Little Italy

The immigrants are rioting for the eighth day in Paris . They are burning cars, and causing disorder in some twenty jurisdictions around the vibrant heart of France . They are reported even to be shooting at the police, who have been instructed to be quite stern with them.

Rioting is nothing new for the City of Lights , of course. In the days of my youth, the barricades went up to protest the American war in Asia , and the manifold failings of the bourgeois state. But up to now, it has always been Frenchmen who stormed the Bastille de jour, led by Lady Liberty, her proud bosom unveiled.

This time Liberty would have to be wearing a burkha. The discontented are overwhelmingly from North Africa, and though many were born in France , they are defiantly not French.

It is going to be a long century for Europe , I think.

There is a certain smugness here. Eight days of rioting would be news, since it took less time than that to deploy the regular army after the hurricanes. But that may be due to the fact that our domestic malcontents are much better armed than they are in France .
The conference I was attending in San Diego  was attempting to deal with that, after the disturbances in New Orleans . I had an earnest conversation with a government guy about a new line of protective gear for firefighters that would include armor plate. It appears to be a growth industry.

I took a break from bomb disposal seminars and less-than-lethal deterrence strategies to go to dinner with an old pal across town, in Little Italy.

He was kind enough to show me the sights after a glass of mellow red wine in his luxury condo. The first stop was next to the historic fire station, at the white-washed Church of Our Lady of the Rosary. It is a relatively old place in a relatively new town, consecrated in 1925 on Columbia Street for the spiritual welfare of the Italian immigrants of San Diego . It is a magnificent little church, constructed in the Romantic-Genovese style. The oil paintings are dense, and of the highest quality.

They were done by Fausto Tasca, a noted Venetian artist from Los Angeles . The place radiates tranquility in the cool sea air.

When my pal and I looked in that evening, there was one woman in a pew down front, engaged in meditation or prayer. It was early evening, and the place was wide open.

The Italians first came here from Genoa , and they were mostly fishermen. The neighborhood could have been called Little Portugal just as easily, since the Genovese were followed by people from that country, and then Sicilians who also wrested a living from the blue water out beyond Point Loma.

They fished for tuna on the ships that were moored in the harbor, and a percentage of each catch went to build the church.

When I lived in this lovely harbor town, the neighborhood had been a bit down at the heels. There were two Italian grocery stores, a commercial laundry and a dozen auto-parts wholesalers. But if you walked a block up Cedar Street , and squinted just right, you could still imagine the women in black dresses sweeping up the stoops of the little white frame houses and the hoards of children in the street.

It is all upscale now, and there are just a few of the old timers hanging on. The gentrification happened since I left, almost ten years ago. The big housing bubble has brought luxury condos and smart professionals to the neighborhood and a big arch across India Street that says “Little Italy,” so you know where you are.

Drinking a grappa in a new restaurant after dinner, I looked around at the rich wood of the bar and thought about the waves of immigrants in this place. Yuppies now, a veritable rainbow of them. When I showed up to meet my pal for dinner, I was wearing a crisp Brooks Brothers shirt and khaki pants, not having had a chance to change after work.

He was wearing the same thing, and had the delicacy to change his shirt to one of a different color, so that we would not appear too obviously to be a couple and spend the rest of the night explaining we weren’t. Not that there is anything wrong with that, of course.

Before this wave caused the big real estate bubble, there were the people of Italy and Portugal who gave the neighborhood its name, and before them the Americans from back east who coveted the deep and protected harbor.

Before the Yankees were the Spanish. Cabrillo was the first of the Conquistadors to pass through these parts, seeking glory for himself and his King. His monument is on the Point. The Indians must have come here first, crossing over the Land Bridge from Siberia , or landing in saucers.

The bar had four different brands of grappa, a hallmark of a first-class establishment. The piano tinkled in the background, and the door was open to the moist coolness of the evening. The neighborhood has changed. It is trendy and fun.

“Do you think it will be this nice when San Diego is in Mexico again?” I asked my pal.

He said he didn’t know, though he is curious,. Part of his job is to know what is going on, and since I retired I don’t have to any more.

“I’m sure you heard that the Homeland Security Department announced a strategy to stem illegal immigration today.” I nodded and sipped some of the fiery aperitif.

“Yeah. They had a field trip to go look at the big fence down at the border this afternoon.” It is an impressive fortification that runs for a few dozen miles and then peters out in the desert. “But I heard the Secretary said it was too hard to protect 7,000 miles of border.”

My pal smiled thinly. “It has just pushed the illegals further east, to New Mexico and Arizona . The conditions are harsh out there. They say over four hundred have died trying to sneak over since October of last year.”

“That is a lot. That would make news most places.” We finished our drinks, and my friend picked up the tab. The bartender looked at us like we might have been a couple. I thanked my pal, and told him I would get the next one, whatever city we met in next time. We flagged down a cab outside, and I climbed in to go back to the hotel.

“The Secretary says his goal is to have operational control of both the northern and southern borders in as little as five years.”

“If you asked the French Minister of the Interior if he had a goal like that,” I said, pulling the door closed and lowering the window, “he would laugh in your face.”

Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com

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