By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

We were on a quest for the perfect loveseat, my daughter and I. Clean enough that you don’t mind touching skin to upholstery and just enough wear so a little spilled tea won’t break your heart. Kate and I were clear on our priorities, and, as luck would have it — or was it something more intentional? — we found a treasure at our favorite Fallbrook thrift store, a nice church-sponsored place that seeks charity and justice, values we share. Well, minus the dogma. And the misogyny. We’re also passionately opposed to that celibacy thing.

Nonetheless, our quest was fulfilled — until we stumbled into one of those moments that stay with you a lifetime, a moment that surely is meant to instruct, but still we struggle to define the lesson.

“You have to write about it,” Kate said.

But how do I write about something that made my daughter weep? Oh, a part of me wants to, but is it the right part, the part that hopes to leave the path we travel a little sweeter smelling than we find it or the part that is not yet ready to let go the stinky rage at injustice?

When we first moved to Fallbrook the Friendly Village, Kate and I would cheer every time we passed a Black person in town — our little two fan wave, tempered by seatbelts but with unfettered enthusiasm for a more diverse team — it was that rare. And Fallbrook was that hostile to the occasional African-American military family who blundered into town and to the Latino laborers who kept the place running, while white folk spouted such grocery line chatter as, “Well, you know I’m not a racist, but…” And that’s just it: That was 20-some years ago, and we like to think Fallbrook has become more enlightened.

Yes, that’s what we like to think, and maybe it has. But, as we approached the thrift store counter to purchase our treasure of a loveseat, we stumbled on a throwback, a troglodyte freshly unearthed from his subterranean anachronism of bigotry and igno—

Oops. That would be the enraged part of me. Let me try that again.

As we stood in line to buy the loveseat, the white, middle-aged gentleman behind the counter, whose mission is “to grow spiritually by offering person-to-person service to those who are needy and suffering,” was telling the Spanish-speaking woman before him that what she had was a blouse and a sweater, not two blouses. The woman’s daughters explained that both items were on the blouse rack.

“I don’t care where you found it,” the white, middle-aged gentleman said in a voice with slightly elevated volume — say, on a scale of 1 to 10, 5 being conversation level, he was at a 6. “This one’s a sweater, not a blouse,” and he poked at the thing I’d have called neither a blouse nor a sweater, but, rather, a shirt. But I live in sweats and blue jeans, so what do I know. Not much, except that the white, middle-aged gentleman then picked up the subject garment, waved it in front of the woman and said,  “Suéter, not blusa. See?” and the woman’s shoulders turned inward as her head bowed. “Sué–ter!” he said at about volume 7.

I looked into my dear one’s eyes and said, “I’m sorry, Sweetie, but I cannot buy anything here,” and she agreed as we turned to go.

But then the white, middle-aged gentleman thrust the thing into the woman’s face, repeating, “Sué–ter! Sué–ter! Sué–ter!”

She shrank with each thrust of the shirt, farther into that place of oppression women know so well, particularly women of color. Oh, she had tried — and her daughters had tried — to gently disagree with the white, middle-aged gentleman, but this is what their efforts had wrought: the verbal assault of a privileged white male belittling those he would serve as they attempted a trivial purchase gone utterly wrong — and growing more intensely so. So utterly wrong and so increasingly intense, that I could not be still.

“Excuse me,” I said to the white, middle-aged gentleman, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but you are behaving so dishonorably.”

“To who?” he asked as though he didn’t know but delivered at maybe a 7.5, which suggested he did.

Kate, my dear one, responded with, “To humanity.”

I would have taken a moment to savor the blended pride and sorrow, but for the ensuing assault now aimed at us, the clincher being, “Who are you?” spewed at about volume 8. “You’re not my priest!”

“No, but you need one,” I retorted, devoid of charity. “This is a Christian business. If there is a god, god is love. But you are serving hate,” which sent him into another tirade and escorted Kate and me right out the door.

We found our way to the car. Kate wept at the grotesquery of prejudice and privilege. I sat stunned by the man’s wrath and my idiocy. When the woman and her daughters emerged from the store, I apologized for further embarrassing them. The woman let me hug her, and her daughters said they are treated like that pretty regularly in Fallbrook the Friendly Village.

We parted ways, and I wondered if I had done the right thing, while Kate wondered at humankind: “I don’t care what people think and feel about certain races, sexual orientations, political alignments — but be human to your fellow humans!”

Now, we continue our quest for the perfect loveseat. We hope our paths cross charity and justice. And we remain uncertain what lesson is to be learned from our moment with the white, middle-aged gentleman who is so certain of the difference between a blusa and a suéter.

