Today, I wasn't going to write about Boycotting Arizona because things are in flux, with lawsuits filed, embarrassing and transparent whinging from the Tourism board, triangulation from the Arizona Diamondbacks, assorted backpedaling, Shakira's visit to Phoenix, the Pima County Sheriffs Department refusing to enforce SB 1070, and a snowballing National impetus (spearheaded, it seems, by California State) to cancel city-wide and even statewide contracts with the State of Arizona. As well as the hundreds of thousands of individuals now moving this boycott ever forward.
So I'm not going to write about Boycotting Arizona today. Because Arizona, we've already got your number.
But I was moved by something else, as I sat here quietly watching my various news feeds for information. I was moved by the great sense of solidarity and unity reported in Mexico, after the Country issued an advisory to its citizens to avoid Arizona travel. And I wanted to share this touching, transcendent story of unification, of coming together under adverse circumstances.
As many know, Mexico has been a hotbed of internal conflict. In that sense, it's perhaps much like many parts of the United States. Like many developing nations, issues of poverty, sustainability, internal civil conflict, civil rights, resources, and other issues are par for the course. Thus, like many developing parts of the world, sometimes it's hard to find a sense of national unity and "brotherhood" (or sisterhood, if you will).
Something about this story gave me a small, reluctant smile and I wanted to share it with everyone to say, "Look, things are bleak right now but look what's fomenting underneath all the political manure."
Mexico, like most countries, abounds in diversity that is often-celebrated but can also lead to stereotyping. Veracruzanos might look suspiciously at the “Chilangos” of the capital. Northerners proudly boast that they are the most upfront and honest Mexicans.
Wherein I interject my very real experience of living in an 80% Mexican district in California -- a barrio, if you will -- where the issue of Nortenos and Surenos was no joke, where origin was identity itself and great tension came about from crossing imaginary borders into someone else's so-called turf. Mexican friends who work in gang prevention tell me this is a somewhat customary part of some Mexican culture, but in truth, I can't speak to the veracity of these claims.
To proceed...
But the tough new Arizona immigration law, which Mexican President Felipe Calderon immediately denounced as discrimination, has united Mexicans from all points of the compass.
“We are all against it, from Baja California to Campeche,” says Jose Luis Jimenez. “It is racial discrimination against all of us, simple.”
There's something about that word "We" here that gives me chills. There's something about this "all of us" business that I like the sound of.
What does it MEAN to have unity? To have a sense of solidarity? What does it mean to feel a renewed sense of national identity standing steadfast, and as one, against an adversary greater than yourselves? There is tremendous promise here. Great hope for something forged in blood, sweat, and human dignity, something that transcends the boundaries of turf and expands out into metaphysical vistas beyond division, beyond illusory borderlands, la frontera of the individual fighting his or her own land for an existential space just to BE.
And here it is again... that hope...
The law has also unified Hispanic activists in the US, who are organizing mass protests for May 1 celebrations in more than 70 cities across the country that promise to be bigger than the 2006 protests that drew activists across the country calling for immigration reform.
In Mexico, politicians of all ideologies have unanimously condemned the law. So have newspapers, religious leaders, and governors from across the country. “We are all brothers, Mexicans and Latin Americans,” says Rafael Flores, a medical technician awaiting a flight, “in the face of something so unjust.”
To join in this great spiritual awakening toward the advancement of Civil Rights of Latinos, here is Reform Immigration for America's list of National Marches for May 1st.
In 2006, between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people were said to have marched in Los Angeles for immigrant rights:
In Chicago in 2007, the crowd was estimated at 150,000, blocking the freeway for hours in the long, hard toil for Latino acceptance by the United States Government.
I hope to see you -- white, brown, green, black, or purple -- say YA BASTA to Arizona's racist new law and also, to give a little of your own spirit to the spirit of those proud people still reaching out their hearts and hands for a sense of embrace by a Nation claiming to be a melting pot, a rainbow of ethnicities that so far have included every shade of pale. It's time to make Latino solidarity a front-and-center issue for us all, no matter what side of La Frontera we're on.
Arizona, you are off my Christmas card list.
Arizona, you aren't my new bicycle.
Arizona, you can shut your damned piehole.
Arizona, we're through; I'm seeing someone else.
Arizona, you fart in bed when you sleep.
Arizona, your Canyons may be Grand but your rifts are far, far wider.
Arizona, I'm boycotting you.
And Arizona, so is Mexico too.
But at least a few say they will boycott Arizona. “I felt terrible when I heard about the law,” says traveler Maria Elena Guijarro, who visits California once a year but says now she would not consider Phoenix or anywhere else in Arizona as an alternative.
“It is in protest,” says her husband, Mr. Jimenez. “We will not go to a place where our civil rights are not recognized.”
Mr. Flores, on his way to San Diego to visit friends and view medical equipment, referrs with a smile to last-minute stragglers rushing to board an Aeromexico flight to Phoenix: “Thank God I am not on that one.”
Because what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
May Civil Rights for all of us hairless and pathetic, puny little creatures clinging to this tiny rock hurling through outerspace with few overt signs of a either captain or a destination present, may our civil rights prevail by our own solidarity with one another, our own choice to be one tribe living under one sky.
Bless up to all!