MAKE 'EM SNEAK, A SYMPATICO SPEAKS OUT ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
August 2006, Verde Valley, Arizona
I drove up from Phoenix and met Moses Sands in Camp Verde. It was about midday. We usually
would sit outside during our taping sessions, but I saw his Dodge pick-up in front of a popular greasy
spoon near the fort, went in and found him in a booth.
It was hot, so I didn’t complain when he suggested we stay inside. I took out the tape recorder, he
looked at it and sort of waved it away. He didn’t want to talk about the Constitution just then, as
something else was clearly on his mind. I moved it down to my side but kept it on anyway.
“You know, there’s a natural order in the world that no one can put into words…but you sure can tell
when it ain’t there. The Constitution always was about this natural order. The Japanese call it wa.
Harmony. We could hire a hall and let people come in just tell us what they see wrong with the way
things are going in America and it would end up just being ‘There’s something that just ain’t right here.’
Almost all the dis-ease people have with the world comes down to a very few simple things being out
of kilter.
“Take sneaking. Sneaking’s not an aberration. It’s not chaos versus order. It’s part of the natural
order of things. If you’re going to cheat on your wife, you sneak. Hypocrisy is the price vice pays to
virtue. A Frenchman said that. In fact, sneaking, especially among males, is often the reason we break
rules. I remember you once told me that the last good cigarette you ever smoked was the one you
smoked just before your father saw you one. Remember? Sneaking carries a taste all its own.
“There was a lady living in West Sedona who a friend told me needed some help. We met at a coffee
shop and I told her I’d come by to sit down and discuss her finances. Sitting on the back stoop we
watched her little boy running in and out of the apartment next door. She reached over and whispered,
‘They’re gay. Ones a librarian, the other a fire fighter.’ Wasn’t hard to tell which was which when they
came out. ‘But they’re nice,’ she added, 'and they give Daniel cookies.'
“A few weeks later, I had to be in Phoenix and asked if they wanted to drive down. I'd take 'em to a
city park I knew on Indian School. I thought it would do the little boy some good. They didn’t have much.
There was a lot of cars parked for that time of day but I thought nothing of it, until we walked up to the
park entrance and inside I spied hundreds of people milling around. Loud music was blaring, and
toward us came walking two fellows, arm in arm, one with a big ugly t-shirt that said something about
‘suck’ while the other, about six-two, dark curly hair with one of those perpetual five o’clock shadows,
a grin ear to ear, wearing the cutest pink strapless chiffon dress you ever saw. All I could think about
was the Friday night promenade in Singapore. The tall one was sort of awkward in those high heels,
but they were coming straight toward us, so I immediately stopped, grabbed the kid’s and mom’s hand
and wheeled the other way. ‘I think we came on the wrong day.’
“But his mother cut loose from my hand and went off charging into those two fellas like a banshee,
screaming, kicking and cussing, about exposing her child to ‘such filth’. She wiped the smile clean off
that tall man’s face.
“I had to jump in to rescue those two men, and drag that lady back toward the car. But there you
have it. I thought about that episode this morning, and things being out of harmony, for here was a lady
who was perfectly comfortable with gay people right next door who did their carrying on behind closed
doors, but would have none of it out in the open air. It was as if her nose was being rubbed in
something she didn’t approve of but had come to tolerate…which I think is an attitude peculiarly
American.
“See how sneaking keeps the world in its natural order.”
He stopped, and reached in his pocket for a pack of Toms.
“Why I bring this up is that I stopped in at the Black Canyon (VB: a local restaurant famous for its
huevos rancheros and Coors beer breakfasts) this morning and met up with a local union contractor,
who cornered me on his favorite subject, illegals. I’ve known him for years. He organizes most of the
labor for the state union contracts in the area. Not a very pleasant man, I believe his family escaped
from Tennessee when the Yankees burned down the last bawdy house in Nashville. He has one of
those white goatees as if to say, if the Bonny Blue ever does rise again, he’ll be ready.
“He has a one-track mind and only talks about the illegals and how he’s the only red-blooded
American in the valley for pointing that out. Boastful sonuvabitch.
