A day down in Maywood

On Sunday I posted several photos of Saturday's immigration protests -- "fiasco" is more like it -- down in Maywood, Calif., teasing at my L.A. Daily News column on the subject today. Since Sunday, the news of counterprotesters going postal and raising the Mexican flag over federal property has spread like wildfire across the Web, but I was lucky enough to have been in the middle of the whole reconquista-fest. Read on:

"The city of Maywood - a 1.2-square-mile town with an official population of just over 28,000 about eight miles south of downtown Los Angeles - is a pocket for illegal immigrants, lauded by immigrant advocates and decried by detractors. In this 96 percent Hispanic town, signs advising pedestrians to use crosswalks are printed in Spanish and English, and many storefronts' signs are in Spanish as well. The last census says 55 percent of residents are foreign-born, and 92 percent speak a language other than English at home.

Earlier this year, the Maywood City Council passed a resolution opposing the Sensenbrenner immigration bill after it passed in the House, and the town was designated the first 'sanctuary city' in the state. The city also nixed police checkpoints so as not to net illegal immigrants without driver's licenses, and disbanded its traffic division for the same reason.

On Saturday, Save Our State showed up to protest that policy in front of Maywood City Hall, numbering several dozen with 'Don't tread on me' and American flags. 'Not anti-Hispanic, anti-illegal alien,' read one sign; 'Maywood is part of the U.S. and its elected officials need to act accordingly,' read another. One man held a small sign that read 'traitors,' and the group was fronted by a banner championing Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo for president. ('Tancredo? Who's that?' a confused counter-demonstrator asked me.)

Police in riot gear manned a buffer zone on blocked-off Slauson Avenue, surrounding the anti-illegal-immigration demonstrators who were being faced down by a few hundred counter-protesters and neighboring residents who pulled out Mexican flags and joined the event. I had gotten wind of a socialist organization calling people out for the demonstration, hence showed up to find the counter-protest to be an eclectic mix of white guys in Che T-shirts and Latinos - wearing shirts ordering people to not call them Latino or Hispanic (too European), but Mexican - denouncing white people.

And if immigration proponents have been trying to pass off reconquista claims - the belief that immigrants want to take back 'Aztlan' - as paranoid, these protesters weren't helping. One sign proclaimed 'Stolen continent' - yet displayed two continents, North and South America. 'White racists this is our continent' read one sign. Another said, 'We will never live in peace until we get the European squatters off our lands.'"

Read the whole thing, and don't miss the stunning conclusion (actually, nothing stuns me anymore at these things). And here are some more pics I took that day:

Comments

[Carlos Alvarado]

What a can of worms this is!! On the one hand we all know we need to have secure borders. On the other we all know that it is practically impossible to stop people from crossing the southern border. We also know that no terrorist has been proven to have come across that border. they have either flown directly into the U.S. or have come in through Canada. We all want legal immigration however we don't take our politicians to task for failing to come up with a better plan (One that meets the needs of employers). Instead we spend our time yelling at each other waving signs with ignorant slogans. There are so many more pressing issues to deal with like the fact that the GAO cannot account for over 20 Billion dollars and billions more are paid out in error. Our outstanding national debt is over 8.5 trillion dollars or about half the value of all property in the country. We are at war with an ideaology that wants to see us all dead or converted to Islam and we fund their attacks with oil money. These are clear and present dangers, and yet America will not wake up. Affluence breads complacency. and it will be our undoing if we don't wake up. I love this country and I hope we can get past the bickering and get down to business.

[jkoch]

Sorry, but you've drifted off message. The Bush WH and the WSJ are both pro-immigration. Tancredo is a GOP pariah. He and Steve King just don't get it.

Gotta get global. Sure, use the Guard to chase around illegals, just to keep 'em scared and cheap, but lordy don't penalize employers. A guest (indentured) bracero program will be nice, offsetting that nasty 13th Amendment, helping us to compete with China. US workers are just too lazy, don't you know. Time to raise work ethic by lowering wages and use terror threats to suppress grumbling.

Watch out, Homer Simpson. There's an Islamofascist hiding under your bed!

[J-P]

I know I broached this in the last post, but these new pics say it even better: those folks holding the "stolen continent" signs *really* appear to have some European heritage. And I still wonder if they are planning to leave after the rest of us have gone.

Seriously, are these people just bored, or do they actually not see the irony in what they are saying?

[Miss Carnivorous]

They are their own worst enemies!

[thinking out loud]

Bridget, I was on both sides of the Maywood protest. Here's what you apparently missed from the Defend Maywood side of things:

Maywood elects a city council, the city council does no more than pass (mostly on binding, "sense of the body"-type) resolutions that have been passed in other cities, notably Houston, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Then a bunch of out-of-towners drag the U.S. flag (actually multiple large flags) into the city, unilaterally and without judicial process proclaim the city "lawless," and proceed to insult everyone in the town, most of their families, and their democratic process. Remember, this was announced as a protest against the City of Maywood, not against illegal immigration. The zealots do this not, as one might think, to influence voters and engage in free speech; their avowed purpose is to cause the city to pay through its nose for police overtime and whatever. These invaders call all this "patriotism" and wrap it in the name of the U.S. flag, and announce that the citizens of Maywood "traitors."

Is that what you believe patriotism, free speech, and democratic process is or should be about? Again--terrorism, extortion, and overturning elections. It would be hard for me to get behind the U.S. flag if I thought that's what it stands for.

[Rude Dog]

Miss Carnivorous:

Your post is specious; it sounds good at first, but in reality comes down to dismissing the behavior of the pro-illegal protestors because of some unsubstantiated allegations against the anti-illegal protestors.

Typical liberal elementary school child argument... "YEAH BUT THEY STARTED IT."

[Rude Dog]

Ooops! credited the wrong person for the post, it was thinking out loud.

SORRY!

[thinking out loud]

Facts: a group called Save Our State went into a town called Maywood to protest resolutions passed by the city council there. They did not go to Maywood to protest illegal immigration. They did not go to exercise free speech, either: their publicly-proclaimed purpose is to "transfer pain," and by that, they are clear that they mean to cost cities money. So let's not talk about what we wish they were doing, or what we might have done. This group, SOS, went to Maywood to intimidate citizens, hijack democracy, and extort money. What happened as a consequence of that action is irrelevant to the merits of the instigating action. I, for one, call these poorly-thought-out, self-destructive tactics.

This isn't an isolated bit of stupidity from SOS. They tried to disrupt a Union picnic on Labor Day in a publc park in a working class neighborhood (Wilmington), to wave anti-immigrant signs, even though illegal immigrants aren't, for the most part, unionized.

Extremists hurt any movement. They give the real enemy a lot of ammo and get everyone in the movement labeled as whackos. Is this really what we want?