Things I Totally Don't Understand

I have just discovered something, and it disturbs me.

Apparently, I am the only person I know who does not actively hate Hispanic people.

I know Tim has issues with them--it's a gang thing; I know a lot of other people who have problems with their existence in this country for economic reasons, legal reasons, reasons of percieved unfairness. And tonight, driving her to pick up a pizza and some cigarettes, I had to explain to Squeaky--several times, and rather emphatically--why I didn't want to hear her "really, really funny" Mexican joke.

My mom came back from a family gathering a few weeks back to report that my aunt Linda--not my least-favorite one, but definitely not a very nice person anyway--was up in arms because of something she'd heard. Apparently some friends from their former neighborhood, which is adjacent to the Catholic cemetery where my father and my grandparents, among various other relatives, are buried, told her that "the Mexicans have picnics by the graves!!!" They were absolutely horrified at this; my aunt, predictably, was also disgusted. "It's disrespectful!" she insisted. (Talk about the mourners weeping louder than the bereaved--this is my aunt by marriage, and it's her in-laws buried there, not her parents. And none of her blood relatives are buried there, nor will any of her family end up there when the time comes. Yet she was the one making the squawk about it, from what Mom said.)

And of course, because one group of individuals from a certain culture has done one thing that upsets you, that makes the entire culture morally suspect, and from Mom's report, the conversation moved on to a wholesale bashing of Hispanics in general. (Ever notice how such conversations, even if they don't descend as far as ethnic slurs, always refer to the people in question as "Mexicans"? Thousands of years of advanced and highly differentiated cultures, all summed up in one word that's almost no longer the name of a nationality--in the hands of these people, it's more a pejorative, full of subtexts and Frito-Bandito stereotypes.) To give her credit, Mom was more disgusted by Linda and her whining than about the alleged atrocity of "picnicking" at the graves. Frankly, I've seen way more Caucasians do that than Hispanics, anyway.

I understand immigration is a hot-button issue, though there are days I think I'm the only one who holds my particular view*; what I entirely fail to understand, though, is the degree of animosity towards a group of people who are only making the same effort that most of us are making every day: to create a good, comfortable, reasonably-easy life for themselves and their families. I don't understand the hate.

But then again, I rarely do. I may not be a "people person", and I can't say I'm too fond of humanity as a whole, but that's a general thing, brought on by my own love of solitude; breaking it down any further than that, I can think of maybe one group of people I can honestly say I despise. ** (Individuals, however, are a whole 'nother matter; there are plenty of them I can't stand to be in the same room with. But that's because they're annoying, or bigoted, or controlling--not because they're white, black, red, brown, or yellow. (Orange, however--now THAT's a problem, because: lay off the fake tanner, okay? I don't CARE what the box says: it does NOT look natural.))

Overall, though, this realization kinda makes me want to look for an apartment in Pilsen.*** (After all...it WOULD insure that Tim and Squeaky stayed away....)

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*My view on immigration and the like: in my opinion, it's nothing to get up in arms about, since national boundaries should not be considered sacrosanct, since they're just man-made abstractions created by those in power at a given moment, carefully calculated to maintain their own best advantage without depriving the guys on the other side enough to instigate a conflict.

**In case you're interested? They're the ones who don't pull up close to the car in front of them, thus occupying TWO entire parking spaces and making it necessary for me to park nearly a mile from work under a viaduct with thirteen other cars, all of whose owners returned at the end of the day to find tickets attached to their windows, regardless of the fact that there was not a single, solitary sign or indicator that parking was not allowed there.

***A highly Hispanic neighborhood, with AWESOME food, on the near South Side of Chicago.