“And it does hurt some times to have to agree with someone so disgareeable, but I have to agree
with him about illegals…but only to a point. We found that point this morning. He always had a raw
edge about the illegal immigrant I never liked. It could be that he hated scab labor in general, or maybe
it was their color. Or maybe I’m just prejudiced against men who look like they just stepped out of a
daguerreotype. I can’t say, but after nodding in agreement to just about everything he said for fifteen
endless minutes I closed out the conversation by saying, ‘I guess the only difference between me and
you is that I like ‘em.’ He looked at me curiously, and I picked up the check and went to register.
“You see, you have to understand how educated middle class Mexicans think about these poor
gutter trash. If I lived down there and was treated just a cut above an animal I’d be finding a way to
sneak up here, too. I’d run the gauntlet. So would you.
“What I don’t like is they’ve been made to feel they don’t have to sneak once they’re here.
“It’s true you know. The natural order of things is for a fellow to sneak across the border, over the
river, under the fence, in the back of truck, then meet up with old pards from back home who’s already
here, and start taking work in whatever is the mode for illegals for that part of the country. It’s
understood there’s always someone out there looking to catch you, so you’ll always be looking over
your shoulder.
“Is that the way it is anymore? When you see four or five Mexicanos getting coffee at a 7-11,
laughing and going on, you figure the chances are that at least two are illegal…only which two? So, as
a citizen you do nothing…but you come away with the harmony of your world turned upside down
because there they are, open and notorious, rubbing your nose in it. For most people now, this is a
daily occurrence. It's like that lady in the park.
“I admire the hell out of those people, for just like Europe’s gutter trash that ended up building this
country, those illiterate peasants and peons the 'better' Mexicans believe are animals, will build a
significant portion of the next generation in this country.
“But show me the American who likes to see them strutting into a school demanding their rights for
public education, or medical care. Or that Sunday swagger at the flea market. You know the picture,
for it’s everywhere now, from New England to Portland.
“The benefit of the old way we made citizens out of the east Europeans is that they were made to
know that all the wonderful things they had, and would have in generations to come, were because of
their hard work, perseverance and all the doors the Constitution held open for them.
“These people are intentionally denied that…not just by those miserable Mexicans who’re sending
then up here, but by our own government, who wants them to believe that all good things come from
Washington, or Sacramento, or Santa Fe. Not the Constitution. Not the inherent desire of all men to be
free. That's the rub.”
“I’ve never liked the idea of the fence. For one, it’s ugly. It disrupts the harmony of the landscape just
as much as five illegals strutting their cleanest T-shirt with their girl friends on Sunday. You look at
either one and you just know something’s not right here.
“I have my own idea. People forget that many of the people who came here from east Europe had no
papers either. Where do you think the name ‘wop’ came from? They all got off the boat at Ellis Island
and went through a screening process before being admitted in to US.
“I’m in favor of a giant Ellis Island facility along our border…actually two. One for coming and one for
going. You want to come to America?...all you have to do is go to that one place, stand in line, submit
your papers, and go through about 3-4 days of screening, while agents check you record back
home…then have a doctor look down your throat. They wrote the book on this in New York a hundred
years ago. It still works, although I never understood why bureaucrats never want to try something's
that tried and proven. Anyway, that’s Ellis Corral del Norte.
“This is sort of what Bush wants to do anyway. I just think it should all be through one turnstile. But
the problem Bush is having is convincing the Mexicans to go back home and re-enter. The other
problem is what to do with all the Mexicans (probably 2/3rds if the truth were known) just take their
chances with the way things are now, staying here as illegals. There doesn't seem to be any real
incentive to make them go back. I didn't say 'induce' or 'bribe' or 'persuade'. I said 'make."
"And there doesn’t seem to be any real interest at enforcement at the local, state or federal level
once the illegals get a few miles beyond the border. If a local cop picks one up…some states and
cities won’t allow it, by the way…government officials don’t seem to want to take them off their hands.
Still, everyone says once caught, the return should be swift.
