Hearing their voices over the sound of the surf is difficult. But their enthusiasm is palpable—she hovering precariously over a tide pool, camera poised just above water’s edge; he hopping awkwardly, gleefully from rock to rock, unwittingly revealing the eleven-year-old spirit still alive and well in his middle-aged body.
“We’re from the mountains.” He beams as I get closer. “We go crazy over this stuff.
“There’re three big starfish in that pool.” He points. “And another one over there. And that’s a great spot for a picture. You can see all the way through.” He gestures to a crack cutting an exuberant gap at the base of the massive cliff that rises to its craggy edge hundreds of feet above us, its base forming the pools we’re observing.
Besides another couple sunning back on the beach and grandparents, each filming a child frolicking in the sudsy surf who’ve now left, we’re the only ones who’ve ventured down the half-mile blackberry-brambled path to this sweet spot just outside Crescent City.
We exchange pleasantries. When he asks where I’m from, I simply say I live in Santa Barbara; the city, where I still sublease an apartment after all, fits better into people’s worldviews as home than does “my van.” They’re from nearby Grants Pass. I move past them, appreciating the friendliness but looking to commune solo with this vast wealth of abundant life. And I’m glad when they turn the other way, heading back along the beach toward the trail.
He calls something I can’t quite make out but understand is about Santa Barbara—a question I can tell is about something “bad” from the expression on his face. I assume he’s asking about the fires or mudslide that wreaked havoc and took 21 lives in the area last winter and respond accordingly, prepared to accept his sympathy on behalf of my neighbors.
He shakes his head and raises his voice to be heard over the waves colliding with the rocks and seabirds’ calls. “Are you getting overrun with illegal immigrants down there?”
I’m taken aback. Is it the whiteness of my skin that makes him take him such audacious leeway? What’s his point? Is he hoping for a last moment of camaraderie before we part ways? Oh how we love the beautiful tide creatures. Oh how we bemoan the deplorable brown people.
Microbursts of emotions, all incongruous with the serenity I’m here for—disgust, confusion, sorrow, anger, fear, hopelessness—pierce the blissful glorious-sun-and-berry-full-belly-induced haze I’m basking in.
“No,” I say and turn away.
Do you mean are people whose countries of origin aren’t the United States living in my community—gifting it with diversity, familial strength, strong work ethic, children? Are some not documented, many of whom have come because of a system we’ve all perpetuated whereby “they” have come at “our” explicit invitation to perform the menial labor (at far-too-low wages) we need to keep the very fabric of our society intact, and who now life in terror of being ripped from their homes and families? Yes.
You know what we thankfully don’t have overrunning us? Racist, ignorant rednecks.
Why would you say that? What are your concerns related to immigration?
Where did your ancestors immigrate from?
Would any of the responses that flooded my brain the rest of the afternoon mattered? Would having spoken of my beloved friend family (from Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Lebanon, Argentina, France, Spain, Amsterdam, Peru, Guatemala, Mexico, South Africa, Portugal) in Santa Barbara accomplished anything other than what his comment did for me—show him that I am the “other”? What would?