Guest voice — Little Village "America is the promised land"

     Longtime reader Ephrain Silva has been keeping me posted about developments in his Little Village neighborhood. I asked him if he wanted to write something for the blog, and he submitted this:

      It was nice to get out and about today...cool and crisp and the leaves and all of that stuff. I did manage to walk a stretch of 26th between Kedzie and Pulaski. In a normal place and time, it would have been jam-packed with all types of people. But this is no longer a normal time nor place. I kept expecting to see the Trump storm troopers coming through like bats out of hell...Bovino riding high with his Kevlar helmet. But not today. They are probably busy terrorizing some other neighborhood. And in America under Trump terror sells...and it sells well.

     I expected to hear a lot of anger out there and yes it there alright...there is more than enough hate, anger and fear out here. It shouts out mostly under bated breath is the feeling I get. I think most of the folks who are under the scope out here though have different sort of feeling. I think they feel betrayed and sad. They aren't stupid or ignorant as the Administration portrays them. They knew when they came here by whatever means that they were risking it all for one shot at the dream. They knew they would be marked and possibly hunted someday. Sadly that day has come. But they also put down roots and worked their asses off. They raised their families, paid their taxes, bought homes and through it all kept believing in the promise of America. America may have turned its back on them.... But I do not feel that they have turned their backs on it. They agree that criminals should be expelled and they too want safer neighborhoods and to not feel like prisoners in their own communities because of crime. No different than anyone else.
      The larger issue I believe is the terror. The terror emanating from far away....in DC and in the halls Congress and everywhere else in this land that feels it okay to eat away at communities they feel are less than themselves. They were fed a steady meal of bullshit, and they ate it all up. Then they gave the keys to the kingdom to these folks with the badges and the masks and the guns and said make America great again. We have always been and maybe we are destined to always be a great experiment. A place where everyone has a chance to be what they can make of themselves and to dare to believe that they can make a better life here than where fate set their feet the day they were born.
      I do not know if we will survive this presidency as one nation. I do not know if the terror on these streets and in many other communities is making America great again. But I do know that in the hearts of those to whom this terror is directed, no amount of pressure is going to stop them from believing that America is the promised land for them and they will continue to resist, to work, to live as best they can.