MacArthur Park is in the Ramparts Police Division, one of the poorest areas in LA, probably. I was dressed in business casual and obviously lily white, but I got smiles and headnods from the locals - whereas in a poor neighborhood of native-born African Americans I usually get sullen stares and the occasional jibe.
The streets were bustling with thousands of Spanish speakers and crowded with dozens of small businesses.
I noticed a mural painted on the wall of a hot-sheet motel two blocks from the park.
The mural depicted a young man of Mexican heritage in BDUs kissing the girl he had obviously left behind when he went into combat.
The only flag I saw in that picture was the US flag, and the whole scene as depicted was an unironic, completely sentimaental celebration of courage and triumphant return.
I hope my children and grandchildren live in a vital community where people paint murals celebrating the return of our victorious troops rather than live in a depopulated, demoralized, self-hating dead end of a place like some communties I've seen on the Eastern seaboard - communties where patriotism is a dirty word and you're more likely to see two men antiquing together than a man and wife out for an evening walk with their five young children.
Fine. I love Latino people. As a rule (and it's hazardous to stereotype about anyone) they're just as you say. But they also vote heavily Democratic. And their political influence is turning California into a socialist, Mexican-style state. If you want that for America, keep cheering Bush's open-border policy, because we're going to get Mexican-, Californi-style socialism from sea to sea, as a result. (That's why Bush's policy is happily supported by Teddy Kennedy)