On 23 April 2010 Governor Jan Brewer signed into law Arizona State Senate Bill 1070. The bill’s opening words indicate that it was “intended to […] discourage and deter the unlawful entry and presence of aliens and economic activity by persons unlawfully present in the United States” (SB 1070: 2). At the signing ceremony, Governor Brewer stated that she placed her “unwavering signature” on the bill after the people of Arizona “have been more than patient waiting for Washington to act” (Brewer). She further emphasized that “decades of federal inaction and misguided policy have created a dangerous and unacceptable situation” in regard to illegal immigration (Brewer). With these words the Governor seems to be making the argument that she was forced to sign the bill because the Federal Government had not done its job in enforcing immigration laws.
The Governor was aware that the bill contained controversial components. In regard to the use of a person’s skin color or ethnicity to identify illegal immigrants, Brewer stated that she “will NOT tolerate racial discrimination or racial profiling in Arizona” (Brewer). The possibility that a police officer might depend on a person’s skin color in deciding whether to investigate their immigration status comes from language requiring state and local official to act “where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States” (SB 1070: 2). The law does not define what constitutes “reasonable suspicion” which has produced a backlash that can be summarized by the words of Pablo Alvarado who was quoted in a Reuters article stating “You cannot tell if a person walking on a sidewalk is undocumented or not… this is a mandate for racial profiling” (Reuters). Since its passage, SB 1070 has generated controversy and the issue of whether it provides space for police to use race is the crux of the disagreement.
Judging a person based on race is quite literally superficial. It reduces all of the complexities and contradictions which make us human into a single characteristic. In other words, it is an act which possesses a transformative power to turn someone into something that is less than human. Reductions like this instinctually keep us safe from growling dogs, knife-wielding threats, or other momentarily perceived dangers. They should not, however, form the basis of thoughtful legislation. Any law which risks creating a situation where a person could be regarded in a less-than-human manner should be protested. The creation of laws which have the potential to separate one group of people from another is wrong.
Governor Brewer’s speech contained a line that can be argued as a basis for exactly this kind of separation. She evoked the terrible violence Mexico is suffering by stating that she was pushed to action because “We cannot delay while the destruction happening south of our international border creeps its way north” (Brewer). This sentence seems to infer that SB 1070 is designed to prevent Mexico’s problems from becoming our problems. It is a further and far graver act of reduction to suggest that the United States is somehow not involved nor partially responsible for the drugs and guns plaguing Mexican cities and states like Ciudad Juárez and Michoacán. William Finnegan’s article in the 31 May 2010 edition of The New Yorker cites several statistics which speak to the contrary: 90% of the cocaine consumed in the U.S. comes through Mexico and is exchanged for tens of billions of dollars and 80% of traceable guns used in Mexican crime come from the U.S. Indeed, Finnegan summarizes the situation in a quotable sentence: “Our appetites, our wealth, our laws seem to be conspiring to destroy their country” (Finnegan 46).
At the same time that the front pages of our newspapers decry the violence plaguing Ciudad Juárez, our economic journalism praises the money-making opportunities the city has to offer. In one example, subtitled “The Ciudad Juárez - El Paso Borderplex: The U.S./Mexico Border Done Right,” Industry Today praises Mexico’s eighth biggest city as “exploding with possibilities and potential” largely thanks to it being “the birthplace of the maquiladora industry” which has brought “over 70 Fortune 500 companies” including “heavy hitters Delphi, Visteon, Johnson Controls, Lear, Boeing, Cardinal Health, Yazaki, Sumitomo and Siemens” (Ochoa). fDi Magazine echoes this enthusiasm in noting Ciudad Juárez’s “growing importance as a regional industrial and logistics centre” and, after “more than six months [of] research,” awarding the city the title of “top large City of the Future” (Piggott). Stated in the simplest of terms, Ciudad Juárez is an attractive place for business because of cheap labor and geographic proximity to the important consumer market of the United States.
