The San Antonio Light
Shadow of law, light of reason
Wednesday ,February 3, 1988
by Steven G. Kellman
"He speaks better English than I do." conceded C. A. Stubbs about fellow panelist Henry Cisneros. "That's the nicest thing you've ever said about him," noted Fred Friendly, the interloper from New York who had obviously boned up on local bones of contention. -
Friendly, former president of CBS News, moderated a public seminar at UTSA Saturday on education and the media. The mayor, the professional skinflint and 14 other notables were seated around a table shaped like a horseshoe, though they generated minimal manure. Equalization of expenditures, consolidation of districts, creation of magnet schools and augmentatiom of teacher salaries were the focus or the afternoon's deliberations, but Friendly warmed up the proceedings by raising the issue of English as official language.
Though the Texas Republican Party endorses the concept, even Bill Clements dismisses official English as fatuous. Almost every panelist concurred, contending that enshrining into law what is de facto reality - that English is the dominant language - serves no constructive purpose. But the fact that it and innocuous programs in bilingual education continue to provoke earnest rhetoric points to an essential question lurking behind it all: What kind of a nation are we? Behind the question of national identity is an attitude toward immigration.
Brazil and Israel conceive of themselves as havens and celebrate the diversity of their populations, whereas Albania and Japan are homogenous societies, inhospitable to intruders. Despite a history of restrictive quotas and discrimination, the United States is a nation of immigrants, strengthened by its motley origins. Cisneros' grandfather spoke Spanish, and fellow panelist Nelson Wolff's German, and both now speak for a vibrant city and to the value of variety. Porous borders are salubrious for the collective complexion.
Yet there are limits to how much anything can absorb before It is saturated. A century after the closing of the frontier, millions still flock to this country. Many of them are undocumented, but "In the Shadow of the Law," produced by Paul Espinosa at San Diego's KPBS-TV, documents four cases. It will be broadcast tonight at 11 on KLRN-TV.
Many of those now in the United States were born In Cambodia, China, Korea and the Philippines. Refugees slip into the United States to escape violence in Salvador and Guatemala, But the film chooses four Mexican families who have sneaked across the border near Tijuana and have been living in Southern California, in the shadow of the law.
Though Victor Gamez, for example, has been in this country since 1972 and has worked his way up to supervisor of an avocado ranch, a simple outing to the beach with his wife and five children cost him arrest. "Without papers," laments Benita Vasquez, a maid in La Jolla, "you have to tolerate everything." For 16 years, she and husband Ignacio have felt the daily fear of discovery and deportation. When you live In the shadow of the law, your life is darkened by blackmail and humiliation. To regularize their status, the Vasquez family paid $5,000 to a man they mistakenly thought was a lawyer. They dared not expose his fraud, lest he turn them in to the immigration authorities.
That unctuous charlatan has the chutzpah to appear on camera, but he is the sole villain in "In the Shadow of the Law." Everyone else, including INS Deputy Director Cliff Rogers, Sen. Pete Wilson and the neighbors who fought to keep their friends from deportation, appears to mean well. It is the complex situation that creates suffering. Narrator Carmen Zapata avoids histrionics, allowing the details of human misfortune to speak for themselves.
"In the Shadow of the Law" might have elicited stronger sympathies by focusing on political refugees for whom the United States is the only alternative to death. Instead, its four families could have continued living in Mexico, though not as well as we expect to here. Amalia is a single mother who gave up her job to care for a handicapped daughter, but the others are hardworking believers in the North American dream.
"In the Shadow of the Law" humanizes the shadowy demographics bedeviling the immigration debate. What makes the law's shadow seem more chilling is that the illegal aliens profiled are all attractive and personable. The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act Improves the situation for most of them. Other, more shadowy figures continue to mass at the border, and tonight's program only begins to raise questions about the economic, political and cultural consequences of their presence.