WEDDING PICTURES

Pan Pacific Park, which stretches for several acres between 3rd St. and Beverly Blvd just west of Gardner, replaced three L. A. landmarks: Gilmore Field was a long-time home of local minor league baseball; Gilmore Drive-In ran the latest movies for families and lovers; and Pan Pacific Auditorium hosted everything from the Ice-Capades to the Circus. All gone now.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice park. It has rolling green hills, a soccer filed, a baseball diamond, and a huge sand-box for kids. Scattered around the park are a couple dozen benches, tables, and barbeques. The whole thing is surrounded by a walking path, dotted with strange little exercise stations. Plus, there is a small community center where young boys play basketball and old men play gin.

Tucked away in a small corner of the park is a stark reminder of man’s inhumanity to man. A set of stairs leads up to a Holocaust Memorial where six, triangle-shaped, monolithic slabs of black granite rise perhaps thirty feet in the air. Etched into the granite is a brief history of the NAZI rise to power and their near-genocide of European Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and the mentally ill. The memorial is surrounded by a tall fence of black bars and barbed wire. I suspect that most people who use the park are unaware of the memorial, but for those who take the time to look, it is a powerful presence.

The other day my wife and I were walking through the park when we noticed a large group of people standing on the stairs of the memorial. It was a wedding party. The best man and half a dozen ushers wore purple tuxedos, the maid of honor and bride’s maids wore identical lavender gowns, while the bride wore white. As we approached, it became obvious that a professional photographer was taking their official wedding pictures. The group was Hispanic, spoke entirely in Spanish, and was blissfully unaware of the meaning of their wedding picture backdrop.

Aside from the humor of the moment (for us, not for them), I think the incident says something about America’s immigration policy. Non-English-speaking immigrants are nothing new. At the turn of the 20th century there were vast neighborhoods in New York where if you didn’t speak Italian or Yiddish, you couldn’t function. But when immigrants ventured outside their neighborhoods then, they were forced to speak English if they wanted to survive. Now, we seem to accommodate everyone.

The ballot in Tuesday’s municipal election was printed in six different languages, which strikes me as an oxymoron: You have to be a citizen to vote; attaining citizenship requires a functional knowledge of English; so, why should ballots be printed in anything but English? American policy should be simple - if you don’t care enough about this country to learn its language, you don’t get to vote.

America’s strength comes, in large part, from being a nation of immigrants. No one here is a native American, unless they happen to be a Native American. We all come from someplace else. But here we are now, all together, for better or worse, and the language is English. Those who wish to be full time residents should learn the full time language, and those who refuse should not be offered the benefits of citizenship.

a foot on either side

Bart Braverman