To Anglo political junkies:Where'd all those marching immigrants come from?

This entry started as a comment on dKos but seems substantial enough to post here. Besides, then I can lead with this wonderful photo from the LA Times of the immigrants in their hundreds of thousands streaming past Los Angeles City Hall yesterday.

We need to understand that there are more ways of knowing what is going on and more ways of doing "politics" than we assume. We've just seen it. I am lucky enough to be far less surprised than many by the wonderful demonstrations in LA and elsewhere in the last two days.

Some thoughts:

• When the Catholic and evangelical Latino churches get up a head of steam, their parishioners turn out.

• Spanish language media is powerful among its consumers. You may not have heard the news, but the immigrants did.

• Many immigrants come to this country with forms of political sophistication that are different from ours. In particular, they are not stymied by finding themselves inside a system that treats them like dirt; that's normal for politics as they understand it.

• For many Latino immigrants, politics is not a horse race. All the horses are corrupt. But they'll participate if the issue is what they think is moral.

• For the same folks, "immigration reform" is a moral issue. It is about their ability to keep their families together and do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. It is about their right as human being to the dignity of human beings. There are principles they will take risks for.

And so the rest of us get surprised, again.

Republicans and Democrats engage in immigrant bashing at their peril. These folks are the future of the country, regardless of what laws we enact. Some of the brighter bulbs know it.

Some Republicans fear that pushing too hard against illegal immigrants could backfire nationally, as with Proposition 187. Strong Republican support of that measure helped spur record numbers of California Latinos to become U.S. citizens and register to vote. Those voters subsequently helped the Democrats regain political control in the state.

"There is no doubt Proposition 187 had a devastating impact on the [California] Republican Party," said Allan Hoffenblum, a Republican political consultant. "Now the Republicans in Congress better beware: If they come across as too shrill, with a racist tone, all of a sudden you're going to see Republicans in cities with a high Latino population start losing their seats."

It would be great if ALL our politicians, especially fearful liberals, learned that lesson.