These glowing reviews, however, contrast sharply with the drug-related violence that has recently brought Ciudad Juárez to the headlines and, of course, the unresolved sexual violence or femicide that has plagued the city since, according to Diana Washington Valdez, the early 1990s. Washington Valdez’s book The Killing Fields Harvest of Women: The truth about Mexico’s bloody border legacy links Ciudad Juárez’s economic success with its darker side. Indeed it seems that the same cheap production and access to the US that attracts Fortune 500 companies also draws drug smugglers and Washington Valdez suggests that the murder of women is another point they have in common: writing that “powerful men were involved in the femicides” Washington Valdez’s book points to political, economic, judicial and social corruption to such a degree that drugs, femicide, and economic success seem synonymous with each other (Washington Valdez 238). Jessica Livingston also connects the maquiladora industry with the killing of women in Ciudad Juárez by placing:
The Governor was aware that the bill contained controversial components. In regard to the use of a person’s skin color or ethnicity to identify illegal immigrants, Brewer stated that she “will NOT tolerate racial discrimination or racial profiling in Arizona” (Brewer). The possibility that a police officer might depend on a person’s skin color in deciding whether to investigate their immigration status comes from language requiring state and local official to act “where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States” (SB 1070: 2). The law does not define what constitutes “reasonable suspicion” which has produced a backlash that can be summarized by the words of Pablo Alvarado who was quoted in a Reuters article stating “You cannot tell if a person walking on a sidewalk is undocumented or not… this is a mandate for racial profiling” (Reuters). Since its passage, SB 1070 has generated controversy and the issue of whether it provides space for police to use race is the crux of the disagreement.
Judging a person based on race is quite literally superficial. It reduces all of the complexities and contradictions which make us human into a single characteristic. In other words, it is an act which possesses a transformative power to turn someone into something that is less than human. Reductions like this instinctually keep us safe from growling dogs, knife-wielding threats, or other momentarily perceived dangers. They should not, however, form the basis of thoughtful legislation. Any law which risks creating a situation where a person could be regarded in a less-than-human manner should be protested. The creation of laws which have the potential to separate one group of people from another is wrong.
Governor Brewer’s speech contained a line that can be argued as a basis for exactly this kind of separation. She evoked the terrible violence Mexico is suffering by stating that she was pushed to action because “We cannot delay while the destruction happening south of our international border creeps its way north” (Brewer). This sentence seems to infer that SB 1070 is designed to prevent Mexico’s problems from becoming our problems. It is a further and far graver act of reduction to suggest that the United States is somehow not involved nor partially responsible for the drugs and guns plaguing Mexican cities and states like Ciudad Juárez and Michoacán. William Finnegan’s article in the 31 May 2010 edition of The New Yorker cites several statistics which speak to the contrary: 90% of the cocaine consumed in the U.S. comes through Mexico and is exchanged for tens of billions of dollars and 80% of traceable guns used in Mexican crime come from the U.S. Indeed, Finnegan summarizes the situation in a quotable sentence: “Our appetites, our wealth, our laws seem to be conspiring to destroy their country” (Finnegan 46).
At the same time that the front pages of our newspapers decry the violence plaguing Ciudad Juárez, our economic journalism praises the money-making opportunities the city has to offer. In one example, subtitled “The Ciudad Juárez - El Paso Borderplex: The U.S./Mexico Border Done Right,” Industry Today praises Mexico’s eighth biggest city as “exploding with possibilities and potential” largely thanks to it being “the birthplace of the maquiladora industry” which has brought “over 70 Fortune 500 companies” including “heavy hitters Delphi, Visteon, Johnson Controls, Lear, Boeing, Cardinal Health, Yazaki, Sumitomo and Siemens” (Ochoa). fDi Magazine echoes this enthusiasm in noting Ciudad Juárez’s “growing importance as a regional industrial and logistics centre” and, after “more than six months [of] research,” awarding the city the title of “top large City of the Future” (Piggott). Stated in the simplest of terms, Ciudad Juárez is an attractive place for business because of cheap labor and geographic proximity to the important consumer market of the United States.
These glowing reviews, however, contrast sharply with the drug-related violence that has recently brought Ciudad Juárez to the headlines and, of course, the unresolved sexual violence or femicide that has plagued the city since, according to Diana Washington Valdez, the early 1990s. Washington Valdez’s book The Killing Fields Harvest of Women: The truth about Mexico’s bloody border legacy links Ciudad Juárez’s economic success with its darker side. Indeed it seems that the same cheap production and access to the US that attracts Fortune 500 companies also draws drug smugglers and Washington Valdez suggests that the murder of women is another point they have in common: writing that “powerful men were involved in the femicides” Washington Valdez’s book points to political, economic, judicial and social corruption to such a degree that drugs, femicide, and economic success seem synonymous with each other (Washington Valdez 238). Jessica Livingston also connects the maquiladora industry with the killing of women in Ciudad Juárez by placing:
these murders in their socioeconomic and ideological context in order to analyze the gendering of production, the gendering of violence, and the relationship between the two. The murders of the young women result from the displacement of economic frustration onto the bodies of women who work in the maquildoras. The construction of working women as “cheap labor” and disposable within the system makes it possible, and perhaps acceptable, to kill them with impunity. (Livingston 60)
Ciudad Juárez has reached headlines for its economic success and terrible violence. Washington Valdez and Livingston argue that these seemingly contrasting subjects are the same. Any suggestion that the U.S. is not already involved with the violence occurring in Mexico is false.
