"600 words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Language Barriers

"600 words by Esther J. Cepeda"

In the grand scheme of all the inappropriate remarks made at commencement speeches across the U.S. during graduation season – from snarky high-school clique announcements to college ceremony swearing – this one doesn't even come close, yet laws are being crafted as you read this to make certain this type never happens again.

Two co-valedictorian in Louisiana used one sentence of non-English language during their graduation speeches.

No, they didn't quote a long-dead philosopher in Latin, as many do. They didn't make offensive, disparaging remarks intended to disrespect their fellow students and faculty without their being able to understand them. It wasn't "'Ich bin ein Berliner'" though their intent was Kennedy-esque in aiming to bestow honor by speaking the native tongue of a special audience.

The young women, Cindy and Hue Vo, residents of Houma, La., dedicated one sentence to their Vietnamese immigrant family members which roughly translated into "always be your own person."

Terrebone Parish School District administrators were so distraught at this un-American display of a foreign tongue during their ceremony that according to the Associated Press which reported the story last weekend, officials there are forming a committee comprised of teachers to set school ceremony standards for the school board to adopt. Standards requiring English-only, and even other Bill of Rights benders such as requiring prayers during a ceremony. Not allowing, requiring.

Rickie Pitre, a board member, was quoted as saying, "I don't like them addressing in a foreign language. They should be in English." Man – that is cold!

Anyone who's been reading me for any length of time knows I'm all in favor of English-only in 99.9% of situations – English immersion is the number one way for immigrants to learn the language and culture of our country and translated everything is harming, not helping people acculturate – but this is ridiculous!

How trembling and frightened of anyone who's not exactly like them must a community be to risk becoming a national laughing-stock in the name of ensuring that no student ever utters a single non-English word of love or gratitude to a family member as a special acknowledgement?

The girls were not trying to make political statements, not trying to push a social agenda, not trying to disrespect the cultural or linguistic norms of their fellow students and teachers by cutting them out of their shared graduating experience. They just wanted to tell their families "I love you" in a special way.

"Out of the whole speech, it's one sentence dedicated to them to give thanks," Cindy Vo told an Associated Press reporter, "mine was personal and general for the entire Vietnamese community and something I wanted to share with graduates."

Her cousin Hue Vo remarked that she wanted to express gratitude to her parents for enduring the hardships of moving from Vietnam to the U.S. That would be the land of the free, last time I checked.

Being a buttoned-down, conservative-type, I'm sure Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, that state's first Indian governor, never wrestled with this sort of silliness. Rebuked among some of the Indian community for not being "Indian enough," I'm sure he always sticks to the English, but I'd bet even he's appalled.

If, sadly, we've become an America who no longer wants the world's tired or weary, and heck, let's just throw "uneducated" on that pile, preferring to only welcome the law-abiding, intelligent, and potentially profitable – which the Vo family certainly is – then for Pete's sake let's open our arms and stop harassing them at every turn.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact

eejaycee@600words.com

There's no need to fear – Hispanic babies are here!

"600 words by Esther J. Cepeda"

Dusty, barren ghost towns all over America? Forget it.

Public care facilities bursting with 80 to 90-year-old white people and no one to care for them? Nope.

An American society crumbling under the burden of too few youngsters to go out to work, play, pay taxes, and buy things – like the population shortage that's currently threatening Europe? Not in my lifetime – or yours, either – thanks to the Hispanic baby boom.

Monday's USA TODAY featured a front page story "Births fueling Hispanic growth" which tells the tale of an American populace buoyed by today's reality: most of the growth in the U.S. Hispanic population comes not from Spanish-speaking, slit-eyed ruffians violating chaste America's southern border, but from people just like me: U.S. born Latinos.

According to the story, this month's edition of the Population Council's demographic journal Population and Development Review reports that not only are Hispanic communities growing more from births than immigration in major Latino cities like LA and Chicago, but between 2000 and 2005, in 221 counties across the country, had the Hispanics not shown up and started families, many towns and villages would simply have started dying.

