"This tract, which was sent out by a key supporter of [Judy Sigwalt and her fellow Carpentersville village trustee Paul Humpfer], and with the knowledge of Humpfer, became a marker of sorts, a moment when the wedge was driven so deep (one resident told me, 'It's kind of like the Grand Canyon') that there would be no easy reconciliation. Most Hispanics didn't learn of the flier until after the election, but it so offended many of them -- especially those who were American citizens and had a foothold in the middle class -- that even those who'd never been politically active began heading out to the village meetings to gauge firsthand the mood of their neighbors. What so alarmed them is that it felt less like a debate on illegal immigration than it did a condemnation of Hispanic culture."

LET'S BE CLEAR. Immigration is a complicated issue in our country and our modern day paradigms. But much of the animosity out there is really not so complicated. It's about fear of the Other. It's about racism, too, whatever that word means. It's about a small mind with a small imagination, it's about a static clinging to a bland hallucination, it's a false image of what "America" means, first forgetting what the word "America" actually means (not "50 states," hint, it's bigger and has loooooots of brown people living in it), and then hoping to hang onto some ridiculous isolated suburban dream that doesn't even exist in reality. It's about replacing history with a false reality. It's about a strange, purposely-crafted mentality that has too long been sheltered in a fantasy world, one that ignores the truth of humans and time and space and progression and motion and give and take--and believes instead in walls, borders, fences, drones, Official Languages, aliens, there vs. here, us or them, and all the other pap that its daddy-gobierno-medios has stuffed into its pilllowy brain folds to help feed and maintain a certain superiority and control over the Other, who is always, of course, Teeming at the Gate and snatching at ya plate.

It's in places like Carpentersville where we may be witnessing the opening of a deep and profound fissure in the American landscape. Over the past two years, more than 40 local and state governments have passed ordinances and legislation aimed at making life miserable for illegal immigrants in the hope that they'll have no choice but to return to their countries of origin. Deportation by attrition, some call it. One of the first ordinances was passed in Hazleton, Pa., and was meant to bar illegal immigrants from living and working there. It served as a model for many local officials across the country, including Sigwalt and Humpfer.

On July 26, a federal judge struck down Hazleton's ordinance, but the town's mayor, Lou Barletta, plans to appeal the decision. "This battle is far from over," he declared the day of the ruling. States and towns have looked for other ways to crack down on illegal immigrants. Last month, Prince William County in northern Virginia passed a resolution trying to curb illegal immigrants' access to public services. Waukegan, another Illinois town, has voted to apply for a federal program that would allow its police to begin deportation charges against those who are here illegally. A week after the Senate failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform, Arizona's governor, Janet Napolitano, signed into law an act penalizing businesses that knowingly hire undocumented immigrants.

'One of the practical effects of this failure' to enact national immigration reform, Napolitano wrote to the Congressional leadership, 'is that Arizona, and states across the nation, must now continue to address this escalating problem on their own.' Admittedly, the constitutionality of many of these new laws is still in question, and some of the state bills and local ordinances simply duplicate what's already in force nationally. But with Congress's inability to reach an agreement on an immigration bill, the debate will continue among local officials like those in Carpentersville, where the wrangling often seems less about illegal immigration than it does about whether new immigrants are assimilating quickly enough, if at all.

--Our Town, icirr.org

You know how some people say "I don't hate Mexicans. I'm not Racist. I just believe in the Law." Well, right on. I understand and believe these people. Because you see, I don't hate these people either. I just really believe in the Word. In the Word given, the Word signed, the Word of Treaty, the Word spoken in the spirit of Truth. About the word given over 150 years ago that recognized a certain wrong was done to Mexico and her gente. And in the wake of that Wrong, agreed to certain concessions that would attempt to compensate.

The USA, you see, knew that in 1848, she had pulled some bullshit by invading Mexico and taking land and resources that it (Polk) wanted. Check it: this might be hard to believe, but sometimes countries that lust over the land or resources of other weaker nations actually lie up an excuse to invade and take it. I know. Mindblowing. (Understandable, though, because "we want your shit" is reallllly tough to fit into an anthem.) Barbaric, in fact. Thank God that we are a more advanced people than that these days.

