america is too big for small dreams, ronaldito

Marooned in Buenos Aires, reading of marches in support of undocumented immigrants across the US today, thought of Reagan with a twinkle in my eye and a tear running down my ventilator shaft.

“Greater Philadelphia Chinese in Unison to Oppose…” Suits and coffee cups and 3x5 American flags, greetings and introductions, sunken smiles, a “Justice for Mrs. Jiang” sign, script in Mandarin and Cantonese. In Atlanta, Mary clutching baby Jesus from a banner made flown as a sail, lolling above a desert of white shirts and reflective orange vests and those sidelong glances that say both MLK and “Nothing beats April in Atlanta”—these sentiments are immediately confirmed and sent to our editors, to our readers in Buenos Aires, Shanghai, Madrid. Folks set up their lawn chairs and applaud as the procession crawls forward, drinking iced tea and clapping slowly, everyone pacing themselves. Bloomington, Indiana, white shirts “Solo Pueblos” and “raise the minimum wage,” and again with the baseball hats, tri-colored Virgin, stars and stripes, a sixty-five year-old white man with owl’s glasses and a pancake grin, a man who hasn’t done this in how many years, holding his wife’s hand and stopping to tie his shoes. They don’t want to stay tied. And his wife, he says, his second wife, his wife of ten years, came from El Salvador and what do you expect her to do, and is she a criminal? He’s still smiling, those teeth have been there longer than I have been alive in this country, and they are as white as his shirt. Jonesborough, Tennessee, a rally on Main Street, Mexican and American flags, a black suit on a white marble platform. Here, a close-up—Tyler, Texas—“justice and dignity for everyone,” the white shirts are a thousand sheets falling across a brand new mattress, a pervasive scent of ‘straight from the…’
The Washington Monument and Twelve year-old Modesto Marquez Jr., of El Salvador, the Senators and Congressional representatives mostly on vacation, it being Easter and all. Today is Monday, April 10, 2006. And yes, “illegals,” sombreros, “criminalization.”
And of course, “It’s hard to say whether or not this may appear as legislation…” While others have painted “Derechos Para Los Immigrantes” and the BBC leads with the story, with Italian elections, with Bangladesh upsetting Australia in cricket but Australia not ready to call it a day.
From the Times: “they had learned of this rally from the radio station. For some people in the burgeoning Latino community, many of them undocumented immigrants who speak no English, it is their only link to each other, and to news about the world.
The last picture is a close-up, of course, low depth of field and a baby in a stroller, a baby with “No human being is illegal” in English, Arabic, Spanish, the mother refusing to give her name. “And I’m thinking of my parents and all my friends with papers.”
Five thousand in Miami, 350,000 in Dallas, 50,000 in San Diego. Those who have been here five years or more; those here two years or more and those with less than two years in the country.