Thread: Border Street: Neighbors wring hands, hunt answers

This is part of a series all segments can be accessed at the URL.

http://cfapp2.rockymountainnews.com/arc ... derstreet/

I think this is a picture of what is going on in neighborhoods all over this country. The culture shock of the illegals that move in and treat our country and neighborhoods "just like home" with loud music, gangs and chickens are putting citizens over the edge.
There is no assimilation, only alienation and people being forced to leave their neighborhoods to get away from it.
Ineffectual, lazy government workers and elected officials that don't have the moral courage to do their jobs are putting the very people they have sworn to protect in jeopardy by showing preference to a horde of law breaking looters that shouldn't be here in the first place. Just my opinion.


Border Street: Neighbors wring hands, hunt answers

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August 24, 2006

Tina Griego
email | bioAugust 24, 2006
To her surprise, the Fed Up Neighbor finds within herself a small bubble of hope. It probably has something to do with the neighborhood inspector who took her call and listened to her complaints, but, perhaps, the Fed Up Neighbor thinks, it is not yet time to give up on Border Street.
Perhaps a new effort, focused and persistent, will prove more fruitful than those of the past. Against her better judgment, the Fed Up Neighbor allows this previously untapped reservoir of optimism to carry her to a neighborhood meeting, where she decides she will lay it all out - the noise, the trash, the traffic. She will ask for help. She will leave out the story of the sweet-faced boy, maybe 10 years old, she found playing in her driveway as if it were his private playground.

Nuh-uh, she told him, this is not your property.

"He called me a bitch," the Fed Up Neighbor says.

"I told him, 'Do it again, I'll call the police and then you'll see what a bitch is.' "

The boy pedaled away, but his compatriot later returned. "Miss," he said, solemn. "He called you a bitch again."

The Fed Up Neighbor calls Longtime Eddie and the Teacher and the Teacher's mother and leaves messages about the meeting, but she does not count upon them showing up. Relations between them are cordial, but communication sporadic. Messages swapped among them are sometimes returned and sometimes not, because life is busy and because they have worn themselves out in their mutual frustration over the state of Border Street.

The Teacher has even thought about finding a lawyer who would work for free and sue the city. For what exactly, she's not sure. Negligence, maybe. Or maybe, she tells her mom, we should just invite the mayor over for dinner one Saturday night. We could all have a pleasant conversation over the neighbor's music. The thought makes them both grin.

The Fed Up Neighbor arrives at the meeting early and takes a seat next to an acquaintance from another block. The acquaintance is more pointed in her criticism of Mexicans in general and illegal immigrants in particular than the Fed Up Neighbor.

The Fed Up Neighbor has long taken the position that she doesn't care how people come here as long as they follow the rules once they do.

This sentiment is shared by most of the Americans on Border Street, and so their conversation tends to revolve around whether the continued violation of certain rules, say the loud music at night, is an example of their Mexican neighbors' ignorance or arrogance. Most times, they come down on the side of arrogance.

The Fed Up Neighbor looks up to see Longtime Eddie and the Teacher and the Teacher's mom.

"Vecinos!" she calls out, smiling, relieved. Neighbors.

After some general meeting housekeeping, it's the Fed Up Neighbor's turn to speak.

"I'd be careful about the race thing," the Teacher warns.

"If you bring up color, it automatically puts us in that category, and that's not what this is about."

I know, the Fed Up Neighbor says, and she goes to the front of the room.

"I've been in the neighborhood about 33 years and I have never seen it as bad as I have in the last two or three years," she begins. The Coordinator, who, standing off to the side of the room, is running the meeting, could have picked it up from there.

She's heard it so many times from so many residents. No one returns my call. The laws aren't enforced here like they are elsewhere. My taxpayer dollars matter, too. I'm tired of . . . I'm frustrated by . . . What do I do?

The Coordinator says later: "I think in the past five to seven years it has really gone downhill. We have been broken into so many times we can't count anymore. We have been set fire to three times. The last time burned some paneling and a wall. Thank God, the arsonists in our neighborhood aren't that intelligent. They used motor oil as an accelerant."

The Coordinator shares many of the residents' concerns, including the feeling that they are ignored.

"I think it's like we have two Denvers. And we live in the other Denver. The Third World Denver. Yeah, the people in charge send in occasional diplomatic missions, but they don't want to stay here.

"I think our political leadership just doesn't know what to do . . . But, we're here.

"We're not going to be able to find some new world if we screw this one up. It seems like someone has to say that: We live here and we are going to try and make it better."

The Coordinator says none of this during the meeting. She listens to the Fed Up Neighbor - "clothes on the fence, loud music, beer cans, kids walking around smoking" - and waits for the inevitable plea. She does not have to wait long. The Teacher stands and turns to the room: "We're just looking for additional ideas. Does anyone have any suggestions?"

Someone mentions block parties, and someone else suggests making complaints in writing so that there is a record, and yet another person talks of the need for more art and music for children.

After the meeting, they gather around the Border Street residents and offer more ideas, and though most are not new, the Fed Up Neighbor feels good and the little bubble of hope inside her swells the tiniest bit more.



Border Street is a portrait of a Denver street changed by immigration, legal and illegal. griegot@RockyMountainNews.com

This is part of a series all segments can be accessed at the URL.

Linky?

Never mind, found it for ya.

Border Street Archives: http://cfapp2.rockymountainnews.com/arc ... derstreet/

Thanks for bringing this to our attention Newmexican. I don't usually read The Rocky Mtn News, even though I live in greater Denver.

Thanks Sindawe!!! I lost that one.