“I disagree. Oh it would be quick justice to get them processed onto a bus in Omaha then back to the
Rio Grande. But once there, make 'em take 90 days, not four, to out-process. Maybe even longer. Lose
their papers...if they even have any. Build a giant holding facility…Ellis Corral del Sur para Deportees, a
few hundred miles from the northern turnstile, and stall ‘em. I promise you, within five years, there will
only be a trickle coming through that place. We can shut it down quicker than Fort Fizzle, for once the
illegals in the US find out what will happen as they get out-processed, they’ll be running for the border
to make that legal turnaround.
“My view is that any person who wants to come here to get a job, build a new life, and send money
back to momma in the Sierra Madres, will prefer this door over sneaking across the river…especially
once he knows about the Deportee Ellis Island sending ‘em back to Mexico.
“We don’t need an expensive program like Bush and Congress wants. We won't need to hire all those
bureucrats. Just a bunch of people with ink pads and stamps.
“Locally, the near term objective is not so much to catch them…but make ‘em sneak. Go
underground, out of sight. Sneaking itself is a kind of jail, for they can never put down too deep a root
anywhere. If busted they don’t even get time to go back to get their things in their room. I promise you,
if they know there’s an easy way to come in so as not to have to risk that kind of disruption in their
lives they’ll do it. Their own best interests will assure the neat and orderly flow of labor into this
country. And it will disrupt the gang-leaders on the other side. It will empty a whole bunch of rice bowls
in Chihuahua and Sonora.
“And it will empty the rice bowls of all those organizations who claim to be simpatico but have other
political agendas, and keep trying to convince Mexicans they can live open and notorious and illegal.
They will be put out of business. Personally, I’d like to prosecute them.
“And finally, I’d like to see Congress belly up and right the wrong-headed notion that anyone born in
the US is a US citizen. That was never clearly the law, but more a legal custom that arose out the 14th
Amendment’s curing of the slavery issue arising out of Dred Scott. Children born to illegals should not
automatically be citizens….”
As with all Moses’ conversations, he suddenly stopped, and went onto another subject.
August 2006, Verde Valley, Arizona
I drove up from Phoenix and met Moses Sands in Camp Verde. It was about midday. We usually
would sit outside during our taping sessions, but I saw his Dodge pick-up in front of a popular greasy
spoon near the fort, went in and found him in a booth.
It was hot, so I didn’t complain when he suggested we stay inside. I took out the tape recorder, he
looked at it and sort of waved it away. He didn’t want to talk about the Constitution just then, as
something else was clearly on his mind. I moved it down to my side but kept it on anyway.
“You know, there’s a natural order in the world that no one can put into words…but you sure can tell
when it ain’t there. The Constitution always was about this natural order. The Japanese call it wa.
Harmony. We could hire a hall and let people come in just tell us what they see wrong with the way
things are going in America and it would end up just being ‘There’s something that just ain’t right here.’
Almost all the dis-ease people have with the world comes down to a very few simple things being out
of kilter.
“Take sneaking. Sneaking’s not an aberration. It’s not chaos versus order. It’s part of the natural
order of things. If you’re going to cheat on your wife, you sneak. Hypocrisy is the price vice pays to
virtue. A Frenchman said that. In fact, sneaking, especially among males, is often the reason we break
rules. I remember you once told me that the last good cigarette you ever smoked was the one you
smoked just before your father saw you one. Remember? Sneaking carries a taste all its own.
“There was a lady living in West Sedona who a friend told me needed some help. We met at a coffee
shop and I told her I’d come by to sit down and discuss her finances. Sitting on the back stoop we
watched her little boy running in and out of the apartment next door. She reached over and whispered,
‘They’re gay. Ones a librarian, the other a fire fighter.’ Wasn’t hard to tell which was which when they
came out. ‘But they’re nice,’ she added, 'and they give Daniel cookies.'
“A few weeks later, I had to be in Phoenix and asked if they wanted to drive down. I'd take 'em to a
city park I knew on Indian School. I thought it would do the little boy some good. They didn’t have much.
