A new twist on Fight Club

The first rule of watching Fight Club -- try not to think about the plot holes in Fight Club. Naturally, I violated this rule the first and only time I watched it. The thing that kept running through my head was, "Gee, all of the people who supposedly hold these degrading jobs seem to be Anglos. I'm pretty sure in the real world a large fraction of these jobs would be taken by immigrants." I raise this because of the front page of the Chicago Tribune this morning: In a show of strength that surprised even organizers, tens of thousand of immigrants poured into the Loop Friday, bringing their calls for immigration reform to the heart of the city's economic and political power. What started as a word-of-mouth campaign, then spread through the foreign language media, grabbed the attention of the entire city by midday, as a throng 2 miles long marched from Union Park on the Near West Side to Federal Plaza. Police estimated the crowd as large as 100,000, making it one of the biggest pro-immigrant rallies in U.S. history, according to national advocates. Observers said the turnout could galvanize both sides in the immigration debate, launching a grass-roots pro-immigrant movement while provoking a backlash among those who want stricter controls. The trigger for the rally was a controversial federal bill that would crack down on those who employ or help illegal immigrants. But the broader message--carried mostly by Mexicans, but also by a smattering of Poles, Irish and Chinese--was that immigrants are too integral and large a part of Chicago to be ignored. This was the part that reinded me of Fight Club: As they transformed the Loop with their presence, immigrants made a powerful statement elsewhere by their absence. Without his immigrant employees, a Northwest Side body shop owner gave up and closed for the day. An Italian restaurant in Downers Grove relied on temps to cook and managers to bus tables. High school students walked out en masse.... Whole shifts of workers left their jobs to underscore the importance of immigrant workers. One server from an Italian restaurant came in his work tie and apron, draped with a U.S. flag. Construction workers, still wearing hardhats, came straight from their job sites. Clerks from the El Guero market in Aurora piled into the store's delivery van, riding on produce boxes. Alex Garcia and about 10 co-workers from a Joliet commercial sign company rode a Metra train to Chicago's Union Station, walked out to Union Park, and then retraced their steps as they marched back to the Loop. "Most people don't realize how much work we do, but it's part of their daily lives," he said. "We are putting up all the buildings and cooking all the food. Today, they'll understand." With Congress already set to enhance its ability to block foreign direct investment, I, for one, look forward to a reasoned, rational debate on immigration policy.