Right after enjoying a delicious lunch in Tijuana, my parents, infant son and I drove toward home in San Diego. It was November 4, 1980, the day Ronald Reagan was elected president.
To help with coverage of the event, I was assigned to night duty as a reporter for the San Diego Union. At the time, U.S. customs officials would decide on the spot whether you could be waved through ports of entry.
The officer at the booth where we stopped, looked us over and decided that my son was suspect. He was a few shades lighter than me and had blond hair, which required scrutiny. The officer directed me to a chain link fence and ordered me to park parallel to it. Further, I was to go into a small building where officials would run “a computer check” to determine if my son was born in San Diego.
I began walking towards the building, when a tall American official screamed at me that I wasn’t permitted to park where the car was. I tried to explain that I was complying with his co-worker’s order. Now in my face, the lanky, angry cop repeated his earlier command. This time he punctuated each work with a hard index finger thrust to my chest.
I lost my composure and yelled back for him to take his f____g hands off me. As my parents out of concern, rushed over, several other customs officers converged on us.
A squat red-faced cop accused me of disorderliness. It was apparent, he continued, that I did not understand the cops were of the federal variety and deserved respect.
I replied that the tall guy had effectively assaulted me. I also deserved respect. As taxpayer, I paid his salary.
“You don’t pay my salary Pancho, he said sneeringly. Now I flew into a blind rage. “Yes, I do, Elmer,” I said.
Pancho is the equivalent of calling a black man boy. My father, an El Paso native, lit into the guy with a barrage of obscenities. He called him every nasty word imaginable and said, “don’t use that Pancho bullshit with us.”
I saw the Pancho guy ball his hands into fists, and it felt exactly like every pre-fight moment I had experienced.
A tense calm took effect, and we were able to proceed without a computer check.
A federal public defender said we had been fortunate not to have been assaulted, and then charged with assaulting the cops. Those are “cover charges.”
That was not the first or last brutish encounter I had with those who control entry, but it remains the ugliest.
Ricardo Chavira Chicano 