There was a lot of cars parked for that time of day but I thought nothing of it, until we walked up to the
park entrance and inside I spied hundreds of people milling around. Loud music was blaring, and
toward us came walking two fellows, arm in arm, one with a big ugly t-shirt that said something about
‘suck’ while the other, about six-two, dark curly hair with one of those perpetual five o’clock shadows,
a grin ear to ear, wearing the cutest pink strapless chiffon dress you ever saw. All I could think about
was the Friday night promenade in Singapore. The tall one was sort of awkward in those high heels,
but they were coming straight toward us, so I immediately stopped, grabbed the kid’s and mom’s hand
and wheeled the other way. ‘I think we came on the wrong day.’
“But his mother cut loose from my hand and went off charging into those two fellas like a banshee,
screaming, kicking and cussing, about exposing her child to ‘such filth’. She wiped the smile clean off
that tall man’s face.
“I had to jump in to rescue those two men, and drag that lady back toward the car. But there you
have it. I thought about that episode this morning, and things being out of harmony, for here was a lady
who was perfectly comfortable with gay people right next door who did their carrying on behind closed
doors, but would have none of it out in the open air. It was as if her nose was being rubbed in
something she didn’t approve of but had come to tolerate…which I think is an attitude peculiarly
American.
“See how sneaking keeps the world in its natural order.”
He stopped, and reached in his pocket for a pack of Toms.
“Why I bring this up is that I stopped in at the Black Canyon (VB: a local restaurant famous for its
huevos rancheros and Coors beer breakfasts) this morning and met up with a local union contractor,
who cornered me on his favorite subject, illegals. I’ve known him for years. He organizes most of the
labor for the state union contracts in the area. Not a very pleasant man, I believe his family escaped
from Tennessee when the Yankees burned down the last bawdy house in Nashville. He has one of
those white goatees as if to say, if the Bonny Blue ever does rise again, he’ll be ready.
“He has a one-track mind and only talks about the illegals and how he’s the only red-blooded
American in the valley for pointing that out. Boastful sonuvabitch.
“And it does hurt some times to have to agree with someone so disgareeable, but I have to agree
with him about illegals…but only to a point. We found that point this morning. He always had a raw
edge about the illegal immigrant I never liked. It could be that he hated scab labor in general, or maybe
it was their color. Or maybe I’m just prejudiced against men who look like they just stepped out of a
daguerreotype. I can’t say, but after nodding in agreement to just about everything he said for fifteen
endless minutes I closed out the conversation by saying, ‘I guess the only difference between me and
you is that I like ‘em.’ He looked at me curiously, and I picked up the check and went to register.
“You see, you have to understand how educated middle class Mexicans think about these poor
gutter trash. If I lived down there and was treated just a cut above an animal I’d be finding a way to
sneak up here, too. I’d run the gauntlet. So would you.
“What I don’t like is they’ve been made to feel they don’t have to sneak once they’re here.
“It’s true you know. The natural order of things is for a fellow to sneak across the border, over the
river, under the fence, in the back of truck, then meet up with old pards from back home who’s already
here, and start taking work in whatever is the mode for illegals for that part of the country. It’s
understood there’s always someone out there looking to catch you, so you’ll always be looking over
your shoulder.
“Is that the way it is anymore? When you see four or five Mexicanos getting coffee at a 7-11,
laughing and going on, you figure the chances are that at least two are illegal…only which two? So, as
a citizen you do nothing…but you come away with the harmony of your world turned upside down
because there they are, open and notorious, rubbing your nose in it. For most people now, this is a
daily occurrence. It's like that lady in the park.
“I admire the hell out of those people, for just like Europe’s gutter trash that ended up building this
country, those illiterate peasants and peons the 'better' Mexicans believe are animals, will build a
significant portion of the next generation in this country.
“But show me the American who likes to see them strutting into a school demanding their rights for
public education, or medical care. Or that Sunday swagger at the flea market. You know the picture,
for it’s everywhere now, from New England to Portland.
