Notes on a City of Others

They’re looking at me with suspicion again in Topanga. That’s because Joe’s Market was robbed recently by two Latino men who took the day’s receipts and tied up three employees.

Those who view with suspicion do not necessarily suspect me of having robbed the store, but due to my looks and the casual manner of my clothing, some believe I may be one of the day workers who gather across the street.

I have been asked occasionally by passersby, “How much for you work por favor?” utilizing a syntax meant to convey that they were interested in hiring me if my rates were reasonable. They lose interest, however, when I holler back, “Feefty dollar an hour please!”

Automatically, when there is a problem in Topanga beyond the usual annoyance of coyotes eating cats, the day workers are suspected. No one at this point feels they are eating our cats, but that’s coming.

The workers are Latinos, which is why many believe they either took part in the robbery or know who did. As a result, a move is afoot to kick them out of the canyon.

Oddly, a similar effort did not occur three months ago when two Anglos robbed the Fernwood Market, which is Topanga’s other grocery store. No one began muttering about getting rid of, say, the Danes.

That’s because California’s governor and two U.S. senators are making political hay by loading all our economic ills on the backs of Latino immigrants, thus stirring new hatreds and validating old hatreds toward those who migrate from south of the border.

As one woman put it to me recently, “I don’t care if they’re here legally or not. They’re not us. They’re Others.”

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By her definition, that’s anyone who doesn’t look, speak and act like her, although she is less inclined to lump Northern Europeans into that category.

I tried to explain that we were a city of “Others,” but it did no good. She stuck to her rusty old guns and insisted they must go.

This attitude has gained legitimacy ever since Pete Wilson declared war on illegal immigration. It was followed by Sen. Barbara Boxer’s proposal to send the National Guard to the Mexican border and Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s simplistic idea of charging $1 for each crossing into the United States.

They built their proposals on economic foundations, blaming Others for putting the country in the shape it’s in, just as Others have been blamed for domestic calamities since the first city-states took shape in the world 3,000 years ago.

Whether intentionally or not, Wilson, Boxer and Feinstein have stirred the haters who can emerge at last from the shadows of their own self-loathing and shower their antipathies on, right, the Others.

I have an example.

A few weeks ago I wrote of street vendors seeking legalization in the city. Most are Latinos trying to support themselves on their own.

Response to the column was disquieting. Letters from Palm Springs, Big Bear City, Fontana and throughout L.A. comprised scathing denunciations of “you fat greasy Mexicans” and promised to see us in hell.

We were to “go back where you came from” and take our “dirty little bastards” with us. We were to leave “white America” alone and live “in the filth of Mexico.”

Usually letters like this come from anonymous nuts, but these nuts have been encouraged to come into the light. The letters were all signed.

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There were so many telephone calls that they filled my voice mail system for days. One woman screamed with such intensity that only her obscenities came through clearly, and they are unprintable. But she did leave her name and telephone number.

I don’t mind being called a fat, greasy Mexican, even though I am prevented by a heart condition from eating fat, greasy foods, and I don’t mind talking dirty sometimes.

But I’m saddened by the climate of ethnic hostility that encourages the crazies to identify themselves, like it’s OK to hate Mexicans and whoever looks like one. It’s OK to blame them for whatever’s wrong anywhere.

I think that’s at work in Topanga now, where hatreds, thank God, are usually limited to a miserable few. But the few are vocal, and there is always a danger that they will gain adherents as they parade their animosities through the streets.

Recently I was asked by CNN if I felt that ethnic hatreds would be enhanced in L.A. by the immigration issue. I said no, that intelligence and compassion would win.

I still feel that way. But first we’ve got to stop thinking in terms of Others and concentrate on finding the beauty in that diverse conglomeration of humans that is amazingly, thrillingly . . . Us.