"Demographically they can't recover unless something like this happens," said Kenneth Johnson, a demographer at the University of New Hampshire's Carsey Institute, quoted in the story referring to municipalities in the Great Plains, "there's no way older white populations can replace themselves."

Ouch, that one must have stung to Mark Krikorian, from the Center for Immigration Studies, who just released a new book The New Case Against Immigration, Both Legal and Illegal in which he "argues that although mass immigration once served our national interests, in today's America it weakens our common national identity, limits opportunities for upward mobility, threatens our security and sovereignty, strains resources for social programs, and disrupts middle-class norms of behavior."

He goes on, "as the politicians argue about border fences and amnesty, they are missing the bigger picture: the harmful impact of large-scale settlement of all kinds of immigrants, whether legal or illegal, skilled or unskilled, temporary or permanent, European or Latin or Asian or African. Modern America has simply outgrown immigration, and we must end it before it cripples us."

No worries, Mark, according to the experts, immigration to the U.S.' established Hispanic communities is no longer numero uno.

Kidding aside, my curiosity is peaked about Mark's data but I haven't yet read his book so I can't gauge the validity of his sources. Either way his is a viewpoint – about legal and illegal immigrants from all countries alike – is shared by a large minority of people in this country. And the dislike and fear is generally not toward the brown-skinned computer programmers from India, but the brown-skinned peach-pickers from south of the border.

But in my conversations with economists, metropolitan planners, medical and military experts, and demographers I rarely hear such gloom and doom about the, yes, many many challenges that a whole generation of kids born to low-income immigrant children. Rather, the Latino community is seen by these experts as young, ready and able to work and eager to contribute to the success of this country.

Two years ago the Chicago Council on Global Affairs released an independent Task Force report called "A Shared Future: The Economic Engagement of Greater Chicago and Its Mexican Community." It cast a bright light on the multitude challenges – of language, culture, resources – the 83 percent increase in the Chicago region's Mexican population poses while also illuminating such opportunities as a potential 2.4 trillion dollars worth of business and cultural exchanges with the world's 21 Spanish-speaking countries.

Their bottom line was that the Latino community in Chicago, as in so many other states, is the fuel for our economic engine, their words: "play a vital role the region's prosperity and will do so even more in the future." This from people looking to make money, not lose money, on a bevy of social services and law enforcement programs.

Yes, like Bruce Springsteen – who sprung from Dutch, Irish and Italian immigrants – for generations to come there will be millions of Miguels and Marias making America better and proudly singing they were "Boooooorn in the You-Ess-Aayy."

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact

eejaycee@600words.com

Who loves ya, baby? McCain, Obama court Latinos

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

Oh look! It’s a slow news day and the topic of immigration has come up, so the mainstream media all of a sudden actually cares what the presidential candidates think about Latinos.

And how could they resist? John McCain and Barack Obama both showed up to a sleepy Saturday gathering of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) in full woo mode – all smiles and happy Hispanic messages.

The two candidates – who, of the 20 votes they both cast out of 30 immigration-related votes since May 17, 2006, voted identically 11 times – turned on the charm with such pithy quotes as this one from John McCain who became a target in the Republican party for championing immigration law reform but had recently taken a harsher tone:

"It'll be my top priority yesterday, today and tomorrow. We must also understand that there are 12 million people who are here, and they're here illegally and they are God's children," Bloomberg quoted McCain as saying.

Reuters quoted Obama’s gushing thusly: "I'm hoping that somewhere out in this audience sits the person who will become the first Latino [presidential] nominee of a major party." Gee, I wonder what Hispanic pre-candidate and former Clinton devotee Bill Richardson thought of that one!

So we’re alternately the chosen ones and next in line for the White House after the black guy, huh? Gee, thanks a lot fellas.

And why the fuss?

Because this utopian "Hispanic vote," estimated to be approximately 9 percent of the national electorate and always referred to as the "fastest growing minority group in the U.S., is up for grabs now that Hillary is out of the picture.

Take their not-completely-opposite voting records on immigration matters and weight their actions versus their words: by all accounts, even from those inside the campaign, Obama has had a blind spot for Latinos throughout the race.

