with offering amnesty or guest work permits. There was the part of me as a sociologist, that I should have been motivated to do more studying, talking to the crowd, more interviewing, more documenting. But I just wasnt moved very far from the steps. I sat watching everyone else act out. I knew my history. I knew how I came to be. But even so, I took pictures and sat and thought about it all.