Anyway, the victorious USA understood it had taken advantage of a few situations, even if unspoken. After all, once you've already justified enslavement (blacks), genocide (Indians), and further war and bloodshed based on a megalomaniacal and sociopathic philosophy as "Manifest Destiny," well, you've pretty much set the stage down the line for just about any other horrendous act of greed and violence and dehumanization. Because when you celebrate the spoils of those actions, you celebrate those actions. But if you've formed your culture in such a way that moral accountings or full contextualizations are never performed, you will never get a holistic and truthful view. Welcome to the sound of a broken band pumping out cancerous canciones in a Haunted Land.

Yet, the USA understood on some level that what it had done to Mexico was wrong. And so in the Treaty that was drawn up, not only did she pay 15 mil for the land she took (why do you pay millions for land you've rightfully conquered?), but the US Government assured the Mexican Government that in all the cities that would NOW be considered part of the New Land, part of "America," the Spanish language was to be allowed and given space right there next to all English. Documents to be printed in both languages, signs to be posted.

But again....the USA talks big game, and forgets the bloody ground since washed clean by the rain. And now people whose understanding of the world was born in plastic mall bins stamped with corporate logos are talking all kinds of bullshit about Official Languages and Shrinking Culture and how white Americans are feeling "alienated."

ENGLISH SPEAKERS INVADED A LAND OF OTHER PEOPLES AND CULTURES AND STOLE IT.

NOW DEAL with this fact and stop whining. Poor you, pushing 1 all day on your phone. Poor you, when English doesn't carry you all over the blessed globe and through every square inch of space.

You don't have to feel personally responsible for this recent invasion, dehumanization, and theft. But as a sentient being, you must acknowledge that the history does NOT go away because you've decided History begins at a certain point as according to your preference. Consequences play out even once you turn your head. Just because you cover your eyes doesn't mean I can't still see you standing there with your hand over your face. Reality is reality. Welcome. To the desert of the Real.

And another truth to consider--feel free to extrapolate this a tiny bit to unknown others--is that until I began feeling bombarded by this ignorance and continued willful hate against YES MI GENTE I didn't much spit fire on the issue. I was lulled, too. The great redwhiteandblue Forgetting Machine was rocking me with a sweet rhythm. But you went and woke me up. With all this talk, this thinly disguised talk, do you really think you fool me? Or anyone? Now, from so many quarters this ignorance and behind it hate and violence. Talkers and haters like this today are but an arm of a beast that has already claimed enough blood and land and coin. So yes, I do speak up for my people and for history and nobody will make me feel that this is a crime or that I ought to be ashamed, or polite, or step aside and let white or polite bloggers and activists Know Better how to Speak to the Immigration Issue fuck that. Yes, I'm pissed off and I won't hide it.

I've heard the criticism about my tone. Get over it. There are so many wrongs in this world. So many hypocrisies and so much confusion that it kills people, it makes us mad, it gives us diseases in our minds and souls and bodies. Would you have me bury truth, then? Would you have me on Zoloft, then? On Ambien? On something to still the trembling fingers of indignation? Something to civilize me? Who will be outraged and spilling over with fury and righteous rejection of all this ignorance, violence, and vile inhumanity? Would you have me hook up my TV again and zone into it, live on platitudes and equivocation? Would you have me pretend all this negativity and hate and violence and threat leveled on immigrants and Mexican@s and Latinos tod@s is about "law"?

Roeser formed the Wise Owls Club, recognition for those at Otto for 15 years or more. He gave away Wise Owls shirts and sponsored an annual luncheon. It was a small gesture, but Roeser realized he had to retain his older employees, most of whom were white and all of whom would soon be in the minority, while also trying to assimilate his newer Hispanic workers or, as he puts it, "Ottoize" them. This is essential to Roeser, and he maintains it is at the heart of the contentiousness in Carpentersville: that longtime residents don't trust that their new neighbors are becoming Americanized fast enough. [...]

Law?

Moreover, Humpfer and Sigwalt said that constituents had expressed dismay at the number of businesses in which the proprietors spoke only Spanish. 'I've gone into the Polish deli and the German deli, and they're so friendly,' Sigwalt said. 'When I go into the Hispanic grocery store, I feel like an intruder; I feel unwelcome.' Humpfer added, 'It's gotten to a level where the number of illegals is so big, these stores can cater to only one culture.'

Law?

Around this time, Humpfer also learned that the village was having little success in collecting $372,000 in ambulance fees. The collection agencies hired by the village were unable to locate many of the individuals with outstanding bills. A number of them had Spanish surnames, Humpfer said, and he concluded that many gave false addresses because they were without documents and so feared deportation.

--Our Town, icirr.org

Good assumption, by the way.

