Xenophob-izona
Long long ago on the internet far far away, we discussed how immigrants, particularly Latin@ immigrants, would increasingly be targeted as the Official Other when things started getting tougher for Suburbia (the hothouse for future political reaction). Well, here we go:
The Arizona Legislature has just stepped off the deep end of the immigration debate, passing a harsh and mean-spirited bill that would do little to stop illegal immigration. What it would do is lead to more racial profiling, hobble local law enforcement, and open government agencies to frivolous, politically driven lawsuits.
Stan:
link fixed
19 April 2010, 10:39 ammy bad
Marcilla Elizabeth Smith:
Undesirable spotted —> police question —> ID is either not available, not on the list of approved ID’s, or “suspected” of being a forgery (“papers not in order”) —> arrest made —> turned over to ICE —> transported to one of ICE’s off-the-records detention centers —> ?????????????
19 April 2010, 11:10 amdave calkins:
Funny that you quote Ed Abbey at the top of the page. My fellow Zoner was- and remains- right, about many things.
Here is what he had to say about this issue, generally, though not specifically about this flawed but popular piece of legislation:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389×8082521
The last line offers a solution to the problem that drives people to enter our country illegally. The country of Mexico has bountiful supplies of oil, soil, sun and sea, as well as a population of hard-working, decent people, who are held captive by a ruling class that is supported by our own corporate masters. They have a great tradition of revolution, and are about due for another. Using the USA as a safety valve only postpones the inevitable explosion.
A note about the NYT op-ed: If, as they suggest, Gov. Brewer does not sign the bill into law, it becomes law by default. She will probably choose this course, thus to duck the blowback from the Latin@ community if she did sign it, and from the Anglo middle and right if she vetoed it.
I predict that we will see Sheriff Joe Arpaio ( a Democrat) as a candidate for Governor soon. He is a divisive but powerful presence in Arizona politics, and is popular among the elderly, the Tea Partiers, and others who are upset over the inundation of our schools, hospitals and labor market by a flood of people who bring nothing to the table but a willingness to work hard, cheap.
The strongest supporters of Arpaio, and of this legislation, are people who can no longer find work as laborers, drywallers, brickmasons, carpenters, and other blue-collar occupations that have been taken over by illegal workers who will bust their asses for peanuts, and never complain. You may point out to them, correctly, that the construction trades have been crushed by the collapse of the housing market, and that illegal immigrants did not send their manufacturing jobs to Taiwan or Manila. They will counter, also correctly, that right now, folks need jobs, and many are still held by people who should not be here.
What solution do you offer?
19 April 2010, 11:26 pmMichael Anderson:
Has anyone done any research on the Immigration Act of 1965? I have tried to find out some info on it, like if there were and WHAT WERE the links between its sponsors in Congress and Corporate interests, but have had no luck. David Harvey, in his interview with Sasha Lilley, brought up the topic of the opening of the U.S. to the global labor pool by business as profits fell in the 50′s and 60′s, due to a restricted (read more local) unionized labor pool.
Again, the constant drive to minimize costs at the periphery, to maximize the value added at the core. And the fiction of the middle class…
20 April 2010, 5:41 amMichael Anderson:
The thing is, now; with the expansion of the “global battlespace”, the periphery is everywhere.
20 April 2010, 5:42 amStan:
“What solution do you offer?”
Amnesty for the immigrants, and debt forgiveness for their countries ofr origin.
20 April 2010, 8:06 amdave calkins:
I agree on debt forgiveness. I disagree on amnesty. The former should allow those here illegally to have something to return home to.
I would also 86 NAFTA, which has destroyed the market for domestic Mexican corn, leaving farmers destitute. The young men washing dishes here should be farming in Chiapas. Their families need them.
I would also legalize all drugs, undercutting a significant source of funds for the criminals who rule Mexico, elected and otherwise. Not to mention the criminals who rule the USA.
And, I would close the door on all immigration. We do not need any more Swedes, Irish, or Filipin@s either. Our boat is full.
20 April 2010, 8:42 amStan:
So what happens to the thousands of children who are now going to US schools, who have their friends here, who have been here for years? Many since birth?
Our boat isn’t nearly as full as most. For that matter, who is the “our” in our boat? This always defaults to nationalism.
It is simply not reasonable to believe that an internaitonal policy change will facilitate the return of millions of people who have already made their lives here. It is infinitely more complicated than that.
Are you willing to be the one who puts the handcuffs on the parents in front of the children when they don’t want to go back to Latin America after having made many difficult accommodations to carve out a life here?