Love,
K-B

Crossposted at the Ocean Beach Rag,  The Progressive Post and San Diego Gay & Lesbian News.

Thrift store image by Vista Vision via a Creative Commons license.

Fact:  A U.S. citizen falls in love and marries an immigrant. The U.S. citizen can sponsor the immigrant for a visa so they can live together in the US. Right?

Wrong. Because they’re both guys. And that’s the story of Henry Velandia, who is about to be torn apart from his husband, Josh Vandiver, unless we do something.

Watch their Testimony video, and sign the emergency petition to Secretary Napolitano to stop their deportation:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/tornapart

Here are four more facts (these are actually true):

1.     President Obama ordered his administration to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the law that prevents Josh from sponsoring Henry’s visa.

2.     Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has the legal authority to stop Henry’s deportation — not to mention the forced separation of 36,000 couples like him and Josh — until DOMA is resolved in the courts. Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) recently wrote to the Administration on their behalf.

3.     Henry’s final deportation hearing is scheduled for May 6^th.

4. We have to do something.

Click here to watch their story, and sign Courage Campaign’s joint emergency petition with AllOut.org, an organization working for global LGBT equality.

We started Testimony: Take a Stand to make these stories known so they aren’t ignored. Please watch the video and sign our emergency petition to Sec. Napolitano — before it’s too late.

Together for equality,

Adam Bink
Director of Online Programs, Courage Campaign

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

There is nothing like a midterm election to reveal our putrid political underbelly. It is a dark, stinky place where paranoia, distrust, disaffection and outright deceit are reduced to hatred in a cauldron fired by fear and boiling over in a miasmic wave of bigotry.

Gross, eh?

Throw in a recession and all its attendant terrors, and what do you get?

“Double, double toil and trouble” from a bunch of — well, to be kind, let’s call them “witches,” and they are dishing misogyny, homophobia, racism, Islamaphobia and your everyday fear mongering, while they await the party that would be king.

And the lowly peasants, what do we do? Do we stand idly by, lackadaisically poking pitchforks at those we’ve been told are monsters? Pretty much, a lot of us do, but let’s take a closer look.

Pick your favorite monster and respond.

Strong women in the political arena? What would you do?

1. Call her a whore for snagging a coveted endorsement.
2. Call her a whore for simply serving in public office with chestal hangings.
3. Push her to the ground and stomp on her head, then demand her apology.
4. Take a swing at her.
5. Admit you’re a misogynistic troglodyte and stay home until you’ve read the entire Domestic Violence Awareness Project website.

Homosexuals claiming equal rights? What would you do?

1. Resort to the abomination theory.
2. Promote the disenchanted gay voting bloc theory, that slow progress will keep gays from the polls, thereby undermining further progress, à la Sharron Angle (see below).
3. Tell straight-and-narrow folks homophobia is A-OK — because Brian Brown says so.
4. Post a Facebook rant, encouraging gay suicides.
5. Admit your sins, beg forgiveness, then lighten up and have a gay old time.

Brown immigrants turning your day gray? What would you do?

1. Run an ad à la Sharron Angle that attempts to disenfranchise Latino voters by discouraging them from voting.
2. Run ads filled with threatening Latino faces and claim they aren’t racist.
3. Tell Latino high school students that you can’t distinguish Latinos, because some of them actually look Asian.
4. Declare undocumented immigrants are rapists.
5. Admit you’re a bigot and stay out of politics.

Deluded into believing all Muslims are terrorists? What would you do?

1. Redefine “Arab” as a slur and sling it at a campaign opponent.
2. Redefine “Muslim” as a slur and sling it at a campaign opponent.
3. Spread your irrational fear by announcing that every time you see someone in Muslim garb it gives you the creepers, even though you know it shouldn’t.
4. Tell your supporters Sharia (Islamic religious law) is creeping into U.S. cities.
5. Remember Timothy McVeigh, read some Tea Party Patriots comments, and admit to the enemy within.

So, how’d you do?

There are, of course, no right answers. But, then, what is the answer?

What do you suppose it is that renders such behaviors acceptable in our political discourse? It’s dismaying to think that our economic woes, September 11, and all the other crises we’ve borne in the last few decades might have turned us into a nation of loathsome, Bubbafied bigots. Have we transformed the welcoming arms of Liberty into xenophobic fists? Home of the brave to home of the bully? Land of the free to land of the terrified? Are our huddled masses yearning to take out their miseries on the lesser fellow?

A friend signed off a recent email with, “Hate fills the air. Best regards–,” and I wonder: Which candidates are best equipped to fill the air with love?

