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Fraggin'

By Bill Shunas

I wrote this mid-September, so I don't know what happened in the election.

What I do know is that one issue always comes up when these right-wingers are involved. I'm talking about immigration. They talk about the migrants taking jobs from the rest of us. And they slander. The slander often takes the form of innuendos about criminal activities, which are actually few and far between. Most often, these things are said by people with immigrants in their families.

I am a grandchild of immigrants of whom I am proud. Most of them, anyway. My grandmother was a peasant lady living in Lithuania. 1906, the Lithuanians revolted against their Russian oppressors and were easily put down. My grandmother, her brother, and her boyfriend left. They had to traverse a snowy forest to get to Finland, bribing Russian soldiers along the way. Eventually, she made it to the States and the Chicago area. My grandfather had some questionable health issues and was sent to Argentina. After six to eight months, he came here, and they were reunited.

Life here wasn't easy. She had two children. The youngest, my father, was a sickly infant. Gramma had a job cleaning downtown office buildings at night. Child care was only a dream, but she had to put food on the table at the same time she cared for my dad. So she made her own childcare. She put her child into a makeshift infant sleeping bag tied around him on one end and around her waist at the other. As she moved around scrubbing the floors, he slid along after her.

Gram saved a few nickels and opened a neighborhood store on the Southwest side of Chicago. This was when buildings in the city were sparse. Your next-door neighbor might be two or three hundred yards away.

This was during Prohibition. One of the things she sold was alcohol. She supplied the neighborhood, and the neighbors took care of her. When the revenuers tried to raid her, word got to her faster, and she would hide the still in the chicken shack, which was never cleaned. The feds would search her property. When they opened the door and got a whiff of the overwhelming smell of the chicken shit, they would decide to skip that part of the search.

There were millions of immigrant stories of those who came to this country. They endured hardships and persevered. They shaped our culture. Nowadays, some of the descendants of those immigrants are trying to keep out newer immigrants. The issue is being used by right-wing politicians who cater to the concept of "We got ours. Close the door." It also helps them that racism continues across the land. On our southern border, it's mainly brown people who are caught in limbo. And in Springfield, Ohio, the victims of racism are Black immigrants who are already settled. The history of immigration has people and events of which you can be proud and those that make you ashamed.

Romo
In January of 1973, the last large demonstration against the Vietnam War took place in Washington, DC. Barry Romo was to give a speech. He had recently come to Chicago to work in the National Office. We hadn't known each other. We said hello, got into my car, and headed out, driving to DC. We marched. He spoke. We socialized for a couple of hours and then headed back to Chicago, driving through the night. That meant we'd be driving through the night not having slept for 36 hours. We planned to drive until sleepy and, at that point, stop and wake the other one to drive another 25 minutes or so. Anyway, that's how we met and became friends. Maybe such an experience creates a bond.

So, I would like to salute Barry Romo for all he did to help keep VVAW relevant through the years and for his work to promote peace and justice. Open a beer, raise your glass, and salute a manly man.

Bill Shunas is a Vietnam veteran, author, and long-time VVAW member..

Pete Zastrow and Barry Romo presenting a VVAW painting to Vietnam/My (Vietnam/American) Friendship Society in Hanoi, Vietnam, May 1987.

Bill Davis (left), Mayor Harold Washington (middle), Carlos Cortez (3rd from right), Barry Romo (right) in Chicago, 1983.