Ahora Sí

What have been the most significant changes in this little corner of the world over the past 30-plus years?

Anyone paying attention would point to two things. From these two, everything else has flowed.

But before we go there, before the narrow focus on this place, an acknowledgment: It is hard to think or write about anything other than what this administration is doing. And “doing” is too kind a word. More like undoing. In Elon Musk’s case, gleefully, waving a chainsaw.

No matter where you stand on President Trump’s America, this is at the very least a very stressful, uneasy time to be an American. Everything we have come to depend on and expect from our government seems in jeopardy.

What will happen to Medicaid and Medicare? What will the mass and seemingly indiscriminate Department of Government Efficiency federal employee firings and layoffs — from the FAA to the IRS, from the FBI to the State Department — cost (severance) and mean for the future of a well-functioning American society? What will be the fallout from our country’s abrupt and ill-mannered turn away from a century of alliances, economic cooperation and friendship with Western Europe and Canada?

There is also the daily barrage of news provocations, little needles: the orders making English the official language; renaming the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America; the pronouncement that the devastated, brutalized Gaza will be rebuilt as the “Riviera of the Middle East,” and all the Palestinians thrown out once and for all; the comments about making Canada a 51st state and Greenland part of the United States. Just to name a few.

It all feels like psychological warfare. Or, a means to an end, a negotiation tactic. Scare the hell out of everyone to gain leverage.

Or, as the chairman of the East Hampton Town Republican Committee told The East Hampton Star: President Trump has “been in office for a few weeks, so I think it’s premature for people to lose their sh--.” “Let’s wait and see,” another leading, stunningly sangfroid Republican told that newspaper.

Many are just turning away from the news entirely. Other more gentle souls are quietly biding their time, beaming unconditional love.

I spring from a fiercely American family. At least that’s how we see it. Contrary to that evasive adage that one should never talk politics or religion among friends or at dinner, or whenever, that is precisely what dinner was all about in our household growing up.

This makes for good students (I needed to be prepared for dinner), good questioners and good listeners. In other words, good Americans.

Because, at least where I come from, being American is a fiercely political commitment. A responsibility. To be a decent American, you must care, I was gently instructed.

We would talk about both the lunar landing and the war in Vietnam, Nixon and Carter, the contradictions of the Pope John Paul II papacy. We talked about hatred and ignorance and violence as the enemies worthy of collective rage.

What dinnertime taught me — and, by now, as you are seeing, dinnertime is a euphemism — was that our most important decision is how we choose to show up in the world.

It would be logical to presume that most of us have thought a great deal in these early months of 2025 about what it is to be American. What is our work now as citizens?

To that question there is an answer that applies to everyone. “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are,” as Teddy Roosevelt declared in his memoir.

That task is not simple. What is happening all around us feels far beyond our individual capacities. As New York Times columnist David Brooks — notably, a conservative — said recently: “Am I feeling grief? Am I feeling shock, like I’m in a hallucination?”

This moment in America is asking us — challenging us — to show up better than we ever have. To pay attention. To recognize what is within our reach that we know is hurting, that needs help, that needs mending.

Which brings us back to the original question about the two big things.

One is unquestionably development, the gobbling-up of the land here for housing, which has altered the culture and the landscape, brought immense ecological and quality-of-life challenges, and supplied the primary juice to the local economy. The other is the explosion in the Latino community. The two are deeply connected. The gold mine that is Hamptons development has wrought the jewel that is the Latino community.

Gold rush, indeed. Latinos have by far been the single-largest sources of population growth in both South Fork towns. Consider that, according to the U.S. Census in 1990, there were just 1,191 people of “Hispanic origin” living in Southampton, or about 2.5 percent of the population. By 2023, some 22 percent, or more than 15,000 people, were Hispanic.

East Hampton counted 812 Hispanic people in 1990, or about 5 percent of the population. In the latest count in 2023, Hispanics numbered upward of 7,500. And those numbers are likely low, as undocumented Hispanic residents shun the government’s count.

The resulting cultural transformation of the South Fork has been profound in every way, at the schools, in businesses, in everyday life. Latinos flocked here, fighting to make it work, hungry for a chance at the American Dream, defying the very forces — rising costs of housing and living — that at the same time drove longtime locals away. It’s an astonishing and powerful American story.

Successive waves of immigrants have shaped this place and made it home — the English and Welsh, the Polish, the Italians and Irish, the summer colony. This has been the era of the Latinos.

Contrary to how the Latino population here has been characterized by the click-bait national media as cheap help for the ultra-wealthy, the Latinos we all know built this place. They are the lifeblood of the local economy — they own and run terrific businesses, they are our doctors and nurses and teachers and government leaders, school valedictorians and salutatorians, and champion athletes. They are friends. They are the present and the future.

No one is kidding when we celebrate the awesome expansion of culinary offerings here, from lunch at Mitad del Mundo and other Latino delis to dinners at any number of Latino eateries.

Many are U.S. citizens, or residents. Many are in the process of applying for permission to work or for residency.

But the target is on our community, with President Trump calling anyone who pushed north for a better life “country-threatening” and “country-wrecking,” and claiming “they have wrecked our country,” and with an emboldened and empowered ICE threatening to haul people away.

Now is the time to stand together as the community we are. Know our neighbors, understand and defend their rights, speak up, protect them in every way we can.

And openly acknowledge what we know to be true: One of the best things to happen to this place over the past two generations is the growth in numbers and success of our Latino neighbors.

“Ahora sí” has many meanings. In this case, it means: “Alright then!”