Of driving dishwashers and other threats

By
Max
J. Castro                                                                      Read Spanish Version
majcastro@gmail.com

This
has been the deadliest year for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan,
and it’s not over yet. The latest estimate is that the real cost of
the war is $1.4 trillion dollars — and counting. Pakistan, a nuclear
weapons state, is under emergency rule, and hopes for democracy have
been dashed.

At
home, the economy is weakening and may be heading for recession.
There are now almost fifty million people in the country without
health insurance, and the number is still increasing.

On
the global scale, the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change makes for scary reading. The threat to our planet from
global warming is clear and severe. Our government is doing exactly
zero about the problem beyond delaying tactics to prevent effective
international agreements.

So
what are the political pundits, the presidential candidates,
including the Democrats, and much of the media focused on?

The
great issue of the day is whether “illegal immigrants” should be
allowed to apply for drivers’ licenses. Hillary Clinton’s
ambiguous answer in a presidential debate provoked more comment and
criticism than any other topic. The spotlight, and the furious
reaction of a sector of the electorate and the media, forced New York
Governor Eliot Spitzer to withdraw his plan to grant undocumented
immigrants the right to receive drivers’ licenses. And, at the
Democrats’ debate last Thursday in Las Vegas, the first question
concerned drivers’ licenses for undocumented immigrants. It
provoked lengthy discussion; the moderator turned the issue into a
virtual litmus test by pressing each candidate for a “yes” or
“no” answer.

What
is going on all of a sudden?

In
part, this is politics as usual in the USA. The Republicans, ever in
the hunt for a fresh scapegoat with which to unite voters around a
politics of fear and loathing, have found one. The Democrats, ever
fearful of sounding liberal and/or unpatriotic, are once again
retreating, dodging, and weaving on an issue of principle and
pragmatism in a desperate search for an elusive and shifting center.
And the center indeed has shifted. Where once a politician as
conservative as Jeb Bush supported drivers’ licenses for
undocumented immigrants because it is a practical and sensible
measure — and the world did not end nor did he lose his political
support — now John Edwards and Hillary Clinton cannot muster the
political courage to take the same stand.

But
there is something else going on as well, which explains the
groundswell from below pushing the political debate. In a sentence,
“it’s the culture, stupid.”

Take
the intriguing data the Census Bureau released last week. The New
York Times reported it under this headline: “In Name Count, Garcias
Catching Up With Joneses.” For the first time in history, two of
the ten most frequent surnames in the United States are Hispanic, the
Census reports. Six of the top twenty-five names are Hispanic, almost
a quarter of the total.

The
surname contest is just one measure of how Latinos are transforming
the United States. The Garcias and Rodriguezes are catching up with
the Jones and Smiths, and some of the Joneses and Smiths don’t like
it. That is not a universal response; many communities, such as
Arlington, Virginia have made extraordinary efforts to accommodate
and welcome new immigrants. But, especially in conservative white
suburbs and rural areas hit with a sudden inflow of working class
Latino immigrants, there is huge xenophobic backlash under way in the
guise of a movement against illegal immigration. Those sentiments are
behind the Republicans’ newfound ferocity and the Democrats’
recent timidity on the subject of immigration.

A
new Rice University survey of residents of Houston and other Texas
communities, for instance, found that white residents see immigrants
primarily as a cultural threat. The Houston Chronicle reports “the
survey found 57 percent of Montgomery County (Texas) respondents and
59 percent in mainland Galveston County believe the immigrant influx
‘mostly threatens American culture.’” The same survey found
that “73 percent of whites in mainland Galveston and Montgomery
County favor fines and criminal charges against employers who hire
illegal immigrants.” 

The
2008 election looks like it will be open season on Latinos, with
attacks coded in the language of opposition to illegal immigration.
It is a code that Latinos can read, and will remember.