Love,
K-B

Crossposted at the OB Rag.

California gubernatorial candidate, billionaire and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman was killed Saturday in a gruesome accident at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park during a campaign event, bringing to an end a tough campaign and a tough corporate executive-turned-politician. She was 54.

The Republican candidate was torn asunder when she became entangled in the tether lines of two animals, an African elephant and a domestic donkey. The animals had been positioned for a photo opportunity at a Whitman rally that had attracted hundreds of gun rights and anti-illegal immigration activists, and a smattering of Chanel-clad businesswomen.

Park employee Juanita Calderon, a shaved-ice vendor and college student, recounted the horrific incident.

“Whitman is telling this crowd of white people that she doesn’t own a gun, but if she did, gun control fanatics would have to take it out of her cold, dead hands. And then all these people cheer, and some NRA nut — he’s wearing a t-shirt that says ‘You name it, I hunt it’ — he fires a shot in the air, and the elephant and the donkey go crazy! And Whitman is trying to placate them, but she’s caught in their ropes. And then, well, it was just horrible, really gross! And as security is carting the shooter off, he’s yelling, ‘It wasn’t me! It’s the gun’s fault — hair trigger! — the gun did it!’ And then the paramedics show up, but they just stand around kicking the Astroturf, because there’s really nothing they can do, because she’s, like, in pieces.”

The sudden end to Whitman’s campaign has left California Democrats stunned and relieved. Charles Garnier, a spokesperson for Jerry Brown, Democratic gubernatorial nominee and former Jesuit seminarian, said by phone that Brown was not available for comment, but offered the candidate’s condolences.

“He’s at church making a novena for her soul, and he sends his heartfelt condolences to her family and campaign staff. … Guess she won’t be a whore for the unions anymore, cutting deals for endorsements. Uh, hey! Am I still on the call? Oh, shi—! Hey man, don’t print that! What’s the real story here: Whitman’s swapping endorsements with unions to save their fat pensions while she cuts everyone else’s or my sexist comment? Well? Well? Oh, you guys’ll just go for the juice, but the union pension deals are the story. It’s the pension deals, you whores! But, no, Whitman won’t talk about that. She’ll just play the victim, like she’s never used the word herself. Whore, whore, whore! Oh, but, yeah, she’s dead. Never mind. Bye.”

As news of Whitman’s death reached the public, reactions revealed mixed opinions of her, her candidacy and her legacy — even at an impromptu memorial Saturday evening, outside her home in exclusive Atherton, California.

There, a consultant to California’s troubled Republican Party, who spoke on condition of anonymity from behind a hedgerow of oleanders, suggested Whitman’s faulty campaign was symbolic of the party’s schism between extreme conservatives and moderates.

“Meg didn’t understand how to finesse the duality of the party or of independent voters — she needed them most. But she tried to placate our loonies by opposing gay marriage, while she supported gay adoptions. She wanted to put limits on abortions, but she supported public funding. She hit her Republican primary opponent for supporting Democrats but she contributed to Senator Barbara Boxer and endorsed her in ’03. Meg was kind of bipolar, but voters are more schizophrenic, and she ended up antagonizing everyone. We all play to the factions, but she jumped in before she understood her target base. That kind of naïveté is as toxic as these oleanders. And, wow, quartered by an elephant and a donkey; it’s grotesquely poetic.”

Mourner and eBay Distinguished Engineer Mortimer Snerd begrudgingly acknowledged Whitman’s business acumen, but took issue with her forceful style.

“Yep, yep, she was a pretty good corporate leader type — except for the outsourcing and shady stock deals — sure enough. But she was always pushing people with her big CEO shove as though we were her puppets. May as well have tried putting a dictator in the governor’s seat. Yep, always pushing — just like Elaine on Seinfeld, except more hostile, and Meg danced pretty weird, too. Anyway, I guess someone finally pushed back, yep. Or, in this case, it was pulled back. That’d be Karma, for sure.”

Despite her critics, Whitman was widely recognized for her keen ability to acknowledge mistakes while shifting gears mid-spin. Her campaign staff began referring to her as the “Non Sequitur Nabob” when she became plagued with questions about her repeated failure to vote in public elections.

“I’m not proud of my voting record, and I have apologized for it, and tonight I apologize to everyone in California. It was not the right thing to do and no one is more embarrassed by it than me, and if I could change history, I would. But what I can do is tell voters about how I believe we can turn this state around. This state is in an enormous mess. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for different results.”