Contrast that with John McCain who was the only Republican candidate who agreed to Univision’s Spanish-language presidential debates last August (it was subsequently cancelled due to lack of Republican interest). Oh, and McCain is touring Mexico and South America early next month, presumably on a listening tour.

Barack must not be compelled to the poor south, though he’ll be gallivanting through more affluent Europe and the Middle East next month well. Still, I’ll give him brownie points, pun intended, for actually trying to give Latin America attention even though his viewpoints on our neighbors to the south rarely make it on the air or into print.

I don’t fall for sugary political pandering so, frankly, I don’t care who makes the better pre-election overture but this is just the beginning. There’ll be plenty of immigration finger-pointing – probably punctuated by some ethnic stereotype mishap – and wobbly, unsubstantive Spanish-language pleas in targeted media.

I suggest both McCain and Obama proceed with caution. If either of them go overboard – I can just hear promises of "a taco in every pot!" – they’ll stand a chance of turning off a ton of U.S.-born Latinos who are much likelier to vote come November than the May Day marchers you see on the TV everyday.

Here’s a thought, John and Barry: not all of our votes hinge on your stance on immigration, so when you see me, think of something compelling to say other than something along the lines of: "Gosh I love immigrants! My ancestors were immigrants, y’know?!"

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact

eejaycee@600words.com

See me in the funny papers

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

She came around! I knew she would!

I'm talking about Janis Day, the middle-aged mom on the comic strip Arlo and Janis, a 23-year-old nationally-syndicated comic strip which appears in Chicago's Sun-Times. She'd been struggling, for the last two weeks, with conflicting feelings about her son Gene's co-workers at his new summer job.

In last week's strips, Gene, home from college, is working outdoors with a presumably-all-Mexican lawn care crew. When he casually mentions to mom, and his dad Arlo, that his co-workers call him "gringa" – the Spanish, female form of an arguably derogative term for "whitey" – she got all upset.

Gene assured both Arlo and Janis that his crew-mates were just busting his chops, shared how much he was learning about the Spanish language and their culture, and even wished he had taken Spanish classes is school.

Last Friday, though, Janice was having protective mom thoughts that flirted with the kind of protectionist, almost racist stereotyping that's making things hard on all Latinos these days. She fretted: "I wonder what trash those awful men are talking to Gene today!!" even as they were teaching Gene the value of honoring your mother.

  Woah! I kinda freaked because I've been loving A&J for well over a decade and wasn't sure where creator Jimmy Johnson was going: are those scary Mexicans actually going to corrupt young Gene? Will Janis be proven right to be concerned or will there be a painfully beautiful slice-of-life learning moment for everyone reading? Why even bring such a controversial topic to a fun, 30-second diversion to begin with?

And that's really what I was excited about: Arlo, Janis, and Gene – just as white as 99.9 percent of all other mainstream comic strip characters – interacting with real, live, Mexicans. Stereotypical yard hands, sure, but give Jimmy Johnson credit – this is a huge act of bravery.

Don't get me wrong, I love Lalo Alcaraz, the Hispanic LA Times cartoonist who pens La Cucaracha – also nationally syndicated and, coincidentally appears only a few panels above A&J on the third comics page of the Sun-Times – but his audience is limited.

Some people don't read it because they think "I'm not Latino, it's not for me." Some Hispanics think he's too this or that and also don't tune in for Lalo's brilliant and funny social commentary.

But A&J is read by millions of people of all stripes, colors, and walks of life. This is big!

After Friday, I was on the edge of my seat but the story line was dropped Saturday through Tuesday. My attempts to contact JJ were fruitless, and I wondered if he'd gotten barraged with hate mail for bringing the contentious immigration debate into what's usually a light family 'toon and decided to drop the whole thing.

Unlikely. "Most of them are written so far in advance it's really hard pull back in a day or two, though the newspaper could decide not to run it, I suppose," Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich, and Brenda Starr cartoonist, told me yesterday as I struggled with the lack of new developments in the scary Mexican plot. Mary – no stranger to making waves with the dialogue of her characters (don't get her started on the use of the term "threesome!") – told me she doubted any cartoonist would be influenced either by backlash, hate mail, or even partial censoring.

