Gangs of Cave Creek
by Evan Christopher

On my first trip to Cave Creek, I wondered why so many Hispanics were hanging around on the street. Could it be Coppola was filming a sequel to his hit movie and calling it “Gangs of Cave Creek,” or was something more insidious in the air? When someone told me they were looking for work, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Where I come from back East, groups of loiterers conjure ominous imagery as they are more likely looking for opportunity– but in the form of victims rather than labor. I find it refreshing that these gangs of loiterers in Cave Creek are seeking honest, self‑sustaining  employment, and not the more nefarious type of work I associate with gangs.

In light of my East Coast perspective, just what is so bad about all these people looking for work? Isn’t this search for work one of the central posits of capitalism, the economic system we embrace in the United States?

Thus, it seems these hunters of labor are only following the American way, which last time I checked was to improve one’s lot in life as well as the lot of one’s family. For this I can’t blame them. Obviously they wouldn’t be congregating in locales where no work was to be found. Somehow these “illegal” people milling about Cave Creek Road must function positively in the local economy, else they’d long since been run out of town, or have cast off for greener pastures. Certainly no crime waves have befallen the area since I’ve been commuting to Cave Creek, so therein lies not the problem.

So what gives with all this border state complaining?

Like much of America, my city and this area are not that much different. This country has a history of accepting newcomers, (which in America seems to mean discrimination against each new wave of immigrants until the next group arrives, hence moving the preceding ethnic group up a ladder rung closer to the tolerant masses and firmly placing the arriving group on the bottom).

When viewing the history of Boston, we could easily look to the waves of Europeans–even freedmen during Abolitionist times–who made their homes there. Not always was and is everyone singularly happy with each other, but in due time, all settle in. It seems that Arizonans (and citizens of other border states) are simply participating in cyclical American history.

I wonder if that’s where Native Americans went wrong–they failed to check the Pilgrims’ papers and refuse entry with their own Minutemen. If the Indians weren’t so welcoming and forgiving of the undocumented Pilgrims, we’d have no America, (and gadzooks, no Thanksgiving, for which generations of turkeys and Detroit Lions’ fans could be thankful). What I’m getting after, without minimizing the heinous eradication of America’s indigenous peoples, is that this country has always been a grudgingly welcoming land. So why does this latest immigration grudge run so deep?

From an inexperienced viewpoint of logistics, I grudgingly wish border states the best of luck with the implausibility and impossibility of sealing the border. Native Americans didn’t have much luck with denying entry to newcomers; border states will arrive at the same results.

For the complainers who can’t cease flapping their gums–politically or otherwise–and reap the benefits of this era’s wave of integration, I suggest, while not necessarily condoning, investigating the law Hazelton, Penn. has enacted. Hazelton has passed a law that A) fines landlords $1000 a day for renting to illegal immigrants; B) for five years suspends licenses to businesses that employ illegal immigrants; and C) requires city documents to be in English only. Individuals seeking to rent a dwelling have to apply to the city for a residency license, and submit to an investigation of citizenship status.

Other cities have followed suit in modified versions, and the response from ethnic groups, particularly the Hispanic groups who feel targeted, has been that of anger. In addition, the legality of the laws will soon be challenged in state and, one surmises, federal courts (costing taxpayers a bundle of money, another characteristic of the American way). But the enaction of these laws at least cuts down on the complaining and the all too common political posturing we see in this state of all the anti‑immigrant forces. So while not supporting the effort, I would suggest organizing, collecting signatures, and putting a similar referendum on the ballot. And then all this cancerous palaver can be put to a vote and put to rest, one way or another.