It is not yet clear if Whitman’s death will bring an end to the tenth-hour attack from publicist and attorney Gloria Allred, targeting Whitman’s illegal hiring and inopportune firing of an undocumented immigrant housekeeper. According to The Bay Citizen, a “very informal survey” of the “average Jo” on the street, conducted before Whitman’s death, revealed that “few people” had heard about the MegsMaidGate scandal — a very informal response rate that matched the number of respondents who had actually heard of Whitman, despite her substantial investment in her campaign.

Indeed, of the $138 million in expenditures reported by the campaign, $119 million came from Whitman’s personal fortune, a figure that seems to belie her statement at the September 28 debate between Whitman and Brown.

“I don’t think you can buy elections. I think Californians are too smart.”

Whatever Whitman’s ultimate legacy, her final gesture was one of generosity. A rumor that half of Whitman’s billion-dollar fortune will go to a new shelter for Atherton’s battered spouses and household employees was confirmed late last night by Atherton Mayor Kathy McKlite.

“You’d be surprised how much domestic violence our little community sees,” McKlite said by phone. “Abuse occurs in every socioeconomic category, but we really can’t expect our people to head to a shelter in Menlo Park! This bequest is a fitting legacy for Meg, given, well, things it’s not seemly to mention. Nonetheless, it’s wonderful to see some of Meg’s money go to a truly worthy cause!”

Love,
K-B

Note: October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. And you can help.

©2010 Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Crossposted at San Diego Gay and Lesbian News.

The catsup and voting record photos are from Meg 2010 Facebook page; the debate photo is from the UC Davis debate website.

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Mama, what do angels look like?

This, my small kiddo asks. In the throes of divorce. Of making a game of beans and rice. Of sorrow. Of innocent query and wonderment. This she asks, but how shall I answer? What can I say that would not be a lie passing my lips?

In the speckled dark of a sleepless, starry sky, I sit on our hill as she chases shadows in the warm breeze and a coyote pauses beyond the fence that separates us. The hill is ours because we love it. I think it loves us. It makes paths for us around the rabbit holes, the tarantula borrows, the grainy mounds of queens and workers in constant toil. The People say it is a holy place; the altitude puts it a peedy bit closer to the gods. But I am distracted from the possibility of clutching a deity’s apron strings by whispered anguish calling to me from places I cannot pronounce and some I can.

Will the ashes of unwanted wives fertilize the next generation? Will tar balls become the tender of shrimpers and oyster folk? Will children who play with spent artillery shells transcribe the booming rhythm of war into the next amazing rap sensation? I search for hope amidst the moonlit carpet of rabbit turds, brown and rich, the prickly stubble of deer grass, recently shaved by a peon’s scythe, the manzanilla, its soothing ways unrecognized in the wild by those who buy it by the box.

The moon laughs at me and catches my girl, catches her dark curls and darker eyes, twirling into a glowing tornado, spiraling up toward the night, up into a future I fret I cannot affect, and my fear pulls her back to earth. The coyote howls across the hill, and answers echo from a distant canyon. I peer through the grasses to watch her, stymied by the impassable chain-link fence. A border to me, it cuts her world in half. And so she paces, her prey on the other side. And I chew a manzanilla bud, rub the tender skin beneath my skirt. The grass makes me itch. It makes me itch because I love to scratch. And so I scratch as I look out over our little town, ours because we scratch each other.

Why do I love it so here? How dare I raise my child in this place? This place of bitter anger and sweet Peruvian chocolate. Of testicle trees, our avocados, and shocking scarlet bottlebrushes. Of well-repressed, grey-green groves and lusciously chaotic words wending their way behind closed doors, between tussled sheets, into fearful hearts. The heat of conflict radiates from our bodies, our beds, our lands, entangling the legs of a bawdy blend. And I wonder, what’s not to love?

I lie in the dry grass, caressing the stars, eyes languid and wet, and I sense the loss of something, something I might not have ever wanted. The coyote, impatient with human encumbrances, glances at us and trots across the border, free to dine and commune with her own. My kiddo, delighted with discovering her ability to dance, moves deeper into the dark.

Angels? I call.

Oh, never mind, Mama. I just saw one!

And she spins, spins into the sweeping night. Soars out of reach. She is gone. Gone.

Love,
K-B

© 2010 Kit-Bacon Gressitt

This piece is crossposted at The Progressive Post.

Note: Painting by Kate Gressitt-Diaz.

Fallbrookians on…

Immigration It’s the hypocrisy of our times. Probably 90 percent of our senators have hired illegal aliens.

— Local employer

Education We do want to take away some people’s individuality.

— Former school board member

Fun I won’t play anything I can’t change.

— Anonymous

The Bonsall Bridge The old Bonsall Bridge was a rite of passage for new drivers. Now it’s replaced with a chunk of concrete — no challenge at all.