The chances the writer would change it are very, very small. For a long time, people couldn’t give feedback and that was one of the beauties – it’s not like being a columnist where they can kick you in public – there was anonymity. It’s not like now where feedback is everything to everybody," Mary said. "And there is this notion, that I think is wrong-headed, that comic strips aren’t supposed to offend, this idea that comic strips are for kids – I don’t buy that. There was a time for kids but that’s not who reads the papers. I think readers could be well served with some edginess."

Edginess is good and it turns out I needn’t have fretted so. Today Janis – still crabby in the first panel where she "worries" about the heat Gene’s working in – takes lemonade to his job site and learns a little something about how Mexican lawn care workers respond to kindness.

I like to think Arlo and Janis’ readers will learn a little something, too.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact

eejaycee@600words.com

Some of "them" are "us"

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

If you've seen TV footage of a community reeling from an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement raid – like this weekend's in Lake County, IL – you've likely seen a Latin American family upset about their family members' arrest, followed by what's called "b-roll" video footage of past immigration reform marches where thousands of Latinos hold enraged protest posters demonizing ICE.

But what you don't know is that Latinos are the largest minority subset of ICE's workforce, providing jobs that, with overtime, can pay a person without a high school or college degree up to $70,000 a year. Those great benefits, coupled with a pressing need for more warm bodies, has led ICE to target African American recruits for border patrol duty, as reported in Monday's New York Times. Their story, focusing on the need for recruits to bring the number of agents patrolling the U.S.' southern border up to 18,000 by the end of the year, mentioned that 52 percent of border patrol agents are Latino.

Agency-wide, the Department of Homeland Security agency known as ICE has 17,272 employees of which 3,792 (21.95 percent) are Hispanic according Tim Counts, a spokesman I spoke to Monday.

Can you just imagine what Thanksgiving is like for those families? Talk about being caught in a cultural cross-fire!

Having gotten interested in the dissonance of Hispanics at DHS last year, I spoke to several Latino ICE employees mostly in the Chicago area, and a few close to the border that I correspond with occasionally, none of whom wanted their names used because it's…a touchy subject. I detected two camps: the "make no apologies" group and the "don't ask don't tell."

I'm not naming names so I can't quote directly, but, one female border guard out west told me it's very simple for her: she's doing a government job and her duty is to use her special language skills and cultural insights to smooth the process for everyone involved. The spirit of her comments were along the lines of: "I don't give a damn about people who consider me a sellout or a traitor."

Another agent, who's not in the field, told me she understands how emotional the whole issue of immigration is and never wants to be put in the position of bringing up the boogey-men ICE agents, so she just never brings it up. Her family has gotten used to her refusing to be called to account for every violent or saddening enforcement action that makes headlines.

One agent whose sole job is to interact with immigration-related detainees in the McHenry County Jail in Illinois told me last year, when I was investigating living conditions there for the Chicago Sun-Times, that his family and friends have a totally different take on things, though he tries to always keep his job out of conversations. I'm paraphrasing: "They figure I'm there, I'm doing my best everyday to help [the detainees] get in touch with advocates, resolve their problems as best they can – it's a good thing. Aside from a few people who can't stand that I work for ICE, it's usually not a problem."

Indeed, there are lots of Latinos out there who think the Department of Homeland Security is evil incarnate. But like with everything else in life, when you scratch beneath the surface – and see the many Hispanic agents who are enabling their families to live the American Dream through their steady, good-paying work at ICE – some of "them" are "us." And "we" aren't so different.

Note: In case you were wondering about the June 20-21 raids in Lake County, you didn't hear about them because none of the mainstream media reported on them – I read about it in HOY, the Tribune's Spanish-language daily newspaper.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact

eejaycee@600words.com

Pay to play

by Esther J. Cepeda

"Pregunta del Dia" translates to Question of the Day and today’s comes from R.T., a Cary, IL reader who asks

Q. "Do YOU think DePaul [University, in Chicago] should keep the Minutemen from having their speaker there Monday?"

A. He’s referring to a speech to be delivered Monday May 19 on the campus of DePaul University – the largest private University in Illinois, one of the largest private universities in this country and the largest Catholic university in the U.S., according to Wikipedia.

