Many in the Valley may feel detached from last week’s massive immigrant marches and the whole larger issue of the impact of illegal immigrants on our economy. Most Valley businesses stayed in operation on May 1. A lot of housekeepers and gardeners still came to work here. Many commenting locally on the Day Without Immigrants only said they found traffic to be a little lighter on the freeway and some noticed ridership down on the Orange Line there wasn’t much attempt to engage in debate on the issue. I think it would be a mistake to read too much into the fact that the media couldn’t find immediate major impact on the Valley economy because of the action by immigrants. We’re not an island. We’re certainly connected to the rest of the area’s economy. Our businesspeople and other residents here know that illegal immigrants work here and hold many of the low-paying jobs that businesses might just find hard to fill with legal residents. We’re also connected to the ports and other industries in other parts of the city which were affected by the boycott. Any long-term boycott would certainly have an effect here. So why did things seem pretty quiet in the Valley? It just so happens that the marches on May 1 weren’t in the Valley. In other areas of the city is where the passion was centered. The more identifiable clusters of the illegal immigrant population are in other parts of L.A. rather than the more ethnically diverse Valley. It would seem logical that there would be more apparent impact in those areas. But the larger issue of what to do concerning border control should be of concern everywhere in this country and a solution should be logical as to economic ramifications, realistic as to the fact that millions of people can’t be deported and compassionate as to the fact that many of these folks are law abiding hard working citizens just wanting to get by. A compromise surely is warranted. Chamber Meeting Business Journal Publisher Pegi Matsuda and I met with several heads of local chambers of commerce in a meeting April 28 initiated by us to see how our newspaper could work more closely with these organizations and cover them better in our publication. Only about half of the two dozen chambers in our newspaper’s circulation area showed up. I find this disappointing. Disappointing because I can learn from the chambers as to business concerns of their members but also disappointing because I was reaching out in the editorial section of this newspaper to these organizations who generally do a good job of helping their members but certainly don’t have the resources to do all they want to do. I wanted feedback on how we can better print free information on their activities and get the word out about how they help businesses. But I only got feedback from half of them. Thank you to all who attended our meeting. Thank you for your feedback. It was thoughtful and useful.
