Dear Readers: All together, now: iA la chingada with Arizona’s SB1070!
For those of ustedes too occupied with the your Drinko por Cinco hangover, the initiative I mentioned (signed a couple of weeks ago into law by Arizona’s governor) gives immigration powers to the state’s police officers and sheriff’s deputies and allows them to stop and question anyone they think looks like an illegal immigrant. Besides being the most blatant invitation to racially profile Mexicans since the sombrero, it’s also a civil-liberties disgrace that might be making the Copper State’s greatest son, libertarian icon Barry Goldwater, no doubt wishing he had been born in Utah.
A movement is under way to boycott the state and national companies based in Arizona, such as U-Haul and US Airways. A boycott of the state worked back in the 1990s, when Arizonans refused to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday as a state holiday, and it should work now—visit Arizona-Boycott.org for other companies to shun (and if you’re a baseball fan, don’t forget to root for your team when they play the reprehensible Arizona Diamondbacks, whose owners shower millions on Arizona’s retrograde politicians). But I also want to urge a "buycott"—there are good people who have been fighting the Know Nothings in the state for decades, who constantly get threatened and who need our support. Below is a partial list of groups and organizations that deserve your attention, whether a monetary contribution, a kind note, or physical support.
Now, some of the good people of Arizona:
• Phoenix New Times: Sure, they carry my column from time to time. But the New Times, more than any other news organization in the country, has exposed best and longest the terrifying reign of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the intellectual godfather of SB1070. Their reporters past and present, especially John Dougherty, Paul Rubin and Stephen Lemons, have been the subject of intimidation, stonewalling, and harassment by “Arpayaso” and his goons solely because they’ve exposed “Arpayaso” for the corrupt, taxpayer-waste of a pendejo that he is.
• Flagstaff Live! and the Tucson Weekly: They carry my column—enough said.
• Puente Movement: It’s been the primary organizer of protests in Phoenix against “Arpayaso” and must frequently suffer bona fide Nazis hurling invectives at kiddies and peaceful people.
• Somos America: A coalition of Arizona groups united for immigration reform, now understandably focusing on dismantling SB1070.
• Derechos Humanos: Fighting the same fights as the other groups, but from Tucson. Know Nothings despise the group’s head, Isabel Garcia, which means we should anoint her the next Dolores Huerta.
• Border Action Network: Exactly what it sounds like.
• Clarence Dupnik: Sheriff of Pima County, which includes Tucson. Has called SB1070 a “national embarrassment.”
Hopefully, I can return to this column’s usual obsession with little people and big-breasted women, but let’s help the good people who fight evil in the belly of el Diablo. Again, people: iA la chingada with SB1070!
Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net, myspace.com/ocwab, facebook.com/garellano, youtube.com/askamexicano, find him on, Twitter, or write via snail mail at: Gustavo Arellano, P.O. Box 1433, Anaheim, CA 92815-1433!