| 20 July 2006 Bringing it Home I know that America does not float serene in a sovereign sea. You know it, too, whenever you get in a cab, or creep up to the cashier in a parking garage. I do not think I thought about it as much when I lived in the suburbs, and was better protected from the environment in my car. But living close to the District has changed all that. Little El Salvador is just a few blocks away from Big Pink, and a day-labor pick-up point operates at the corner of Pershing and Glebe Roads, two thoroughly Anglo names that have absolutely not relationship to the current composition of the neighborhood. That could be changing again, since a large block of the ubiquitous garden apartments near the day labor site has suddenly sprouted chain link fences around the perimeter. The signs warn us that new duplexes will be created from the shells. The walls will be retained, but the new luxury condominiums will be retailing, "starting from the low $900s." With the announcement from the Federal Reserve that interest rates may have hit at least a temporary ceiling, perhaps we will see the continued gentrification of the Buckingham neighborhood. Economic pressure on Little Salvador may be relocated out past the ring of sprawling strip cities that used to be a day's ride from the capital. Maybe it will look like Europe. Paris and Amsterdam still look like they always have, comfortable. What you cannot see is the ring of immigrants that surround the central cities. The Europeans never abandoned their great cities as we did here, with the exception of Chicago and San Francisco. Here in northern Virginia we are all jammed together, until the money separates us once again. Detroit is an extreme case, as it has been in almost every way. The close-in suburbs surround an overwhelmingly African American city. But those once-bedroom communities are filled with vibrant populations of Middle Eastern origin. The largest Chaldean community outside ancient Chaldea is there. A survey in 2003 revealed that the Motor City middle-east population is both large and diverse. Almost forty percent are Lebanese or Syrian, more than a third are Iraqi, and ten percent each are from Palestine and Yemen. Over three quarters of the people were born elsewhere. Tensions are rising over the conflict back home. Or overseas, depending on how you look at it. I got a note yesterday from an old pal who described competing demonstrations between Lebanese and pro-Israeli groups after the current exchange of rockets and bombs began. Each demonstration boasted over ten-thousand attendants. I am not going to get all xenophobic on you. I'm pretty cosmopolitan, and can order a beer in ten languages. Besides, it is way too late to get uptight over what we have done to ourselves. We have always been a nation of immigrants, and other generations viewed the latest wave of people off the boat with a jaundiced eye. I remember my Dad describing a high-school group that formed in his little New Jersey town before the Second World War. It was called the "German-American Bund," mimicing some organizations that were springing up in the German-American community. That was so long ago that the term meant something. The kids thought, if they gave it a second, that the Fascists had some style, what with the special shirts and high-stepping. When a newly-arrived European kid asked the school Principal if the Fascists that had chased them out of Germany were active there, a meeting was held, and the club promptly changed its name to the Rover Boys. I do not see that sort of flexibility these days, though if you do you might drop me a line saying that everything is fine where you live. One does not give up the land that gave you birth, not even if you embrace a new one. The Americans who are seeking to get out from under the rockets and bombs on the Levant today include many Detroiters. One of the IDF officers who supervised the launch of over a hundred 155mm rounds into Lebanon yesterday grew up in suburban Detroit, and graduated from the University of Michigan. He moved to Israel shortly after graduation. He was quite popular with the correspondents on the television, since his English is naturally better even than Bejimin Netanyahu. The young officer may be conflicted; but if so, he seemed remarkably serene about his mission. I mention this only in the context of the fact that while we are riveted on the flying steel in Lebanon, it appears that Ethiopia is preparing to invade neighboring Somalia to de-fang the militiamen of the Islamic Courts. The Islamists already occupy most of southern Somalia, and are close to seizing the rest from an impotent UN-sponsored government. It will really be an act of self-defense, which is what they say about the Israeli operation. The Somali Islamists have been allied with separatists in the Oromo region of Ethiopia. The issue, from my perspective, is one that is much nearer to home. There are Somalis and Ethiopians who work the Concierge desk right here at Big Pink. There has already been some unpleasantness with former personnel who were from Eritrea, solved by ethnic cleansing of the shift schedule. If things get out of hand in the Horn of Africa, there could be repercussions. Right here in the lobby. Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra |