The fate of the nation does not hinge on whether the voters of Farmers Branch support Ordinance 2903 next month. Whether it's voted up or down, life for the great majority of people who live there will not change appreciably.

But the fallout from the measure already has commenced. No matter which way the vote goes, there's no papering over the raw ugliness exposed by the emotional debate over the presence of illegal immigrants in this one suburban city.

Maybe, if federal authorities had been a little more alert over the years, we wouldn't be having this ill-tempered brawl right here on our front porch. Instead, several decades of studied government indifference on this issue – plus our preference for emotional confrontation over sensible policy – have turned it into a festival of bad feeling.

"This is not about any one race or color," one Farmers Branch resident who supports the ordinance told The Dallas Morning News. "This is completely about the law."

Perhaps, for him, it is. But for an awful lot of people out there, it is about culture. It is about language. And it is about race.

I have tried hard to maintain a sympathetic understanding toward people who are concerned about their neighborhoods, their homes, their quality of life.

It would be an occasion of deep distress to me and, I expect, to my neighbors, if somebody threw up a cheap apartment complex across the street and leased it out to people who drove too fast or partied all night or loitered in the parking lot all day.

That would be distressing, whether they were or were not bona fide legal American residents, whether they were Bavarians or Canadians or college students.

But during all this debate about what should properly be code-enforcement considerations, a dotted line has been drawn between all those undesirable behaviors and having a Spanish surname.

Every time I write about this issue, I get angry, defensive messages from people about the things "they" do.

"They" don't want to learn English. "They" have too many children. "They" have "fiestas" every night.

"Farmers Branch is turning into a Mexican border town," one correspondent wrote. "They crowd in 10 to a house and they watch Telemundo all day."

Another writer, answering a question on our Web site about the lingering effect of last year's pro-immigrant rallies, said the events afforded a pleasant shopping day:

"It was great not seeing all the knocked-up Mexicans with their 4-bambinos-a piece ... wandering around the store spending my tax dollars."

And this isn't about race?

Somebody else bawled me out for writing about Farmers Branch and its growing discord when I personally live in "lily white" Flower Mound "as far from concentrations of Hispanics as [I] can afford" (this person has evidently not met my neighbors who, while predominantly Anglo, are a fairly diverse crowd).

One lady wrote me explaining that, as a fifth-generation Texan, she has an interest in safeguarding our state's heritage and traditions that I evidently lack.

An aside: As a sixth-generation Texan, I'm descended from people who came here when it was Mexico. I suppose that, at the time, the long-suffering alcaldes fretted over the immigrant hordes who couldn't speak Spanish and expected free land for the taking at government expense.

"You won't be happy," another writer said, "until they take over completely, will you?"

If proponents of Ordinance 2903 and others who have legitimate concerns about the effect of illegal immigration on our public resources want to be taken seriously, they might want to urge those among their supporters who make remarks like those to put a lid on it.

How did we reach the point where we can't have a civilized conversation about immigration reform without this dismaying show of rudeness?

Until the feds get off the dime, we'll have more Farmers Branches, more neighbor-against-neighbor, more hysteria over whether the new grocery store sells bananas or plantains. We'll have more ugly generalizations about people based on their names or the size of their families or the music they like.

By all means, let's talk about the law. But if it's really "not about race," let's leave race out of it, shall we?