In one of those snap Microsoft
“news” polls, which ask one politically relevant question then moves on to
reveal itself as more interested in gathering consumer information, it was
inquired if you prefer the company of others, or prefer to be alone. By a surprisingly
wide margin of 68 to 32, respondents claimed that they preferred their own
company. I put myself in that category. I’m no good at “small talk”; I listen
to other people having a conversation and it’s like yada, yada, yada to me.
It’s not that I won’t listen to someone who is trying to be friendly. Most of
the people I work with are Southeast Asian immigrants, who speak varying
degrees of English. One voluble woman who thinks she speaks English a lot
better than she actually does occasionally engages me in conversation, and I try
hard not to merely humor her by pretending to understand her. I listen intently
for words or phrases that allow me to understand the gist of what she is
saying, not always successfully. I respond with some simple observation when I
do understand and nod my head when I don’t.
But I don’t make any judgments
about this person just because her English is not very good; despite the fact I
have a university degree with honors, I’m willing to entertain the notion that she’s
probably smarter than I am (well, you know, she is Asian). Furthermore, she belongs to a community that also tends
to be isolated by language and culture from the “larger”—meaning white—community,
and that is something I can relate to.
Which brings me to a recent New
York Times story entitled “The Divide in Yakima is the Divide in America.”
It tells us that Hispanics constitute almost half of the population of Yakima,
Washington yet they are still very much a marginalized group. I was in Yakima
once, briefly, when during a field exercise at the Army’s Yakima training
reservation my squad decided to take a “road trip” to the town and stop at a
restaurant. This was back when Reagan was president, and my impression was that
it was just a “cow town” where there wasn’t a whole lot going on. I don’t
remember seeing very many Hispanics hanging around, or much of anyone for that
matter.
Hispanics had started arriving in
the area during the Bracero program that the U.S. government implemented in the
1940s to “import” Mexican labor to work in the valley’s fruit production, and
continued until 1964. The Hispanic population grew apace, helped along by
Reagan’s “amnesty” program that was otherwise part of an immigration law whose principle
effect was to discourage cross-border migration. Today, they are a little less
easy to ignore by the white population.
The majority of whites in Yakima
are older, the majority of Hispanics younger. Although most of Yakima’s
Hispanics are U.S. citizens and eligible to vote, up until 2012 the at-large voting
system for city council prevented them from having any voice in city
government, not helped by the fact that older white voters have lots of time on
their hands to vote, while the younger Hispanic voters, long deliberately shut
out of civic life, profess to see no point in participating in an electoral
system that seemed rigged in favor of whites and unresponsive to their
community’s needs. Although a court ordered change to a voting by district
scheme was implemented and the city council saw its first Hispanic members,
whites who voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in 2016 still see the Hispanic
community as a barely tolerable irritant and the white-dominated council
obliges them.
The NYT spoke to a local talk radio show host, David Ettl, who
naturally swings right, since that is the only kind of “talk” that the white
population wants to hear. Ettl says he delivers his eulogies about the “good
old days”—naturally from the perspective of white people.—in a “tell it like is”
fashion. He states that “discussions” to include Hispanics into civic life in
Yakima amount to propaganda by “politically-driven social justice warriors” who
are against “certain values we hold dear,” and while “old dinosaurs like me and
our ideology may or may not have to change,” the “far-left” is pushing too
fast, too hard.” Furthermore, Ettl claims that while “things may be sliding
this way, their jumping too far ahead. Our current scenario is getting too far,
too left. Too soon.” By the way, this part of the Times story was deleted from the Seattle Times reprint.
What the hell is he talking
about? It is clear that Ettl “fears” that people with racial attitudes like his
will become the minority in time, and perhaps he and others like him fear some
kind of retribution. It is typical that every time white people talk about
being “forced” to recognize that other races or ethnicities have the same human
wants and desires that they do, they blame the “liberals” for making it an
issue at all. The Hispanic residents of Yakima, or any other place for that
matter, just want to live like anyone else, even like white people. It is not a
“left” or “right” issue. What this is really just about is things like
xenophobia, nativism, white nationalism and just plain old racism. Many whites
in Yakima complain about gangs, but when the local paper printed a picture of
Hispanic children with a Santa Claus on the front page, the paper was inundated
by complaints by enraged white residents who simply refused to accept the image
of Hispanics as anything resembling human.
Yakima has done much to ignore
its Hispanic community, even with representation on the city council. After
closing two swimming pools in the largely Hispanic eastside, the city “promised”
to build a new swimming pool for the community; instead, it spent $22 million
for a “community” swimming pool for the benefit of the white population. When
city council member Dulce Gutierrez pleaded for sidewalks, crosswalks and street
lamps for the eastside, she was attacked for being “divisive.” Mayor Kathy
Coffey claims that she “understands” the “perception” of “inequity” in Yakima,
but insists that it is only a “perception” that she does not feel obligated to
address.
The Times story mentions one “hopeful” sign: one white woman who
suddenly found herself with Hispanic neighbors and was apt to tell them to “Go
back to Mexico” eventually learned after getting to know them that they were
just as “human” as she was, and now regrets her former attitude. But if
communities like Yakima are any example, that it is going to be a long slog, if
it ever becomes the rule rather than the exception.
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