There’s a Mexican restaurant near me where I go for dinner every week or so. The hostess and the waitresses know me. I’m the guy who always orders the fish (or camarones) tacos, a side of queso dip, and a house margarita — and tips nicely. They even know the booth I like.
The place is usually populated with diners of all ethnicities. The background music is some kind of Ameri-Mexican blend with bright pop hooks and a beat you could dance to if you had more than one house margarita. There’s usually a soccer game on the television. It’s a clean, lively, friendly place. I can eat, look at my phone, and sip my margarita in peace.
The hostess and waitresses speak English better than most of their customers. They’re smart and engaging and easy to chat with. The busboys, not so much. Sometimes, I’ll stop one and ask for something — a fresh napkin, a straw — and they just shake their heads and smile, and go get a waitress. They don’t understand English very well, I assume. They could have crossed the border legally and are waiting for a work visa or a disposition on their application for asylum, but it’s also quite possible they are here without papers, working hard and laying low, hoping to avoid the coming storm.
From my seat, I can hear the busboys and kitchen staff chattering in a Spanish spoken so quickly and colloquially that it would baffle Duo the Lingo Owl. It makes me wonder what’s going to happen in a month or so if the new president and his minions follow through on their campaign pledge to institute “mass deportations.”
Will sheriff’s deputies, U.S. Marshals, or even the National Guard barge through the front door of my favorite little haunt at dinner time and march off with half the staff in handcuffs? Will they then sweep their way down Summer Avenue, stopping at all the Hispanic-owned businesses, demanding, “Papers, please”?
Will the same law-enforcement brigades start hitting up the construction sites around town, taking away the crews who build our homes and office buildings? Will they begin visiting the massive farming operations across the South and West that rely on millions of immigrants to harvest the nation’s crops? Will they raid the packing plants where immigrants prepare the beef, poultry, and pork for our grocery stores?
If it happens, it’s going to be another of those moments when ideology meets reality and it’s not going to be pretty. When fulfilling a campaign promise leads to a major disruption of the economy, when ensuing worker shortages lead to abrupt price increases, when oranges, tomatoes, and all our other produce lie rotting in our fields and orchards, will Trump and the GOP hard-liners blink? Will they really risk an economic meltdown to own the libs? Will the Americans who voted for this madness finally figure out how effed-up it is?
When millions of families are separated from loved ones, when there are mass camps of “illegal” humans of all ages across the country, when the real costs and the enormous cruelty of trying to deport 10 million people become obvious, will the politicians who ran on this xenophobic bullshit back down? Who knows?
Reporters around the country are already asking governors whether they will cooperate with federal deportation plans. Such cooperation might well involve authorizing state National Guard troops to help with rounding up suspects. In red states, including Tennessee, governors have mostly spouted the GOP party line when questioned, saying that they would do whatever the president asked them to do. In blue states, the opposite reaction has mostly occurred, with governors, mayors, and other regional officials saying they would not use local resources to help with mass deportation.
Look, if Republicans really wanted to fix immigration, they would start at the top and start prosecuting employers who hire undocumented laborers. Problem solved. But that’s never going to happen. Employers are the wrong color and they have money to grease political palms. And since the polarization game plan just won an election, I suspect it will be in play for the next four years. My advice is to speak out for justice when and where it’s possible. Then go have a margarita, if you can find one.
Latino Memphis