20 April 2010, 11:15 amMarcilla Elizabeth Smith:
Stan, you’re baiting with that “think of the children” argument, and you know if Dave bites, you’re gonna turn this into another thread on masculinity
Dave believes the boat is “full”. I’m sure we all know this is not some all or nothing thing. Which goes right to the problem with immigration policies, or really most every State policy – they are a blunt instrument attempting delicate surgery. The end result being that it doesn’t matter how competent or moral our elected officials are because their task is impossible.
As I’m guessing you would agree, Dave, authoritarian solutions to the “War on Drugs” often have effects *directly counter* to the ones they were promised to have when proposed. This is not specific to drug policy, this is a systemic design flaw which ignores basic laws of physics which indicate a system in a lower ordered state will always reorganize and respond faster than a system in a higher ordered state. Maybe it would give us breathing room in the US with fewer people here, but raising the pressure on a closed system increases the product of volume times temperature (if I may be allowed to extend the physics metaphor).
20 April 2010, 12:09 pmStan:
Honest, not baiting. This is one of the key issues with deportations now, splitting families and throwing the thoroughly assimilated kids into crisis. And not going to masculinity with this one. I’ll go historical though… they say Mexicans are crossing the border, but in fact (in Arizona!), the border crossed the Mexicans during an expansionary war.
These mechanical solutions (and I like your physics metaphor) assume way too much. Fix this policy, ship these people (as if they are static), close the border.
In fact, if investment capital were not permitted out of the US, I’d support closing the border that way (but still not to the flow of people). But then I don’t support political boundaries… so we might be at an impasse, Dave.
20 April 2010, 1:17 pmMarcilla Elizabeth Smith:
Exclamation! I guess a winky emoticon don’t mean what it used to :: sigh ::
There’s a nation of Amerindian people, I believe the third largest reservation in the US, which is split by the Arizona border. Crossing used to not be a problem for them, but I have read even that has changed with people on the “wrong side” not able to use their own facilities because they cannot cross a border on what little land they have been “allowed” to keep!
I am similarly opposed to artificial political boundaries, but I have to say what you touch on could be a meme that highlights the inherent inequality of the bad policy. IOW, would the oligarchs ever allow “a person in for every dollar out”? I think not!!!
20 April 2010, 2:24 pmdave calkins:
Marcilla- I don’t think it was bait. It is a reasonable concern that any humane person would raise. Not sure how Boyle’s Law applies to human systems, which have dynamics beyond the physical. Interesting though.
I will say that many immigrants use the “Anchor Baby” stratagem cynically as a means of securing for themselves a place here to which they would not otherwise be entitled. (A good friend and former EMT partner was himself such a child; he introduced me to the term. His dad went back to Navojoa; his mom is now a citizen.) Children are often the victims when their parents break the law and are punished. Maybe the acculturated kids could have the option of remaining here in foster care, or with relatives of legal status. I do not see a clean solution to this very messy problem.
Borders are fluid, as Stan notes. A Mexican friend (she is a citizen of Mexico) once told me that “You guys stole this land from us, and we are taking it back one baby at a time.”
The last time we had such an amnesty as Stan suggests (was it under Reagan?) it was assumed that from now on we really meant it. Will we really mean it this time?
I do not see a default to “nationalism.” The security of borders and the regulation of immigration are legitimate concerns of any nation. Try and emigrate to Mexico. Or New Zealand, or… Unless you can prove your solvency you will not be welcome.
Regardless of what any of us here think, I predict that this law will pass.
I personally am not xenophobically motivated in this; my concern is that we have too many people here. I do not care what language they speak, or what color their skin. I want the snowbirds to go back to Minnesota, too. Our rivers are dry, our aquifers poisoned, our beautiful and unique Sonoran Desert is now one big golf course. No mas.
Stan-thanks for the chance to discuss this in such a civil forum. I drop in often, just to listen.
dave
20 April 2010, 4:03 pmJack Thompson:
I live and work in an area with a huge Latin American immigrant population and in the summer time, these folks flock to a nearby river that flows year round. The area around the river is very dry, and people trying to cool off love their charcoal grills, bonfires, and cigarets. Instead of trying to educate the people visiting the river about the fire risks and the affect their trash has on the ecosystem, the county closes almost the entire canyon that can be accessed by road. Not in any physical way mind you, they just put up signs (initially only in English) telling us that the canyon is closed because of fire danger and that we will be cited if we step off the road.
