There’s a little bit of Tijuana at the end of my suburban California block.
This is a relatively new development, but it’s beginning to wear on the neighbors, which, before anyone gets all in an uproar, are decidedly ethnically mixed.
There’s us, and we’re Jewish. Our immediate neighbors are a mixed white/Hispanic family and a Korean-American family. On the corner is a white couple. Across the street, we have a Pacific Islander family, a mixed white/Hawaiian family and a mixed African-American/white couple.
Like I said, mixed. Everyone is friendly. And none of them is pleased with this new development.
The consensus of opinion seems to be that a seemingly very large, extended family is renting the small house at the end of the block, but no one seems to be able to find a Spanish dialect anyone there admits to understanding.
Nevertheless, there is a fairly constant stream of Hispanic-looking people coming and going from there, and the incessant Mexican music blaring from the cars they seem to regularly be working on, leads me to believe the people there are Latino.
Which is fine.
Or it would be if they were just a little bit further removed from the old country way of life.
There are chickens on the front lawn. Roosters crow at all hours.
Someone there operates a peddle-powered concession stand featuring what looks like it could be fried pork rinds.
YYUUUMMM!
Someone rides this contraption down the block every morning and back every night.
No one else on the block seems to know where he sells whatever he sells, but I’m told he comes back with it empty most nights, so someone must be buying whatever he’s selling.
The cumulative effect of this crowd of folks and their Tijuana life-style, is to change the suburban American feel of our street.
It was a feel we were used to, and that we liked.
The situation has engendered political conversations — not necessarily about these particular people — but about the difference between immigrants, who are here intending to become American, and invaders, who are here to try and make America over in the image of the country they came from.
We’re hoping our new neighbors are the former, and that they’ll be receptive to hearing our concerns.
One neighbor said he believes there are a half-dozen or so of them living in the windowless shed in the backyard.
We think there may be a law against this.
We also think the chicken thing may be in violation of some city ordinance or other. But so far, no one’s taken the initiative to look it up.
Besides, I don’t think any of us really wants to get these people in trouble. We just want the middle-class-America-ness of our neighborhood restored.
I think what we need to do is find out who bought the formerly foreclosed-on property, and see if they can’t discuss the situation with their tenants.
That’s assuming these non-known-language-speaking folks are renters.
God-forbid they own the place. Then, I guess, we’d have to take another tack.

Have PoliticalMavens.com delivered to your inbox in a daily digest by clicking here