“The benefit of the old way we made citizens out of the east Europeans is that they were made to
know that all the wonderful things they had, and would have in generations to come, were because of
their hard work, perseverance and all the doors the Constitution held open for them.
“These people are intentionally denied that…not just by those miserable Mexicans who’re sending
then up here, but by our own government, who wants them to believe that all good things come from
Washington, or Sacramento, or Santa Fe. Not the Constitution. Not the inherent desire of all men to be
free. That's the rub.”
“I’ve never liked the idea of the fence. For one, it’s ugly. It disrupts the harmony of the landscape just
as much as five illegals strutting their cleanest T-shirt with their girl friends on Sunday. You look at
either one and you just know something’s not right here.
“I have my own idea. People forget that many of the people who came here from east Europe had no
papers either. Where do you think the name ‘wop’ came from? They all got off the boat at Ellis Island
and went through a screening process before being admitted in to US.
“I’m in favor of a giant Ellis Island facility along our border…actually two. One for coming and one for
going. You want to come to America?...all you have to do is go to that one place, stand in line, submit
your papers, and go through about 3-4 days of screening, while agents check you record back
home…then have a doctor look down your throat. They wrote the book on this in New York a hundred
years ago. It still works, although I never understood why bureaucrats never want to try something's
that tried and proven. Anyway, that’s Ellis Corral del Norte.
“This is sort of what Bush wants to do anyway. I just think it should all be through one turnstile. But
the problem Bush is having is convincing the Mexicans to go back home and re-enter. The other
problem is what to do with all the Mexicans (probably 2/3rds if the truth were known) just take their
chances with the way things are now, staying here as illegals. There doesn't seem to be any real
incentive to make them go back. I didn't say 'induce' or 'bribe' or 'persuade'. I said 'make."
"And there doesn’t seem to be any real interest at enforcement at the local, state or federal level
once the illegals get a few miles beyond the border. If a local cop picks one up…some states and
cities won’t allow it, by the way…government officials don’t seem to want to take them off their hands.
Still, everyone says once caught, the return should be swift.
“I disagree. Oh it would be quick justice to get them processed onto a bus in Omaha then back to the
Rio Grande. But once there, make 'em take 90 days, not four, to out-process. Maybe even longer. Lose
their papers...if they even have any. Build a giant holding facility…Ellis Corral del Sur para Deportees, a
few hundred miles from the northern turnstile, and stall ‘em. I promise you, within five years, there will
only be a trickle coming through that place. We can shut it down quicker than Fort Fizzle, for once the
illegals in the US find out what will happen as they get out-processed, they’ll be running for the border
to make that legal turnaround.
“My view is that any person who wants to come here to get a job, build a new life, and send money
back to momma in the Sierra Madres, will prefer this door over sneaking across the river…especially
once he knows about the Deportee Ellis Island sending ‘em back to Mexico.
“We don’t need an expensive program like Bush and Congress wants. We won't need to hire all those
bureucrats. Just a bunch of people with ink pads and stamps.
“Locally, the near term objective is not so much to catch them…but make ‘em sneak. Go
underground, out of sight. Sneaking itself is a kind of jail, for they can never put down too deep a root
anywhere. If busted they don’t even get time to go back to get their things in their room. I promise you,
if they know there’s an easy way to come in so as not to have to risk that kind of disruption in their
lives they’ll do it. Their own best interests will assure the neat and orderly flow of labor into this
country. And it will disrupt the gang-leaders on the other side. It will empty a whole bunch of rice bowls
in Chihuahua and Sonora.
“And it will empty the rice bowls of all those organizations who claim to be simpatico but have other
political agendas, and keep trying to convince Mexicans they can live open and notorious and illegal.
They will be put out of business. Personally, I’d like to prosecute them.
“And finally, I’d like to see Congress belly up and right the wrong-headed notion that anyone born in
the US is a US citizen. That was never clearly the law, but more a legal custom that arose out the 14th
Amendment’s curing of the slavery issue arising out of Dred Scott. Children born to illegals should not
automatically be citizens….”
As with all Moses’ conversations, he suddenly stopped, and went onto another subject.
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