All about "law." And "illegality." Certainly not about a freakout over a shift in POWER. None of it about the dominant culture members being out of POWER for once. Not about an image, a mental structure and imagination of heirarchy so damn engraved into minds that the very hint of any other shape is terrifying, that having to push 1 means you are on your knees, where not being the majority language in any situation means you are the Bad Intruder (because that's how you see others who don't wield the dominant language, por supuesto!), where when you feel these feelings, you reach for a weapon, and that weapon is Law.

But Law is not what this is about. Not anymore than a murder with a gun is about moving metal objects from one place to another.

It would be easy to live in Carpentersville and have nothing to do with people on the other side of the river, and as the number of Hispanics increased, most in town barely paid attention. People tell me that everyone got along reasonably well. Indeed, in 1999, the village leaders established the Hispanic Committee in the hope that they could help acculturate and celebrate the new arrivals. It encouraged Hispanics to participate in the 2000 census and registered newcomers to vote. Judy Sigwalt was a part of this committee.

Sigwalt describes herself as 'just a Joe Blow who at 54 works 10 hours a day at a service job.' Her husband is a diesel mechanic for Wonder Bread. Sigwalt was first elected a village trustee in 1999, and shortly afterward agreed to join the Hispanic Committee. For three summers, the committee was the host of Celebration Latina, a one-day festival of Mexican food and music. But Sigwalt said she believed that non-Hispanic residents in town did not want to attend such an ethnically specific festival, and so she urged a name change, to Community Pride Day. That year attendance dropped off from 2,500 to 500 people. Shortly afterward, the Hispanic Committee disbanded, but it all happened quietly, without much notice. [...]

--Our Town, icirr.org

It's almost too funny. Wonder bread, eh? Good decision, by the way. Who wants to celebrate being Latin@, after all? Oh, what? 4/5 of the fair's regular attendees? Hmmm.

One trustee, Kay Teeter, a soft-spoken Mary Kay cosmetics saleswoman, appeared agitated by the suggestions by Ruiz and others that supporting the proposed ordinance was the equivalent of dismissing Hispanics. 'I am not a racist,' she said. 'We're a blue-collar people. My grandparents worked hard to assimilate and become Americans. What we're trying to do here is unite the community with a common language.' Things quickly spiraled out of control. Two Hispanic women who had come with a contingent from Chicago rose from their seats and began chanting: 'Viva la Raza. Viva la Raza.' 'Speak English,' someone hollered. Two older men in the back row waved American flags. The women were ejected.

--Our Town, icirr.org

I don't even know what a reaction of waving Old Glory means in this context. "Remain patriotic, intractable, and monolingual. In the U.S.A."

And this declaration of "Speak English." You don't need to take any classes in college to get that English is built of just about every language you can imagine. That is...sort of the very method of the language. At least here in EEUU. But I guess this paragraph is already over the heads of those who would say "speak english" to someone speaking another language. It reminds me of another great quote from this article, where a town resident, sitting in on the town meeting says "This is America, not a foreign country."

I mean, that says it all, qué no? Observe the lens celebrating its fixed mount.

A week earlier, the town's department heads submitted an eight-page memo detailing how an English-only ordinance would hinder their jobs. 'If officers are not allowed to speak in a foreign language,' the police chief, David Neumann, wrote, 'it will have a chilling effect on the Police Department's relationship with those who do not speak English, whether they reside here legally or not.' So, Humpfer and Sigwalt chose, instead, to propose a resolution which would be more a declaration of their beliefs than a set of regulations. (English-only ordinances or resolutions have passed or are pending passage in 35 municipalities and counties.)

Sigwalt seemed particularly taut, in large part because she was disappointed that they had to retreat from their original proposal. 'The reason we don't have a unified country is because the second and third generations are not learning English,' she lectured. 'What is tearing our community apart is that there are so many different languages I can't interact with my neighbors anymore.'"

--Our Town, icirr.org

Yes, that's what's tearing your community apart. Cops who want to speak to their communities, and ultimately, So Many Different Languages. All the Polish and Russian and German and French and Swedish and Finnish and Welsh....so hard to keep up with all of them. And it's not just Carpentersville. The massive influx of Language Choice is tearing this nation apart at its well-welded scars. You do know what this means.

We need a new war, of course.

We need a War on Language. It's the only thing that can bring this nation back together. More law, more guns, and more fences. More methods of containment and control. Any century now, the success of such philosophy and methodology will kick in. And lo, won't we be one happy and united bunch on that sunny, English-only morn.