— 1993 comment resurrected in 2010 as another, larger chunk of concrete slowly becomes the next bridge

Hoochies Ooo, mine is showing. Want to cover up with my rebozo? No, I’m proud of my vagina.

— A mother-daughter moment

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

During the 2008 presidential campaign, a dear former colleague railed at me in rather frothy email verbiage when I took a written poke at Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Although he eventually calmed enough to offer a sort of apology, I never heard from him again. If he’d just given me an opportunity to explain, I could have, well, I don’t know, explained — explained the humor to him. Ye gods, the thing was titled “You Can Put Lipstick on a Fib”! You’d think that would be a dead giveaway to take what follows with a grain of giggle. Jeez!

What can I say? We Gressitts are prone to humor; it’s a powerful coping mechanism — the darker the better. When Mother was still driving, she joked about keeping Father’s ashes in the trunk in case she needed extra traction to get up her hill in the winter. It took the sting off her sorrow. Years ago, when I joked with the ER doc suturing my battered face (I suggested a bribe of homemade shortbread in exchange for his working some magic to prevent scarring), he joked right back. The levity got me through the procedure without grabbing a scalpel and preventing my now-former husband’s dick from having any more fun with jane. Although I have to admit, after recovering from the assault, I found the doc’s response really depressing and I was pissed with both of us — and I never made him that damn shortbread. We need to train ER staff not to enable victimhood. Right after we train women to duck faster.

See what I mean? It is unrelenting.

Just the other day, a friendly reader questioned the sincerity of true feminists joking about breast cancer. She was gracious, and her comment made me wonder how many folks might have taken offense at the joke I had published. But if you’ve never been close to cancer, you might not understand how fabulous a death-defying tool laughter can be — even a wise-ass smirk can prove useful. And I find California senatorial candidate Carly Fiorina (the subject of the joke) and her politicking in the realm of breast cancer as worthy of a one-liner or two as is staving off the angst of alien-possessed boobs. A breast cancer survivor herself, Fiorina used the Susan G. Komen for the Cure fund-raising page to make a pitch for her campaign for U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer’s seat (watch the video):

Cancer strengthened my faith. Cancer strengthened my family. And I come through all of this battle, not only with it behind me, but with a renewed determination to make the most of my life. And for me, now, that means to try and make a difference for the people of California, in Washington, D.C. My doctors have given me a clean bill of health. They’re actually extremely excited that I’m running for the Senate. I feel great. I’m raring to go. And the good news is, after chemotherapy, Barbara Boxer isn’t very scary anymore.

How deliciously crass! My feminist friend’s response to Fiorina’s play of the breast cancer card? “Maybe Barbara Boxer could have an iffy mammogram.” Spoken like the funny breast cancer survivor she is.

Albeit only one tool, humor can help sustain us through the most atrocious assaults on our sensibilities; for example, Arizona’s continuing effort to incarcerate, forcibly repatriate or otherwise excoriate anyone who isn’t, well, you know — sshhhh — one of us white folk.

Leaders of the erstwhile Barry Goldwater, Sr. state are afraid that public schools are vulnerable to the ravages of ethnic solidarity among the dark hordes — why, those heathens could rise up and vote them right out of power! But traditional social studies curricula were cleverly crafted to induct our young ones into the still-pervasive doctrine of Manifest Destiny, to keep white folk on top, literally and figuratively. Hence, alternate curricula — any study of perspectives other than that of the white landed gentry — threaten the status quo and, consequently, comprise what Arizona’s good old boys and gals fear: “courses or classes that either promote the overthrow of the United States government or promote resentment toward a race or class of people.” Bear in mind that Arizona’s legislators had to strike “Caucasian” from an earlier version of that statement — at least in their minds, if not in print. That’s ethnic cleansing Arizona style.

And Arizona’s recent purge of teachers with heavy accents or bad English grammar strikes another blow, but to an unexpected target — the South. Those damn Yankees are at it again! This prejudicial policy renders teaching positions in Arizona unattainable to any progeny of my paternal ancestral home, Gressitt, Virginia. In this kudzu-creeping hamlet of clamdiggers, crabbers and valiant volunteer firefighters, one might hear the likes of, “Aah juss mahoov mah deeah suhee mama eeanduh reeuhl naahs dubahwahd.” For those unschooled in Virginia Backwaterese, that translates as “I just moved my dear, sweet mama into a real nice doublewide.”

After a good laugh, I’ll shed a tear for Arizona’s lost opportunity for cultural exchange with the unabashed South and hope that the state’s educators are devious enough to do some fast “Find and Replace” in their curricular materials, to pacify the ethnic-phobic.

