Both Sides Acted All-American at Demonstration

The massive marches with thousands of people will linger as the visual legacy of Monday’s pro-immigrant demonstrations. But a street-corner standoff at Ross Street and Civic Center Drive in Santa Ana -- with the two sides separated by cops on horseback who sometimes couldn’t help cracking smiles -- deserves a historical footnote.

And in a way, the bit of street theater condensed the passions and thoughts that fuel the immigration debate.

On one side of Ross were 40 or so people shouting their disdain for illegal immigrants and anyone not as blatantly “American” as they are. On the other side was a group of brown-skinned Latinos -- a fluid group that grew and receded as people browsed before continuing on.

Maybe only the cops kept it from turning into a riot. If so, God bless ‘em, because the crowd delivered a point-counterpoint that, I must confess, sometimes made me laugh. And in an odd way, the combatants seemed to be enjoying it too.

One good heckle deserved another. A white man with a bullhorn lamented his wife’s fear of getting Mexican food because of potential violence at the restaurant. That prompted a Latino on the other side to yell back, “Stick to your macaroni and cheese, buddy!”

Hunkered down on the Latino side of the street, I asked where the line came from. “I got caught up in the moment,” said 24-year-old Adolfo Sagastume.

“I respect what they’re saying,” Sagastume said. “A lot of stuff they’re saying is true.” Some immigrants, he says, do abuse their privileges in America.

What he objects to, he says, is the blanket, anti-Latino tenor of the remarks, even as his antagonists say they’re only targeting illegal immigrants. Yet the largely white side spoke volumes with its choice of language. “Free bus rides to Mexico!” called out one man.

Sagastume, who said he’s a legal resident of El Salvadoran parentage, lamented what he called the ignorance of uncivil debate from both sides, adding, “By me responding to their comment, I was ignorant too.”

He’s too hard on himself. I like invoking macaroni and cheese in a national debate.

An hour or so at the corner was like watching a tennis match. Back and forth, lobs and volleys.

The anti-immigrant side was, depending on the moment, either condescending or earnest.

The Latino crowd, well-schooled in U.S.-style humor, got it. They could have gotten angry, but deflected most of the barbs with sarcasm or equally pointed retorts.

For example, when the white crowd would break into its periodic chorus of “God Bless America,” some on the Latino side joined in.

As the Anglos, for no particular reason, began chanting, “USA! USA! USA!,” someone on the opposite side of the street retorted, “Hey, you forgot your white hoods.”

Well, maybe you had to be there.

What struck me was how the supposed “outsiders” of U.S. life were speaking the same language -- the language of American idioms -- with a wink and a nod.

Shortly after someone on the white side saw a Mexican flag and yelled, “Stop waving that foreign flag!,” a Latino man and his young son happened to pass by carrying a U.S. flag.

Applause from that side? Guess again.

“Carry the flag properly!” a woman called out, apparently upset they were carrying it at a bad angle.

As Rodney Dangerfield used to lament, “Tough crowd.”

On both sides.

The white side seemed clearly worried not only about illegality but cultural shifts.

They’d likely argue that the two are inseparable, but I can’t believe they’d be on a street corner shouting at light-skinned, English-speaking illegal immigrants.

For example, as one Latino group passed by accompanied by drumming, a woman from across the street yelled out, “Is that a Ricky Ricardo bongo?”

A 35-year-old Latino who said he ran a business in South County politely got into the face of a white man who was arguing with another Latino (“Hey, dude, some of us look more white than you do”).

He later told me, “Illegal immigration is something that needs to be corrected.” He said he fully understood why whites are concerned about the issue, but said, “We’ve got to stop the name-calling.”

But not on this day. This was a day for lines like “Go Fix Mexico!” from one side and “Go back to Europe!” from the other.

After a while at the intersection, the well of put-downs dried up. Redundancy replaced originality.

Perhaps that’s why my last image of this spirited day was that of a young Latina in the crowd of demonstrators.

Hearing something she didn’t like from the white crowd, she didn’t say a word.

Instead, she simply pointed to her derriere.

On this day of endless rhetorical jousting, it was a nonverbal response understandable in any language.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.