Uno de Mayo, or a day without a breakfast burrito
So unless you live under a rock, you have heard about the protests against HB 4437.
HB 4437 calls for a lot of things, and whatever your opinion on “the immigrant problem,” it’s worth reading the actual proposal. After reading through the bill, I’m actually surprised there’s not a section calling for RFID chipping of every person that crosses the country’s border. Perhaps they left the door open enough under the rubric of “Biometric data enhancements.”
It seems to me that what’s upsetting people the most is the F-word. Even if you believe in a hard stance against illegal immigration, you might consider the toll this would take on our courts. And I wonder, in these cases, what would truly constitue a jury of peers.
I dearly wish I had been in the thick of the protests today – I love nothing more than taking pictures at events like this, but today was a sick day. I made it out of the house this morning to bring my broken car to the mechanic. He’s what you might call a pink immigrant, hailing from one of those English-speaking countries where they have charming accents. On the way out, he wished me “happy uno de mayo!”
Before heading home, I stopped for lunch at a restaurant in Brentwood, Literati. I ordered my usual breakfast burrito, and the girl at the counter gave me an apologetic look. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but we’re not serving breakfast right now.”
I pointed to the sign that promises breakfast all day.
“I’m sorry, but we are so short staffed today,” she said. “We’ve only got two people in the kitchen so we can’t do breakfast.”
I suddenly realized why this was the case, and said “WOW. That is pretty cool.” A huge smile came over her face.
The place was chaotic, and it was really fascinating to watch the reaction of the different customers. The north of Wilshire ladies (you know, the More-Important-Than-You set) don’t much care for waiting for their lattes, and I watched more than one lady undertake her very own personal protest march, right up to the counter to loudly demand her chicken salad for which she had been waiting over HALF AN HOUR.
My substitute sandwich took a long while to come out, but as I watched a nervous-looking white kid busing tables, I enjoyed that wait. I loved the thought that the guys who normally take care of those details were off doing something more important than folding my breakfast burrito: American citizens, participating in free speech.
That is more than pretty cool.