By Sara Ellis
The Minutemen are in trouble for trespassing. As they stand in front of a high rise on the corner of Bristol and Town Center Drive, a bemused security guard attempts to shoo them off of a small, but strategically elevated patch of lawn. “This is private property,” he says, “We don't allow any signs.”
A few of them argue about having gone through the “proper channels,” but the signs move to the pavement, only to move right back up the second he's out of sight. It's a mini version of their own paranoiac fantasies: an undermanned border overrun by a noisy army of scofflaws, all hell-bent on getting their way.
The California National Pro-America rally, held in Costa Mesa on September 10th, is one of a series being organized all around the state by members and sympathizers of Jim Gilchrist's Minutemen Project, a group of California residents that, being too old for the military or not-quite-ready for paintball, have brought it upon themselves to keep millions of, as they put it, “mean,” “leprosy-ridden,” “job-stealing” Mexicans from crossing the border into the United States.
“Mean” is the favorite adjective of this gang, which has been organized today by Sandra Sweet of the Gilchrist's Angels, a group of women “20 and counting” whom Sweet says represents the “softer side” of the Minutemen. “We focus more on campaigns,” she says. While Sweet is pleasant and congenial, this softer-side is hardly visible in the woman standing behind her, who is about as delicate as the wild-eyed Mercedes McCambridge in Johnny Guitar: “Mexicans are the meanest!” she rails, “They grab the most! They take the most!”
Ray Herrera, a local carpenter and official spokesperson for the Minuteman project, concurs. “They're mean,” he says “They'll attack you and spit on you. They hit me three times with two different vehicles.” In fairness, Herrera was run over in broad daylight while snapping photos at a day laborer site, but all of this talk of inherent unkindness is sounding eerily similar to that kid in elementary school who tattled and whined his way to daily playground beating. Are we talking about border security here or a Lindsay Lohan film?
Rhonda Deni, a San Diego native, who holds a sign in one hand and uses the other to keep her son from stepping out into traffic, is refreshingly stoic. “I'm pretty much in danger but I don't care. I've been attacked twice by day laborers. I educated (a potential employer) on the federal laws and they lunged at me.”
Today, however the only clear and present danger is the handful of lonely expletives being hurled from passing cars. Honks of support for these people are far from few, perhaps because the 9-11 signs bring a brightly colored dash of confusion to the event; the rally being a not-so-slick attempt to connect the events of September 11th, 2001 to California's immigration woes.
“Number one,” says Sweet, “we want to celebrate the heroes of 9-11, the police officers who risked their lives for people. Number two: we want people to know that not much has changed although our president is fighting this war on terror. Five years later we're not enforcing our immigration laws. (The hijackers) were visa overstays. Had they been enforcing the laws they would not have been able to commit those murders.”
Other attendees are less patient with the president than Sweet, “I used to be Republican” says Ron Weller. “He's going to go down as the worst President. I voted for him the first time, but the guy has got a head made out of a cement block.” Like others in the group, Weller is freshly fired up by Pat Buchanan's recently published State of Emergency, a book that compares the influx of Mexican immigrants to the fall of Rome. “They're going to turn us into Mexico,” he says. I'm fighting for you.”
Such claims to a grand historical narrative, however, don't fit on people like Buchanan, who railed on WBUR last week about Mexican “bedbugs,” and they certainly do nothing to flatter an open-dislike for those in need. “Eventually,” says Sweet, you can only take in so many people. Especially poor people.” Clearly, the mean-spirits are already on this side of the border.
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The Red, White & Blue Meanies