Let me quote from the Father Jose Landaverde and the "Comite de Marzo," a pro-illegal immigrant rights group, from their press release asking for people to join them in a 24-hour "Prayer Vigil to Stop the Hate & Racism."

"Cris Simcox who is the Minuteman Militia Corps. Leader has been invited to speak by a conservative group at DePaul University on May 19th, 2008.  Simcox is well known for his anti immigrant sentiment against Mexicans.   Simcox travels the country recruiting members and has had growing involvement in his group of racist border vigilantes.  White supremacist groups have openly recruited members for the Minuteman patrols groups like neo-Nazis from the National Alliance & Aryan Nations.  Simcox as of today refuses to acknowledge that vigilante border patrols are a haven for violent racist.  Many groups have asked the university to cancel Simcox's invitation but DePaul University refuses & say that they must allow all groups on campus exercise the right to freedom of speech."

DePaul is…absolutely 100% correct. They have allowed their students to freely exercise their right to freedom of speech in protesting Simcox, been open with the media, and offered these same freedoms to campus speakers – and campus protesters – who were similarly controversial.

But today the DePaul Conservative Alliance, which invited Simcox, is upset. DePaul is making that group pay $2,500 for security officers to make sure things don’t get out of hand between Minutemen supporters and praying protesters.

And again DePaul is…absolutely 100% correct. The Conservative Alliance knew their choice in speaker would draw opposition and went ahead with plans for a hoppin’ event. Fair enough. They should have known that the University routinely asks student groups to pay for the cost of ensuring the safety of large crowds at any on-campus event, instead they’re hurtin’ for money and blaming the protestors for their presence at the speech.

"Basically, I am paying to ensure a protest happens at my event," Nicholas Hahn, the president of the university’s Conservative Alliance told a Chicago Tribune reporter.

No, that would be your speaker fee. Nevertheless, it’s an easy fix. Just pass the hat around at the event, Conservative Alliance, your peeps will be glad to help out. It’s your right to be there and have your speaker say whatever he wants, but as with most things in life: you play, you pay.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

No vote, no voice if you're poor, scatterbrained

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

If you’re happy to break one law, then you’ll surely break another, right? You’ve jaywalked so you’re a good candidate for committing an armed robbery.

That’s the exact logic being used to defend the ridiculous scheme to limit voters in Missouri and approximately 20 other states across the country by requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration.

That state’s proposed constitutional amendment, which if passed could go into effect as early as August, could keep approximately 240,000 unregistered Missouri-dwelling U.S. citizens from voting in the most interesting Presidential election of the last several decades.

Why? Fear the estimated "12 million" illegal immigrants residing in the U.S. who were bold enough to break federal immigration laws but are too terrified of getting deported to seek medical care or report crime might get it in their minds to commit voter fraud by giving a municipal system all their contact information for a shot at electing a president from a pool of candidates too terrified to broach the subject of immigration.

Already the elderly, the disabled, those who can’t afford – or choose to not to – drive and haven’t gotten around to sitting at their secretary of state facility for most of a day to get an official photo identification card, have been denied their right to vote in seven states. By decree of the U.S. Supreme Court, no less, who upheld Indiana’s photo-ID requirement law on April 28th.

The argument: according to the Justice Department, of forty voters indicted for registration fraud or illegal voting between 2002 and 2005, twenty-one were non-citizens. Also, anyone could easily forge an electric or phone utility bill or paychecks, which are just some of the many forms of ID currently used to register voters.

If you buy into that, then why not note the reported tens of thousands of native-born Missourians who were kicked off Medicaid in 2006 because they couldn’t find their birth certificates to argue that more U.S.-born people will be screwed out of their voting rights than impostors? It’s better to deny suffrage to people who live on the margins of society – or are simply prone to misplacing things – than take a chance on "illegal Irma" blackening the ovals?