Thank the goddess there is enough idiocy out there to keep us endlessly entertained, which is a nice segue to Sarah Palin.

She’s ever rich fodder for comedy, but I’m not sure who is more laughable — Palin, for assuming the title of feminist at an anti-abortion gathering, or the feminists who jumped through various and contorted rationales to lend it to her. God forbid they should deny the nomenclature to a powerful woman and thereby risk their own standing in the Sisterhood! What they fail to recognize is that power, position and number of Facebook fans do not a true feminist make, any more than poofy sleeves, a calico Bible cover and “God Hates Fags” signs stacked in the garage make you a true Christian.

Now, what Palin doesn’t understand is that no feminist would advocate putting women’s reproductive decision-making in anyone’s hands but the women’s. We’re good with our hands; we don’t need any help down there from no guhmint.

Yeayah. … That doesn’t really translate.

Love,
K-B

Want to learn more about immigration?

Read “The Devil’s Highway” by Luis Alberto Urrea (2004, Little Brown and Company) and watch “Lone Star,” written and directed by John Sayles and featuring Chris Cooper and Elizabeth Peña.

— My thanks to Professor Silverio Haro, CalState San Marcos and Palomar College, for the great recommendations.

©2010 Kit-Bacon Gressitt

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

There’s a big old brouhaha about Arizona’s new anti-illegal alien law, effortlessly passed by the state legislature and signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer on 23 April 2010. The law relies on police officer discretion to determine if someone stopped for, say, a traffic violation or for loitering in low-end attire in a high-end neighborhood is in the United States illegally — based on reasonable suspicion (this exists in the ethereal zone between a hunch and the cold, hard circumstances of probable cause). There are some additional provisions that, all told, make the law some rather fascist reading. Critics say such street-level discretion inevitably leads to racial profiling, something we abhor in this great nation of ours — unless it’s the other guy being profiled, the guy whose looks we don’t like.

Along with other Constitution-loving patriots, I must take issue with Senate Bill 1070. Having various family members who’ve dabbling with undocumented immigrant status, starting back in the 17th century and continuing into the not too distant 20th century, is a darn good motivator. Given that heritage, my kiddo and I figured the only sane response to Arizona’s los jefés locos (that’s illegal-alien Spanish for “xenophobic crazies in charge of Arizona”) is to go for the illegal-alien look and head to the Grand Canyon State so we can be stopped by the local gendarmes (that’s illegal-alien French for “police”) and get arrested for failure to carry legal documentation of our status — “Heil, Ausländer! Zeigen Sie mir Ihre Papiere, du Juden!” (that’s illegal-alien Nazi for “Yo, aliens! Show me your papers, you Jews!”). Then we can make a big old stink about the racist law that will lead to its being overturned, and we can shuffle home to sunny Southern California to watch our favorite novellas.

So, we figured, we just have to look like aliens, which shouldn’t be too difficult for us. We’re used to looking different, what with Katie’s genetic olio and the dominant sub-culture in Fallbrook, where my liberal lapel pins serve as bull’s-eyes for right-wingers. Upon exploring various closets and drawers, we came up with a pretty good option: a very nice, very simple illegal-alien French look — beret and faux fishing shirt (“faux,” that’s also one of those illegal-alien words). Katie modeled the look for us, and it seemed a tidy little snapshot of an alien.

Hmmm, but maybe too tidy? Too pretty? Too appealing to members of the white supremacy? And, although our fearless leaders felt compelled in a moment of pique to rename their fries, Americans really like French stuff — their fashions, their food and wine, their kisses — we even co-opted their Eiffel Tower for Las Vegas! So, nope, we decided we can’t rely on a French facade to get us stopped and tossed in the hoosegow (yet another illegal-alien word, from the Spanish juzgado, court).

Instead, we thought, a more practical, less sexy approach might be more likely to produce the arrest we’re after — which led us to Canadians! They’re much easier — all we need is earflaps and a six-pack of Moosehead, eh?

But rats! We realized we could be too easily mistaken for someone from Washington, Minnesota, upstate New York — any of the northern states. And even though they’re just not quite as cool as Americans, we still like the Canadians. So, no, this will never do. Double rats!

We were getting a little frustrated, and we did briefly consider an ET mask, but we really didn’t want to make a mockery of our campaign to bring down what amounts to a Down With Brown People Law, oh no, no, no. But wait! Down With Brown? Down with Brown!

In a flash of inspiration, we got it: Surely there is no better way to demand the attention of Arizona’s law enforcement officers seeking illegal aliens than to show up in brown face — brown face! — it’s perfect! ¡Perfecto! Parfait! Perfekt! Eh?

