Here’s what I want you to do tomorrow. During the course of your normal day, pay extra attention to your surroundings, more specifically to the people around you.
Observe the people that drive or walk by; the people in stores you shop at; the people that work at your job; the people that attend your school. Observe each of these people and then decide whether or not they “belong” in America.
Hmm that’s a tough task. Well, let’s give it a shot.
Okay, who’s first? Let’s see. There’s a tall, middle-aged man walking next to a lady who’s carrying a beautiful, pudgy baby girl in her arms. All of them have brown skin and dark brown hair. Yeah, I’m not sure if they belong.
Next up, we have a nice young couple. Teenagers in love, holding hands, having a great time. This time it’s a little harder to make a decision. They have lighter skin so wait! Did I just hear Spanish?? Yes. Well, can’t have that.
There’s a blonde female driving by. Completely fine.
Here’s a guy in his forties, nothing fancy about the way he’s dressed. He looks Mexican. Or maybe Dominican. Perhaps Italian? Maybe even Middle Eastern all of those are possible. I can’t tell, but he doesn’t look American.
Wow, that’s six people already!
And here’s the seventh. Dressed in a T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, with a backpack on. 18 years old. Part Mexican-American, part Italian. It doesn’t matter that his ancestors on his mom’s side came to America from Italy about 7 generations ago. It doesn’t matter that his dad’s family has lived in this part of America since well, since it was Mexico. It doesn’t matter because, just by the looks of it, that kid in the mirror doesn’t belong here.
So where does this idea of determining who is and who isn’t American just by glancing at them stop? With Arizona’s immigration law, Mexicans would be the ones whose citizenship would be questioned simply based on their looks. But that would extend to South Americans, Latin Americans, and even Mexican-Americans because they look the same. So then why not question a few Puerto Ricans, some Eskimos, and a couple Middle Easterners while you’re at it? I mean they all look Mexican. And because they look Mexican, well, we have to make sure that they actually do belong in America.
The dangerous rhetoric of determining who belongs in America is something that has plagued our country throughout its existence. It was only 46 years ago that African Americans were denied equality in the law, housing, hiring, and school. Only 68 years ago, Japanese Americans were singled out because of their appearance and placed into internment camps.
Only 90 years ago that the National Origins Act restricted immigration, severely limiting immigration from eastern and southern Europe, and completely disallowing immigration from Asia because they were deemed “dangerous,” while giving preference to immigrants from northern and western Europe. Only a few hundred years since Native Americans were the owners of the land. So in this nation of immigrants, who is to say who belongs and who doesn’t?
It’s strange how a country that embraces the idea of being a cultural melting pot can act in the ways the U.S. is now. It’s strange that a country that has moved past a dark history of racism into an era of racial equality and acceptance can do something so discriminatory.
Discriminatory and ineffective is exactly what Arizona’s new immigration laws are. People act as if all illegal immigrants are Mexican. That’s not true. Only 57 percent come from Mexico. Another 24 percent come from other Latin American countries, so it does make sense to look at these individuals. But what about the almost 20 percent that come from non-Hispanic countries? There are millions of immigrants who are here illegally from many other countries.
Arizona’s immigration law doesn’t look at illegal immigrants as a whole; it only looks at Hispanics. That is less of an attempt to fight immigration and more to antagonize and discriminate against a large subset of the population.
I’m not saying that illegal immigration is okay. Something needs to be done about illegal immigration. Something that fairly addresses immigrants from all countries, not just from Mexico. Something on a federal level, rather than a state level. Something that monitors the rate of immigration, but doesn’t make it virtually impossible for those looking for a better life to enter legally. And just by the looks of it, this isn’t that something.
Zeke Perez, Jr., is a first-year student at the University of Denver. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
