FRFI 215 June/July 2010

Arizona seems determined to break all records to become the most racist State in the Union. It has banned ethnic studies programs, is firing English teachers ‘with accents’ and has passed its own immigration law to harass Hispanics and expel undocumented migrants.

On 23 April, Governor Jan Brewer signed into law SB 1070, a draconian bill attacking the Hispanic community. One third of Arizona citizens are of Hispanic descent and it is estimated that 300,000 are undocumented, doing work that other Americans won’t do. The ‘Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act’ gives any law officer the right to investigate the immigration status of any person ‘where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States’. This can only be an invitation to racial profiling of Hispanics. What, apart from racist assumptions, can make any one suspect of being undocumented?

The Act goes on to threaten anybody prohibiting or restricting communication of information about someone’s immigration status with a daily fine of between $1,000 and $5,000. Employers of undocumented workers face severe penalties. It is illegal to hire day labourers or to transport anyone who is undocumented. Anyone undocumented is guilty of trespass if present ‘on any private or public land’ ie anywhere in the State; their vehicles can be seized and confiscated. All proceeds will be handed over to the ‘Gang and Immigration Intelligence Team’, on the racist assumption that the undocumented are responsible for most crimes.

On 11 May, Governor Bower signed HB2281 into law, which makes it illegal to teach in public schools any courses which ‘promote the overthrow of the United States government, promote resentment toward a race or class of people, are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity’. In blatant pandering to Zionism, the Act specifically states that ‘nothing in this section shall be construed to restrict or prohibit the instruction of the Holocaust’. No such exemption for slavery, the holocaust visited on Native Americans, lynching and other such activities of the legislators’ ancestors.

Part of the sweeping tide of racism is an effort by the State Department of Education to remove teachers from teaching English if they have ‘heavy accents’ or don’t pronounce words to the auditors’ satisfaction. This move is not only racist, it’s ridiculous: Arizona had a special programme in the 1990s to hire bilingual teachers to teach English, many from Latin America. Then in 2000, voters passed a law which decreed that all English instruction to speakers of other languages had to be solely in English. So the bilingual teachers switched to teaching in English.

There have been swift and numerous protests with arrests and possible deportations. The Phoenix Suns basketball team have made a special point of wearing ‘Los Suns’ shirts during their matches. On 1 May, in Arizona and elsewhere, the Hispanic community came out on the streets in hundreds of thousands with banners saying ‘We are all Arizona now’. Numerous cities and counties, especially in California, have declared a boycott of travelling to or purchasing from Arizona. A general boycott of products from Arizona has been called for, covering companies which operate nationwide, like UHaul trucking and Dial Soap. Internationally, the measures have provoked a strong reaction in Mexico, which is limiting cooperation with the State and has protested to Washington. Numerous human rights organizations have joined in the condemnation. In Cuba, the Peoples’ Assembly denounced the law as ‘profoundly racist and xenophobic’.

President Obama, who promised Latino voters that he would regularize the position of undocumented migrants, has shown where he stands by delaying immigration reform and sending 1,200 National Guard troops to the US/Mexico border.

The stinking hypocrisy displayed toward the mass of undocumented immigrants should be compared to the welcome shown to illegal Cuban immigrants, who, unlike other immigrants, are immediately eligible for Medicaid, housing assistance, lump sum cash assistance, food stamps, Federal grants, unemployment benefits, a host of other social services as well as being permitted to work. After just one year, they are eligible to become permanent residents without needing a job or other sponsorship – a process that takes legal migrants years. Worse, these ‘refugees’ from supposed ‘repression’ are legally allowed to visit Cuba freely. Meanwhile other Hispanics face real repression, the dangerous journey across the border, the threat of prison, and expulsion from the USA, ‘Land of the Free and Home of the Brave’. Could anything be more hypocritical?

Steve Palmer