I was born in south Scottsdale, directly across the road from the Salt River Reservation. My best friends in elementary school included kids of Mexican and Native American descent. We were in Cub Scouts and team sports together. I played at their houses just as much as they played at mine. Not once did I ever stop and consider them any different, let alone less, than me. We grew up equals.
My parents are republicans. Sometimes I suspect they still write-in Eisenhower for president. Dad would have spanked me back to the stone age if I ever treated anyone with disrespect based on the color of their skin. I was taught to celebrate our rich diversity in Arizona. Many’s the time I met new friends because my parent went to a BBQ or party on rez land. I quickly understood the importance of understanding children , my age, that didn’t live like I did. There was no better or worse. Hell, half the time I was envious because they had great tree forts, horses and river bottoms to play in and I was stuck in suburbia.
But those experiences also led me to think that something was wrong. About once a month, it seems in my memory, my bedroom would fill up with blue and red lights at night that woke me up. I lost track of the times that someone would get hit on Pima Road trying to get back to the reservation. I asked my dad why there aren’t more cross walks or pedestrian bridges to keep people safe? I asked him why the roads weren’t better when we crossed into rez territory? The seeds of the realization of systematic oppression were planted.
My Mexican American friends had it better off. They seemed to have more support from the system. Their mom’s and dads worked at the Motorola plant too. I never got the hint that Arizona did anything less than cherish it’s Hispanic background.
And then thing started to change. By high school, to be born in Arizona was to be part of a minority. My new friends(new school) didn’t have the same cultural exposure that I had. I knew people that never met a native, let alone went hiking and fishing with them.
By the time I was out of high school, I met my first racist. He was my boss. He was talking shit about a co-worker who wasn’t there to defend himself. I stood up for him and was fired. That co-worker was black. That’s when I knew I had to use my childhood as the moral basis for living in an adult world. I liked the feeling I had for standing up for someone who could not defend themselves, especially standing up against something as repugnant as racism.
I know when we received our reputation for being racist. It was in the years that you started having to go visit or work in communities that didn’t exist when we were kids. Towns like Sun City West, Anthem and Oro Valley filled up with people that weren’t from Arizona. And things got ugly. Or maybe I grew up and paid more attention. I now have to defend Black Lives Matter to angry old white men who think outrage at killing unarmed American citizens is the same as saying that cops don’t matter. I have to stand up against the idea that Mexicans( it’s not Mexicans or Mexican Americans, no matter how many generations they have lived here) are lazy. Damn, you try working for less and support a family. To them, I now live in a ‘barrio’, not a working class neighborhood where families still walk the kids in the evenings, kids play in the street and there little crime. I love my ‘hood and now have to defend that. Of course, it’s pretty easy. All the meth lab explosions are in the ‘white’ part of town.