Immigrants foreign by birth, American by ritual

This is an interesting piece about how, even though immigrants are born somewhere else, they become American, especially when they get involved in politics. DP

by Hector Tobar

I went on a secret mission last week. Undercover and unannounced, I arrived at the little Art Deco cube that is Maywood City Hall.

Supposedly I had stepped deep into the heart of "alien" America. This is the city, after all, which in 2006 declared itself a "sanctuary" where undocumented immigrants need not fear arrest.

Last month, the leader of the sanctuary movement emerged victorious in a City Council recall election. On YouTube, I watched Felipe Aguirre celebrate his victory, addressing his followers with full-throated, populist bluster in Spanish.

I was expecting to see more Spanish-language fireworks at a City Hall that's seen its share of scandal in recent years.

But when I sat in the back row at the meeting of the Maywood City Council, I saw a ceremony that began with a sacred oath -- in English. "I pledge allegiance to the flag, of the United States of America, and to the republic, for which it stands . . . "

Aguirre, a Chicago native raised in Mexico City, is a burly guy with a thick mustache, and he's one of those rare people who speak English and Spanish with equal fluency. From the council dais, I watched him join in as loud as anyone, with his hand over his heart: " . . . one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

On this day of rituals, as we watch our new president take the oath of office, your humble columnist would like to take a moment to celebrate the many civic ceremonies and practices that unite us as a republic: from the pithy eloquence of the Pledge of Allegiance to the prosaic instructions of Robert's Rules of Order.

Maywood is an overwhelmingly Latino town tucked between the industrial neighborhoods of southeastern Los Angeles County.

Spanish is the dominant language of the streets, but allegiance to the rituals of the American republic remains alive and well -- even though a lot of people who've read this column in the first weeks of its existence seem to think the two can't coexist.
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.