Topanga . . . and the Mexicans

I was watering the yard one day when a car drove slowly by. The people inside, a man and a woman, stared at me pointedly until the car disappeared around a bend.

That didn’t bother me because outsiders often drive through Topanga hoping to see a werewolf or a past life regressionist, for which the area was once famous.

But then they drove by a second time, still staring, and I finally shouted, “You want something?” and they sped off.

Working in the yard is something I don’t usually do, so I was not familiar with the customs of passers-by. Perhaps they always stared. Perhaps garden-viewing was a new pastime among the culturally deprived.

I was in the yard watering because my wife was out of town for a few days and had left me a simple instruction: “Don’t let anything die.”

By that she meant I should (1) feed our animals each night and (2) water the yard at least once during her absence. I was carrying out instruction (2) when the car passed.

“You know why they were staring?” a neighbor said. He had been walking his dog and had seen the interplay. The dog’s name is Ely and is probably the ugliest dog in the Santa Monica Mountains.

I said, “No and keep Ely away from my wife’s cosmos.”

“They think you might be a Mexican who lives in the woods.”

I didn’t know what he meant until I read the paper. A story said, more or less, that the Topanga Town Council was asking locals to report those who hired illegal immigrants, the majority of whom are Mexicans.

We were to take down license numbers of neighbors and/or contractors who stopped to pick up workers down around Joe’s Market and call the license numbers in to a hot line.

The idea, it seemed, was to discourage immigrants from getting work in Topanga because some were setting up encampments in the mountains, creating a fire danger that threatened the community.

Smoking cigarettes and singing “La Cucaracha” around the old campfire might be fun, but let one spark hit the chaparral and it’s goodby, Topanga.

The passers-by were apparently self-appointed vigilantes who thought I might be an illegal Mexican due to the umber tint of my complexion and the shabbiness of my attire. I do not wear cashmere and silk when I water the yard.

The news story created an uproar in Topanga, which in itself is not new. We are often in an uproar over new construction, public nudity, defecating dogs and whether or not hug therapy is a valid form of communication.

But this was serious. Was Big Brotherism at play here? Was Topanga trying to close its borders even as the nations of Eastern Europe were opening theirs?

I’m all for shutting down camps and preventing fires, but take license numbers? Report them to a hot line?

Was this tight little mountaintop bastion of liberal thought and tolerant attitude at last giving way to the philistines who were reshaping the community with million-dollar houses?

Were we ready to lynch Mexicans and report neighbors to save our homes? Not me, amigo. Not me, neighbor.

Since that ominous announcement, there has been all kinds of backtracking by the Town Council. “I was misquoted.” “That’s not what we meant.” “The story had the wrong slant.”

It seems what happened was that the subject of illegal encampments was discussed, during which the idea of taking license numbers was broached. Thereafter, it gets confused.

One council member says yes, they were thinking about taking down the license numbers of individuals hiring Mexicans for yard work. Another says they only wanted to report contractors who hired workers by the truckload.

A third adds that the whole thing is only an option that will never come to pass.

The Topanga Hot Line has been in existence for 12 years as a way of informing locals about fires and floods. It was never intended as a snitch line, and I doubt it will ever be used as such.

But what bothers me is even passing flirtation with the notion that the end might justify the means: you round up Mexicans to save the town.

It isn’t without precedence. You round up Jews to preserve racial purity. You round up witches to save the children. You round up heretics to save Christianity.

The Topanga Town Council took no action on the “option” to save the town. It should have. It should have said publicly and clearly that Big Brotherism would never be an option and human rights would never be trampled for the sake of human convenience.

If it doesn’t speak out quickly, we will all come to know that an old, easy-living part of L.A. is gone, and a hard, new expediency has emerged in the mountains.