Here is my report on today’s situation locally

Just for background: I live in a small resort town 140 miles from the border… Until the last few years, despite our proximity to the border, we didn’t have a big hispanic population locally(other than old Spanish families that have been here for 200 years, who are ‘more American than most ‘white’ Americans’).

Population has about doubled in the last few years. And about 3/4 the new people are Mexicans; I won’t say that any particular percentage of them are illegal, but in public places like stores, restraunts and etc. you are just as likely to hear Spanish being spoken as English around here these days, and a lot of them seem to be unable to speak any English at all, or at least very limited English.

Looking around today I only saw three restraunts closed. One of the local Italian food places and the other two were Mexican food places that are both owned by a (nice) ‘Green Carded’ LEGAL Mexican alien family; But they employ mostly non-english speaking and very likely illegal aliens.

Post Office was just about deserted mid-afternoon and late afternoon when I went by…. Usually about 10 people in the lobby at mid-afternoon, 15-20 people late afternoon.

Stopped by a convenience store for a soda; Business there is normal. There was a young, non-English speaking hispanic man in front of me in the checkout line purchasing eight money orders… So it looks like ‘remittances’ are continuing apace today.

The ‘tourist traps’ along the mid-town main road were pretty quiet, but that may just as likely be because it is Monday and we are ‘between seasons’ here… But it seemed to me to be a little quieter there than I would have expected.

The bars seem to have about 1/2 the normal vehicles in their parking lots this early evening. Restraunts are very busy though.

Spent a lot of time in Walmart. It was pretty crowded; about 90% of the normal number of shoppers; Under normal circumstances, at any given time about 80% of the customers in the store are obviously Mexican. Today though, only about 10% of them for the three hours I was there were obviously hispanic.

A lot of people were pulling /pushing two full carts, so I wasn’t the only one doing the ’shop til you drop’ thing… So, I don’t think that our local Walmart will notice much of a reduction of income today despite a 70% reduction of one particular group of customers. There is a Subway sandwich shop inside Walmart here… It was packed, about double or triple the number of people there as is usual for the time of day I was there.

Had to go to Checker Auto Parts twice this afternoon. Seemed to be fewer people in there than normal, but the cashier said that business today is about normal in terms of money coming in, even though fewer people.

The grocery store was about as busy as normal, but noticably fewer ‘Hispanic faces and voices’ than is common there. Cashier said that she didn’t notice any less money going into the register than usual.

Lot of new local street and sidewalk repair / construction projects begun today. I noticed quite a few ‘obviously Hispanic’ people working on those projects as I drove around town.

Didn’t see ANY Mexican flags today; Usually see several (bumper stickers and the like) on any given day. No protesters, picketers or immigration related signs etc. were to be seen.

Normally, I see at least five (and often many times that) Mexican license plates on vehicles on any given day. Didn’t see any today.

I did get a compliment on the embroidered US Flag patch on my shirt pocket from a cashier at the drug store; That was about the only nationalistic, cultural or ‘patriotic’ thing I saw or heard locally today.

LegendHasIt on May 1, 2006 at 10:40 PM