Fear of fire is legitimate (I’ve run for my life more than once, as have many Californians recently). The enforcement for the closure falls on the law enforcement rangers of the BLM, who roll through the canyon, maybe once a week (but never on the busiest weekends, like the fucking fourth of july when people are breaking out their fireworks) and cite people who are supposedly “ignoring the signs” and violating the “closure.” Everyone can probably guess what happens. The folks they encounter are found to be illegal, the border patrol is called, and just as you said Stan, families are shattered.
I’ve had my car full of crying kids more than once because mom and dad just got taken away. Its brutal, and totally insane.
Some of the BLM officers don’t call the border patrol because their hearts won’t let them. As a collective, the BLM may have its head up its ass, but not all of their rangers do.
“If I called the border patrol on these people, I would never sleep at night,” says Ranger A. “Fuck ‘em, you know what gets me to sleep every night? Jack Daniels,” says officer B.
The “illegals” drive away with their family intact and officer A says to officer B, “Go get me a bottle of water out of the truck.”
Thankfully, officer A outranks officer B.
But it usually doesn’t play out this way.
We lobbied long and hard to get two things from the county: one was for them to put the signs up in Spanish, (we practically made the signs for them) the other was to leave a section of the river (that is on our property) out of the fire closure area, and let us deal with the people who visit.
Now people can come and get wet when the temps are 115 at home and not have anyone asking for their money, or their IDs. We’ve bitten off a huge task. But we are human beings first and conservationists second. Our Spanish is not great, but we’re making the effort, and doing our best to understand where these people come from. It’s standard practice in the summer to see folks throwing their diapers in the river, along with all the other trash from the day. Not having unrealistic expectations is the name of the game right now, as is welcoming these people in a loving way, while fulfilling our obligation to look after the land. It’s a balancing act.
Walking up to talk to a family who’s just trying to cool off and have a picnic always makes me feel like a heel. The response is always the same: everyone is momentarily scared shitless. Huge sighs of relief when I stumble through my Spanish intro: You are welcome here. Don’t throw your diapers in the river and don’t burn the place down. Tell your friends. Have a nice day. I’d like to say more to these folks, but I usually have about another hundred people to talk to.
Initially I was very shy about this, feeling like a racist, intruding on thee people. But honestly, no one knew any better than to dump their shit (literally) into the water (that is ultimately the community drinking water) and no one else was going to step up and say anything, or clean up the mess.
Upstream, Mexican cartel supported grow operations produce tens of thousands of pot plants and pollute the water with pesticides and human waste and I bump noses with their armed occupants when I take walks after work. So far, we’ve just run from one another and they get a head start before cops dressed as soldiers get to do the work of garbage men.
Exporting disorder and it coming right back with human faces. National Boundaries. The war on drugs.
After a big bust, a law enforcement ranger asked me what I carry when I venture into the canyon.
And I remember what Robert Young Pelton says when people ask him that.
“A sense of humor.”
20 April 2010, 6:02 pmMark:
“they say Mexicans are crossing the border, but in fact (in Arizona!), the border crossed the Mexicans during an expansionary war.”
A couple of historical points; 1) The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo included the protection of property rights for Mexicans that lived in the ceded territories, and 2) The Gadsden Purchase was negotiated peacefully by Santa Anna so he could pay his army and line his own pockets.
21 April 2010, 12:45 pmKim Sky:
Reporting from northern San Diego County.
Just had a conversation with a gardener in Vista, California.
The Mexican population is suffering large scale oppresion. The police stop Mexicans while driving everyday. If they do not have a drivers license, the car is impounded for
one month, to get the car out they must pay 1,500 dollars plus a fine in the hundreds of dollars for the crime.
The gardner tells me that the Mexicans only drive to work and home. That they do not even risk going to the market for fear of being stopped. That the police force has increased dramatically. That many of the cops are in fact of Mexican decent, and that they generally treat the illegals worse than the white cops.
In the last week alone, his young female cousin with two young children was stopped, they impounded the car, and left her to walk home with children of two and three years old. His male cousin had his truck impounded.
And the kind of grief people a feeling about the passing of legislation in Arizona is deep, the fellow said, “All I want to do right now is cry!”
Wow. I had no idea that things were so BAD/difficult/stressful. In California I had iimagined that the Mexicans were “only” suffering economic opression.
24 April 2010, 1:05 pmHoward:
“our” boat? I think “we” just “have” a piece of the boat that is the whole planet and the piece is defined by a bunch of arbitrary lines running along one of the decks that actually cuts through deck chairs, life boats, and such.
