I wrote yesterday about the protests and conflict happening in Irving, Texas. It concerns me deeply. The sides are no closer to resolution and tempers are flaring. The situation promises to escalate and violence is a possibility.

I know Irving. I drive through it several times a week. I would not, I might add, consider driving through it with a broken headlight,speeding or running a red light, as the police are diligent about traffic and safety violations.

I like to cook Tex-Mex food, and there are some spices and ingredients that have only recently become available in the local megamart. Until recently, I have driven to Irving to shop in an ethnic market there, a large market deep in the barrio, enigmatically called Cost-Plus, which caters to the local Hispanic population.

When you drive into the parking lot you cross the border into another world, the world of those who live under the radar of the immigration authorities.

The first thing you notice is that there are not a lot of cars. You think the store must not be very busy for the huge parking lot to be so empty.

As you walk to the front of the store, your ears are filled with the sounds of loud music, with lyrics in Spanish played by women with boom boxes sitting behind tables covered with hundreds of cd's for sale. You will not hear a word in English until you leave.

You smell the pungent aroma of fajitas cooking on the grill outside the door. The man tending the grill has a Styrofoam cooler filled with fajita meat he has marinated at home all night. As the meat comes off the grill, he slices it and serves it in tortillas placed in the eager hands of those waiting around the grill.

Others wait before the table of the man and woman serving up roasted ears of corn. The man takes them from the roaster and peels back the charred husks. The woman applies the desired condiments and hands you your corn. Or if you prefer, she will cut the kernels from the ears and mix them in a Styrofoam cup for you with any of the condiments. Many of her customers don't have enough good teeth to bite the corn from the cob.

There is a staggering array of condiments... things I would not have thought to put on corn... A very pregnant young girl mutters a few phrases in Spanish. The woman expertly slathers the next ear of corn in mayonnaise. She sprinkles it with ground chilles, salt, Parmesan cheese and a squeeze of lemon juice and hands it the young pregnant girl.

The girl, heavy with her coming child, fades quickly into the crowd, casting frightened looks at me... a bit of Anglo flotsam floating in this Hispanic sea. Likely she left her family and friends in Mexico days ago to make the attempt to bring her child into the world in my country, not hers....

Every day she eludes capture by Immigration and deportation brings her one day closer to the birth of her child and the guaranteed American citizenship that birth certificate brings him or her. The young Mother-to-be will hide in the community until she is well into labor and then go to the county hospital so the birth can be documented.

She has received no modern prenatal care, but the local midwife and cuerandero have given her clay to eat for the baby. The clay helps to rid her of intestinal worms, but also absorbs what few nutrients are present in her system making her more anemic and tired.

Poor maternal nutrition and lack of prenatal care lead to a higher than average rate of birth defects in these children.

I go in through the doors to the store...

To the left is a long table. Young girls work cutting up fruit and vegetables and putting them in large cups for sale.. People buy them and sprinkle them with chille sal limon... a mix of powdered chilles,salt and lemon... I select a bottle of the spice mix... it is fabulous sprinkled on cantaloupe and is one of items I have come to purchase.

To the right is the kitchen area where unidentifiable Mexican food items are being cooked. The smell of old grease hangs in the air. It clings to the walls. The filth of the place is appalling. Grime coats all surfaces.

Next is the seafood cart.... Frozen boiled shrimp are thawed in open pans and served in bowls covered with Valentina, a prepared hot sauce. The Valentina is kept in a grimy plastic bucket sitting on the floor next to the cart and ladled upon shrimp as necessary. Flies pause to nibble the thawed shrimp and sip from the rim of the bucket of Valentina.

I go past the seafood cart to make an obligatory stop in the ladies room... It is definitely a place to hover, not sit.

Coming out of the ladies room I enter the merchandise part of the store. I am faced with signs explaining the system. Strangely, the signs are written in English, a language which no one in the store, other than me, speaks or reads. The signs explain that there is a price marked on the products. You will be charged that price, plus a surcharge of 20%. If you buy more than $20 your surcharge will only be 19%. A $30 purchase entitles you to a 18% surcharge... and so forth and so forth... until you reach the smallest surcharge amount... a $200 purchase rates a 10% surcharge. The prices on the shelves start out higher than the prices at local grocery stores. I guess it does not really matter what the sign says as the customers can not read it anyway.

The next set of signs explains in Spanish that with a $30 purchase the store will provide you and your purchases with a car ride home, which explains why there are so few cars in the parking lot, even though the store is crowded with shoppers. Most have walked to the store and will get a ride home.

I go on through the bakery with the open air tables laden with sweet pastries. They are not wrapped and flies are feasting. I go through the produce department and wave my hands before my face to chase away the fruit flies and gnats.

I move swiftly through the store and find the canned chilles I want and the dried spices. I walk past the hot plates... a large variety, sold to families who share houses... one family to a room. They buy their own hot plates so they can cook in the privacy of their room....

I walk quickly past the meat and seafood department. The smell is heavy and oppressive. Rotten meat, stale blood and old fish...

I stand in line to check out. I watch as the people before me in line check out their groceries. They chat away in Spanish to the cashier and when she has totaled their purchases, they open their wallets to her and she extracts the required bills. They hold out a hand full of change and she takes the needed amount. I think to myself, "These people do not understand the money well enough to pay for their groceries" and I think of the complicated surcharge system.

I watch as the cashier short changes two people in front of me, frustrated as I don't have enough Spanish to argue with her, and from past experience I know that no one in the store speaks English. It is owned, managed and run by Hispanics who speak no English. I can't watch the change making before me.

I turn around and behind me is a woman with a beautiful infant. I smile at the baby, notice the dried deer eye carefully tied to the child's wrist with a red thread and quickly reach out to touch the child's face. It is a superstition that must be honored. The dried deer's eye and red thread are to protect the child from the evil eye. If you look at a child and admire that child you must touch the child's face to protect it from jealous Gods... If you don't you are considered some sort of witch and the mother will be frightened that something bad will happen to her child...

I learned this the hard way after being chased through the parking lot by an angry couple who demanded that I touch their child's face. She was a lovely little girl, about six months old. We had smiled at each other.....

Fortunately there had been a woman nearby who spoke enough English to explain that I had not fulfilled my obligation to dispel the wrath of the Gods....

Finally, it is my turn to pay for my spices. I count my own money and walk out the door. The security guard nods at me and there is a collective sigh of relief behind me... That strange Anglo woman has left the building.

I walk to my car and cross the border to return to my world.

I watch the news about the protests in Irving and reflect upon my experiences in the barrio community. The filth. The squalor. The fear. The isolation. The abuse of trust. The cheating.

The glorious life of the illegal alien living under the radar.

Why would any one who cared about these people want to perpetuate this way of life?