On the other side of the conspiracy theory coin are rumors that the Republicans are masterminding a scheme to keep the ethnic minorities – assumed to lean Democratic – from voting them out of office in droves as they vote the country’s first African American into the "White" House.

How about the theory that photo ID voting restrictions are designed to counteract the backlog of 930,000 citizenship applications that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services recently promised to process by September 30th because about nine thousand almost-new Americans sued USCIS in order to get them to do things "the right way." The letter of the law demands the decision to grant citizenship be made within 120 days of interviewing the applicant, after all.

I’ll give the benefit of the doubt. Let’s assume the people who make these laws up aren’t malevolent but instead simply ignorant.

Is it too much of a stretch to imagine that the well-to-do bureaucrats who propose laws simply can’t imagine a world in which you don’t have mommy or daddy drive you to the DMV on your sixteenth birthday for a driver’s license? Is it really too hard to imagine people of certain means not having a clue how hard it is to navigate replacing a lost birth certificate when you don’t read well or have a disability?

No harder, I guess, than imagining legislators so stupid they actually believe droves of illegal aliens are going to throw the next election.

Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com

Marching to a different drummer

"600 Words" by Esther J. Cepeda

It’s that time of the year, folks.

The time when thousands of mostly-Hispanic defenders of immigrants’  rights will declare to non-Latino America how much they love and want to stay in the United States by marching around major cities bearing the flags of their homeland.

Yes, the time when the same people who will press you on the myriad ways immigrants thanklessly toil for this country, working endless hours in fields, restaurants, and factories, will skip work to parade through the streets en masse to call attention to their very existence.

Yep, the time when the same parents who look you in the eye and tell you they came to the U.S. to give their children hope for a bright future through the benefit of an American education will pull them out of school to stroll down crowded streets chanting “Si se puede” in the name of federal immigration law reform.

Yes, “yes they can.” But they shouldn’t.

In 2005 hundreds of thousands of Hispanic across the country, infuriated by the proposal of the Sensenbrenner bill which would have criminalized any one aiding illegal immigrants, rose up seemingly out of nowhere to say: “we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!”

It is two years later; nothing and everything has changed, but the usual suspects are at it again – minus the fanfare. And actually, some of the usual suspects are nowhere to be found this year.

“Luis Gutierrez, he’s hiding, he says he’s going to be in Washington,” march mastermind Jorge Mujica of the March 10 Coalition, told me yesterday after a pre-manifestation press conference. “No Hillary, no Barack, either.” Mr. Mujica didn’t want to get too specific but did add, “Some Democrats told us not to march because it’s an election year, and we shouldn’t interfere with the democratic process.”

Really? After an unprecedented amount of hype was given to the effect of the “Latino vote” on the never-ending presidential race? Interesting.

Still, not to be denied, and despite America’s collective yawn on the immigration issue because of the tanking economy, the organizers of this year’s May Day marches have decided the show must go on.

This year’s indifference is what we would have seen last year had the Feds, in their infinite wisdom, not decided to raid a discount mall in the heart of Chicago’s extremely Mexican Little Village community, offering a national stage for activists to literally weep and gnash their teeth in the streets and on camera. No such luck this time.

Fast forward to 2008: march fatigue has clearly set in. Let’s face it, after the swift failure of immigration law reform last July – now dormant until well after the next American President is in place – it’s time to be more constructive.

Yes in 2005 the sleeping giant awoke, people came out of the shadows, and everyone who hadn’t noticed that their Chop Suey, escargot, and sushi is cooked by Mexicans paid attention. But it’s time to give it a rest.

This Thursday, making sure the kiddies don’t miss any reading time at school and demonstrating how much you want your job by actually showing up should be the order of the day.

Making Bob and Jane Smith burn several gallons of four-dollar gas while idling in their SUV as a few thousand rabble-rousers clog intersections yelling “march today, vote tomorrow” slogans isn’t going to change the laws any time soon. It’s been proven time and again.

“Esther J. Cepeda writes the “600 Words” & “Pregunta del Dia” columns, and is also a Director at the Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization. Her reporting and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of UNO. “600 words” is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com