Demographics are Destiny
“Why did you make the right choice?” Rob echoed the question, "Because demographics are destiny, my friend.”
Juan threw his empty can into the recycling box. Standing, he indicated that he was ready to tackle the fence project and that Rob should join him. “What do you mean?”
Rob stood and looked around for his work gloves, “What it means is that in just a few years, this will no longer be a majority white country. You’re the wave of the future, Juan. This is your country now.”
My country. Juan liked the sound of that. “So, what’s gonna happen to all you gringos when Mexicans are in charge?” Juan joked. He marked a spot on the ground beneath the string line and then planted the post-hole digger. Shoving the string aside with his leg, he brought the tool down on the desert soil with a thump.
“It’s not just Mexicans,” Rob leaned on his shovel. “It’s the entire Latin-X community. It’s also Muslims, Africans, Native Americans, LGTBQIA+, women and students. All of them together in an intersection of shared interests. That’s what will give us the power to transform this country.”
Juan shook his head as he kept rhythmically excavating. The chunk and swoosh of his efforts rapidly deepened the hole. "Rob," he uttered his neighbor's name with a thick layer of sarcasm. "You come to all my parties and drink all my beer. Have you ever heard a real Mexican say ‘Latin-X’? That’s not how we talk about things.”
“You’re gonna have to learn to start talking that way,” Rob insisted. “Look, it’s a numbers game. We’ve got the world we have now because countless white European settlers illegally colonized this country, stealing Turtle Island from the indigenous peoples. The only way we take it back is to combine forces to vote them out of office and create a fairer, more just government.”
Juan's post-hole digger slammed down again, hitting something hard and unyielding as if he had slammed the blades down on concrete, “Turtle Island?” The shock rang through his shoulders. He slammed the digger down again and again, jarring his gritted teeth, loudly ringing each time.
“It’s the original Iroquois’ name for what we now call the United States,” Rob explained. “What’s the matter?”
“I hit caliche.” Caliche is the dense, calcium-filled soil common throughout the American Southwest that is extremely difficult to dig through.
“Figures,” Rob commented in disgust. “Want me to get the hose? Maybe some water will soften it up?”
“No.” Juan had been working in Arizona for decades. “That just makes it worse. I’ve got a Makita in my truck. It’ll break through this easy.”
The Makita power hammer was a small electric jackhammer. Juan carried it up from the truck while Rob ran an extension cord from the back of his house to the fence line. Before Juan began, he asked, “Are you telling me that Democrats really believe America is an island on the back of a turtle?” His friend’s perplexing idea deepening the creases on his weathered brow.
Rob laughed. “No, not really,” he explained. “I’m just acknowledging the lived truth of a subset of Americans whose voices have been ignored and erased for hundreds of years. Just like the history and traditions of Hispanic-Americans have been overlooked and ignored. If we’re ever going to build a more just and equitable society, we must learn to embrace everyone’s truths as equally valid and sacred.”
Juan depressed the levers, activating the powerful tool. He leaned his weight into it and felt satisfaction as the steel tip chiseled its way through the hardpan. It also gave him an uninterrupted moment to consider what Rob was telling him.
“That’s a pretty good point,” Juan said, standing up and stretching his back. “Different kinds of people need to be able to vote together, even if they don’t believe all the same things.”