24 April 2010, 11:13 pmMarcilla Elizabeth Smith:
Just to extend the “watercraft” metaphor one more step, I can’t help but think about the line about “rats on a sinking ship.” It’s very sad to see, especially knowing it will get worse before it gets better.
26 April 2010, 12:00 pmStan:
FULL
Nice.
27 April 2010, 5:36 amStan:
Arizona corporations:
?Air Evac (airline)
?Allied Waste Industries
?Amkor Technology
?Apollo Group
?Arizona Public Service
?Arizona Republic
?ASARCO
?Auralog
?Avnet
?Banner Health Systems
?Bashas’ Supermarkets
?Best Western
?CSK Auto
?Cold Stone Creamery
?CyraCom International
?Cactus Candy Company
?Database Systems Corp.
? Dial Corporation
?Discount Tire Company
?eFunds Corporation
?Elixir Interactive
?Fender Musical Instruments
?First Solar
?Freeport-McMoRan(Phelps Dodge)
?Fry’s Food and Drug, a division of Kroger
?Fulton Homes
?Food City
?Giant Industries
?Go Daddy
?Grand Canyon Airlines
?Harkins Theatres
?Honeywell Aerospace
?Insight Enterprises
?Inter-Tel
?icrossing
?JDA Software Group
Jobing.comcom
?Knight Transportation
?KPX
?Main Street Restaurant Group
?Medicis Pharmaceutical Corporation
?Meritage Homes
?Mesa Airlines
?Microchip Technology
?Mobile Mini
?Motorsports Authentics
?ON Semiconductor
?Peter Piper Pizza
?PetSmart
?Ping Golf / Karsten Manufacturing
?Pinnacle West Capital Corporation
?PinnacleOne
?P.F. Chang’s China Bistro
?Poore Brothers
?Republic Services
?RSC Equipment Rental
?RotorWay International
?Rural/Metro
?Salt River Project
?Sierra Pacific Airlines
?Shamrock Foods
?Sunstate Equipment Co.
?SuperShuttle International Inc.
?Swift Air
?Swift Transportation
?Taco Time
?TASER International
?Tilted Kilt
?Troon Golf
?U-Haul
?US Airways
?USF Bestway
?U.S. Machineries LC
?Unisource Energy
?Viad Corporation
?Voiance Language Services
?Westcor
http://www.arizona-boycott.org/
27 April 2010, 6:07 amcabdriver:
I have sort of a different take on this issue. I think the illegals from Mexico are okay to stay. But I want to see curbs on legal immigration from just about everywhere else.
To me, it’s largely a matter of numbers. Too much, too fast. If the population of the USA grows too quickly, we’ll face infrastructure complications and strain that could facilitate social stratification in ways that would not redound to the benefit of ordinary working people. I don’t want to see urban neighborhoods return to the era of dirt roads and a spigot in the middle of the block for water.
It would be different if the government were budgeting for the amenities commensurate with that population increase. But they look as if they’re in denial, to me. And I’m not talking about the suburban lifestyle, here. My concern is primarily clean water, waste disposal, land use.
I’m also concerned about the effect of a large immigrant population on employment for people already here- although that’s a complicated issue. I helped out doing a shift home care for my father, who was a bed patient during the last months of his life. The other two shifts were handled by a staff of professional caregivers- all of them West African; 2 women from the Ivory Coast, and one woman from Ghana. They did a great job caring for my father. And my impression is that they were in fact taking jobs that native-born Americans were less willing to do. Important to note that there was no language barrier- all of the woemn were fluent in English.
27 April 2010, 7:49 amcabdriver:
The late Robert Anton Wilson was a utopian futurist type. Among his many associations, he was a member of a group called the No Border Network.
He once pointed out that below the town of Fort Bragg on the northern California coast (yes, we have a Fort Bragg, too) the names of cities more often carry Spanish than English names- giving a pointed clue to the original settlement of the region.
A long-time resident of the Bay Area and Santa Cruz, he also said: “I lived in Mexico before; I can live there again.”
That’ pretty much my attitude toward living in California. I don’t experience polyglot culture as a problem- even though I’ve read the views of various people who tell me that I’m supposed to, and that I’m doing it all wrong.
I’m also quite conscious of being an immigrant from the East Coast, to the West- and even the Anglo culture of the West is quite different from that of the East. It isn’t necessarily all that “English”, for one thing. I would hardly call it “shared”, as if it were some blood pact. A whole lot of white folks feel significant culture shock when they move to the opposite coast.
There’s also the irony that I initially travelled something like 2200 miles to move to California- a distance that’s quite a bit further than that travelled by many Mexicans to get here.
27 April 2010, 8:03 am