In regard to violence, economic success, drug use, and immigration the United States and Mexico are inexorably linked. We are one and the same and any effort to reduce some portion of our reality to a status that is less than human is not only to push us further from the resolution of problems, but also to act in a discriminatory and racist way. Although she is difficult to hear in the video below, a second-grade girl asked Michelle Obama if the President intended to deport her mother. The poignant exchange serves to move discussion about Arizona’s law away from legal terminology and puts an appropriately human face on the issue. We can all comprehend a daughter’s concern about a system that could potentially separate her from her mother. As we move forward it is important to recognize that we are all in this together and that everyone involved deserves their humanity. Separation and reduction serve no productive end. As far as immigration is concerned, it is difficult to disagree with Governor Brewer in urging the Federal Government to act. In response to the second grader, the First Lady summed up these hopes better than anyone: “That’s something that we have to work on, right” (O’Keefe).
In regard to violence, economic success, drug use, and immigration the United States and Mexico are inexorably linked. We are one and the same and any effort to reduce some portion of our reality to a status that is less than human is not only to push us further from the resolution of problems, but also to act in a discriminatory and racist way. Although she is difficult to hear in the video below, a second-grade girl asked Michelle Obama if the President intended to deport her mother. The poignant exchange serves to move discussion about Arizona’s law away from legal terminology and puts an appropriately human face on the issue. We can all comprehend a daughter’s concern about a system that could potentially separate her from her mother. As we move forward it is important to recognize that we are all in this together and that everyone involved deserves their humanity. Separation and reduction serve no productive end. As far as immigration is concerned, it is difficult to disagree with Governor Brewer in urging the Federal Government to act. In response to the second grader, the First Lady summed up these hopes better than anyone: “That’s something that we have to work on, right” (O’Keefe).
| Brewer, Jan. “Text of Governor Brewer’s speech after signing SB1070.” Tucson Citizen. 23 April 2010. 26 May 2010. Finnegan, William. “Silver or Lead.” The New Yorker. 31 May 2010. 39-51. Livingston, Jessica. “Murder in Juárez: Gender, Sexual Violence, and the Global Assembly Line.” Frontiers: A Journal of Womens Studies. 25.1 (2004): 59-76. | |
Ochoa, Manuel. “El Paso Regional Economic Development Corporation: The Ciudad Juárez – El Paso Borderplex: The U.S./Mexico Border Done Right.” Industry Today. 11.1 (2010). 17 March 2010.
O’Keefe, Ed. “Mother of student who questioned Michelle Obama will not face action.” The Washington Post. 20 May 2010. 26 May 2010.
Piggott, Charles. “North American Cities of the Future 2007/08.” fDi Magazine. 25 April 2007. 18 March 2010.
Reuters. “Arizona passes tough illegal immigration law.” 19 April 2010. 26 May 2010.
Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act. SB 1070. 23 April 2010. Laws of Arizona.
Washington Valdez, Diana. The Killing Fields Harvest of Women: The truth about Mexico’s bloody border legacy. Los Angeles: Peace at the Border, 2006.
O’Keefe, Ed. “Mother of student who questioned Michelle Obama will not face action.” The Washington Post. 20 May 2010. 26 May 2010.
Piggott, Charles. “North American Cities of the Future 2007/08.” fDi Magazine. 25 April 2007. 18 March 2010.
Reuters. “Arizona passes tough illegal immigration law.” 19 April 2010. 26 May 2010.
Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act. SB 1070. 23 April 2010. Laws of Arizona.
Washington Valdez, Diana. The Killing Fields Harvest of Women: The truth about Mexico’s bloody border legacy. Los Angeles: Peace at the Border, 2006.