Yep, brown skin, sullen glare, gang sign — definitely illegal-alien material. We’d stumbled on the perfectly malevolent mask of the bandido, the savage Mexican criminal hell-bent on sucking up our social services and spewing out anchor babies into constitutionally protected citizenship (unless Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, CD-52, successfully “clarifies” the Fourteenth Amendment and sends the U.S.-born offspring of illegal aliens packing with their mamis and papis).

In the meantime, it’s off to Arizona we go, and we encourage all brown-loving people to join us. We can caravan, do on-the-road civil disobedience training, print leaflets in the back of a psychedelic van and get high on silkscreen cleaner fluid, sing Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, and do a little strategic planning for the subsequent round of protests, when Arizona spins its next bit of xenophobia — legislation to ban the burqa. At least that look will be a lot easier to emulate.

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

A man with the body of a boy peddles up the pitted road. His wheels send small puffs of hopeful dust up to God and crush harvester ants that do not recognize the border between safety and peril.

He leans his rusted bike against the fence and rattles the gate with the tentative gesture of one who would ask for something. A woman comes out, just as tentatively.

“Please, lady, work for me?” he implores with head bowed, braced to sustain the blow of another no.

Awash in conflicting monolingual ignorance, basic questions and answers are elusive; subtleties seem impossible. The woman wonders: How did you come to be here; do you understand I have a child and a mortgage and hence no piles of money laying about; but do you camp in a barranca, under an oleander hedgerow, it’s toxic leaves for your pillow; do you endure usurious fees for sending meager earnings home to family; do you suffer here, yet remain?

“OK, Señor, trabajo para usted.” Giving him work is easier than not, easier in many ways.

She points to the neglected fruit trees, the tools. He understands the task. And she flees inside to avoid his simple poverty, her unsettling discomfort. But he soon follows her with a quiet knock on the door.

“Perdone, please, lady, sandwich for me?”

She puts out food and cash and flees even further — to spend four times the man’s pay on cheeses, meats, on produce marked up for the honor of being out of season, harvested by his compatriots on distant lands.

When she returns from the market, he is gone, his dishes stacked neatly, the napkin folded, and much more work completed than requested.

Embarrassed by her suspicions, she resists checking the jewelry box and instead puts away her bounty and forgets about the man.

Until another day.

He returns to rattle the gate and ask again for work. She points again to the trees, the tools, and goes in to cook for him while he toils.

“Señor,” she comes back out, “food — comida.”

“¿Es para mí?” He is surprised; he had not asked to be fed this day.

He looks into her eyes for the first, fleeting time, revealing his dark brown sadness and one opalescent orb that does not see the physical world around him. “Gracias,” he says. “Dios te bendiga.”

She wants to hug him, but the line between them is formidable. Instead, she touches his gnarled hand and carries his blessing inside, and she ponders what it is about him that frightens people into hate. Do we imagine this man with the body of a boy and an eye that cannot ogle our opulence becomes, in greater numbers, a ravenous beast, greedily consuming our rich resources, stealing our comforts, rending from us what is manifestly ours?

And what if he did not migrate across the border, if others did not follow him, even then, could we possibly believe our schools would suddenly be adequately funded; our healthcare system would tend to all our ills; our emergency rooms would no longer bear the brunt of ailing, child-bearing indigents; our jails would become under-populated; our social services would enjoy a surplus of unclaimed resources; the graffiti, the roadside litter, the illicit drugs, the sins ascribed to the unwanted would all be swept up and away in a wave of homogeneous consideration?

No, she imagines, in the immigrant’s absence, people still would complain about misspent funds, about inequity in the allocation of the nation’s resources, about things and people and motivations we don’t understand. Still we would bellow our fear, our frustration, our prejudice, drowning out his soft supplications for labor and a sandwich.

The man comes to the woman’s gate to work and to eat — and to hope — the same reason we all rattle the gate.

Love,
K-B

©2010 Kit-Bacon Gressitt

(Photograph of migrant worker camp, 1939, courtesy of Library of Congress.)

A Fireside Chats excerpt by Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Benny Cantun hauled the Weber barbecue grill out of his pickup and set it in the empty parking space between the truck and his cargo van. While he did his macho duty, Aurelia took the younger children into Merry Market to use the toilet. If one had to go, she took them all. She said it was like a contagious disease, which always made Benny chuckle. So he laughed as he built the makeshift hearth of the temporary home they and a good number of other wildfire evacuees were creating in the market’s parking lot.

“My Aurelia, she is a good woman,” Benny murmured. He paused from his chores to remove his palm leaf hat and wipe his brow, and he took another moment to watch the growing community of those who also refused to leave town or had no place else to go, nestling in as the wildfire’s winds swirled ash across the graying asphalt. He put a fire starter on the grill, stacked a pyramid of charcoal on top and thought of his young primo, his cousin Jesus, just arrived from Teotihuacán and stubbornly camping in the barranca near the recycling center, when he could have been staying at their ranch with them.

“Where will he go now, with the fire? Foolish kid, too much pride,” Benny said to no one in particular, because no one was close enough to hear him, not that Benny was in need of an audience. In fact, even when his family was around him, he suspected his words sounded puny compared to Aurelia’s. When it came to his wife, she might as well be La Virgen de Guadalupe herself. She ruled the family, as his mother had hers. And he knew it was best, just as he knew it was his job to rail against it. The only thing Aurelia really needed him for anymore was to capture her rage when it escaped her. “Ah, bueno, as it should be. … I hope that boy joins us here — if he receives the message that our destination is this parking lot that wishes it was a campground.”

“Papi! Who are you talking to?” Benny’s oldest girl, Graciela, the one most like his Aurelia, called from inside the van.

“Nobody, nobody.”

“I bet you’re talking to yourself again, Papi, sí?” Graciela looked out the side door and twirled her finger by her temple.

“A little respect, por favor, Nena!” And they laughed together, knowing he would always talk to himself and she would always kid him about it, teasing being their common expression of love.

Benny pulled a match from the band of his hat and started the fire, noting the contradiction and sending a quick prayer to La Virgen.

“Maybe the boy won’t show; maybe he’s afraid to be seen by all the uniforms in town. La Migra, immigration, though, aren’t among them, but he won’t know that if he doesn’t pull his silly head out of that ditch. I guess we’ll find out as the night progresses.” He fanned the fire a moment with his hat, then meandered to the van to check on Graciela’s efforts to convert it into a comfortable bed for them all.

Benny admired the movements of his girl, so like her beautiful mother. She had finished high school while working her way up to checker at the market, and now she was taking her first classes at Palomar College — while she helped with the younger children and paid for half of her own education. Benny knew it was all Aurelia’s doing, but he couldn’t resist the glow of pride when he saw the girls at church who had not fared as well, coming to his youth group with swelling bellies and no papis to honor them, their babies or God. He looked into the van. “You have your Mami’s fine looks, Nena, but you did not inherit my mouth. You’ll need a lot of hot air to make those mattresses soft for us all.”

“Okay, Papi, you can blow them up with all your hot air if you want, but they come with a pump.”

“Ah, sí, sí, sí. You inherited your Mami’s smart cabeza, too. You’re a good girl, Graciela.” Benny tossed up a prayer of thanks that she was wise enough to grace Aurelia and him with sufficient ignorance to keep their hearts at ease. As best as he could tell, she put herself at little risk, swatting away the caballeros who would lead her from her path.

“Thanks, Papi.” Graciela silently re-affirmed her belief it was better not to share everything with her parents. “You’re not so bad for an old burro, but get out of my way so I can finish.”

They laughed again as Graciela pumped air mattresses and Benny turned to the cab of his truck and pulled an old portable radio from behind the passenger seat. It had only two working settings: Benny’s favorite music station and KGAP, which Benny usually avoided, but he thought tonight might be a little different. News littered with religiosidad was better than no news. He put the radio on the tailgate, turned it on to his music, and stared at the smoking charcoal. “Burn, you rotten bandits.” He poked at the briquettes, a compulsion he shared with the men of his family — it didn’t matter that their poking invariably postponed the magic moment when the coals accepted their destiny.

He hummed to the radio’s Ranchera music, contemplating the endless line of baptisms and quinceaños — much more spirited than the gringos’ cotillions — and family weddings that reached back before his conscious memory and, he well knew, would continue on far beyond the days his bones would fertilize the trees that now fed his family. He smiled as he wiped the perspiration from the back of his neck, its scars and creases, a map of his thirty years working his way through Fallbrook’s avocado groves to now owning four and managing many others.

“Most days, life is good in Fallbrook. Gracias a Dios.”

A rusty, rattling RV pulled alongside Benny’s van and stopped with a chorus of squeaks and groans and rattles, drowning out a taunt from Graciela for talking to himself again. A slim woman in a paint-smudged shirt slipped down from the driver’s seat, walked toward the market and met Benny’s glance. He looked away, but she smiled and said, “Ah, Monjaras, one of my favorite singers.” …

… Read more.

(Photo by Ross Orr via a Creative Commons License.)

Writers

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