So, Arizona’s governor just signed into law a bill that does a whole lot of things. Meant as “immigration reform,” the law requires immigrants to carry around documentation of their legal immigration status at all times, and that police officers question and confirm the legal immigration status of anyone that they suspect could be in the country illegally.
And what, exactly, would lead a police officer to believe that a person is in the country illegally? Let’s just put it this way; if you get pulled over for speeding and you’re white and sound like you’re a native English speaker, you’re probably not going to be hauled down to your local police station and held until you can produce evidence that you are in the country legally.
That’s right, folks, racial and linguistic profiling just became legal in Arizona.
Now, I could say a lot about this bill—excuse me, this law. I could talk about how it affects education, how the Republican sponsor of the bill publicly stated that it would be good for Arizona because it would mean “smaller classrooms” in the state—sounds good, right? Until you realize that basically, what he means is that there would be fewer little brown, Spanish-speaking kids in Arizona classrooms because they—and their parents—would have been kept or kicked out of the country. I could talk about how I can see this law becoming a precursor to Arizona’s challenging of Plyler v. Doe, the Supreme Court case that established that all children in this country, regardless of their immigration status or that of their parents, have a right to an education. I could talk about how, when this great nation was born, we smacked a poem right on the Statue of Liberty that says, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”—but we get really pissed off when people, you know, actually take America up on her offer.
But what I really want to talk about is my grandpa. He’s the reason I take this whole thing very, very personally.
My grandpa was the only grandfather I knew; my other grandfather died before I was born. He was hilarious. He was incredibly fun. Us kids chased Grandpa around like flies, always looking for the next adventure. He was boisterous, he was loud, he was always getting into trouble with his daughters for getting their kids into mischief. In short, he was awesome.
He was also short and brown, and he spoke Spanish as a first language. He spoke English, but he had an accent so thick you’d swear he couldn’t have been born in the States. But he was. See, my grandpa’s family has been living in the western part of the country since long before those Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. They’ve lived there since before the United States stretched all the way to the Pacific Ocean, back when California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Texas, even parts of Colorado were part of Mexico. They spoke Spanish. Then one day, a president got it into his head that it was “God’s plan” for the United States to extend all the way to the Pacific Ocean. (Of course, this revelation was conveniently timed; it happened right after the first discovery of gold in California.) So we picked a war with Mexico, we took all that land, and my family became United States citizens. They didn’t move, not one inch; the border moved.
So, my grandpa was, I guess, what you would call Mexican, if you met him; however, in reality, he was more American than many white, English-speaking Americans are. He didn’t cross any oceans and steal any land. He couldn’t have told you when his ancestors came to the United States—they were just always there. He just got born in Colorado, like members of my family had been doing for centuries before him, back when everyone there spoke Spanish, and even before that when people there spoke Native American languages.
And you know what? He did so much for his country, more than any of those blowhards in Arizona have done or will ever do. The only time I ever saw my grandpa refuse to speak was when we asked him about the war. He was in the Army, and he fought in World War II; he was one of the first men ashore on D-Day. He was a radio operator, and those men had to get ashore first and radio back about the positions of the Germans on the beach. If you’ve ever seen Saving Private Ryan…well, that’s exactly what my grandfather lived through. He went on to fight in Germany; he captured German soldiers, he got shot, his feet nearly froze off because of the cold, when he didn’t have any dry boots. By the time the Army finally decided he was officially wounded, gave him an honorable discharge, and sent him home, he had earned two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star.
But he didn’t like to talk about any of that.
When he got home from the war, he worked for years as a mechanic for Pan-American Airlines. He and my grandma, the lady he jokingly said he married because she made the best tortillas in Colorado, had six kids. He died in 2004. I was heartbroken.
However, if my grandpa were alive today, and he were pulled over in Arizona for speeding or running a red light or not signaling when switching lanes, the police officer who pulled him over would now be required to ask him if he is in this country legally. The officer would be required to ask my grandpa to produce paperwork proving that he is in the country legally. My grandpa would be hauled down to the police station and possibly held in a jail cell until he could somehow get someone to deliver his American birth certificate to the Arizona cops.
I realize that my grandfather is an exception to a rule. I know that the people who are going to be affected by this law are mostly not Spanish-speaking war heroes in their 80s. But that’s not the point. The point is, this country was built on the sacrifices of people like my grandfather, whose families didn’t choose to come to America by any means; America chose them when it discovered it had something to gain from their land. But people like my grandfather embraced their new country wholeheartedly and gave everything they could for it, even when it became clear that what that country really wants to do to all of the brown, Spanish-speaking people here is use them up and kick them out.
I know it can be easy to forget that English is not the native language of this land. But speaking Spanish is not a crime, nor is it a signal of an illegal immigrant—or any kind of immigrant, for that matter. Being brown is not a crime—in fact (and I know it sounds cliché, but it’s true), this country was built and continues to operate on the sweat and suffering of brown people, regardless of where they came from or how they got here. Here’s an example; go look at the people who rip the feathers out of dead chickens for a living at your local Tyson plant, those people who came here to do that job because it was an incredible opportunity for them. Would you want to do that? Would you want your children to aspire to that? Would you want to view having that disgusting job as a step to a better life for you and your children? Probably not. But you’d be pretty mad if the price of chicken breasts at Walmart skyrocketed, wouldn’t you? America has an incredible hypocrisy problem; it always seems to have an incredible urge to bite the hand that feeds it—and defends it.
I wish I could tell all of this to the governor of Arizona. I wish there were so much more I could do, because there’s definitely so much more I could say. But I’ll just say this: the next time you feel the urge to gripe about having to press 1 for English, remember that because of the bravery and suffering of a little brown man who grew up in Colorado playing baseball and—oh, horror of horrors!—speaking Spanish, one thing you will absolutely never have to do as long as you’re in the United States is press 1 for German.
And what, exactly, would lead a police officer to believe that a person is in the country illegally? Let’s just put it this way; if you get pulled over for speeding and you’re white and sound like you’re a native English speaker, you’re probably not going to be hauled down to your local police station and held until you can produce evidence that you are in the country legally.
That’s right, folks, racial and linguistic profiling just became legal in Arizona.
Now, I could say a lot about this bill—excuse me, this law. I could talk about how it affects education, how the Republican sponsor of the bill publicly stated that it would be good for Arizona because it would mean “smaller classrooms” in the state—sounds good, right? Until you realize that basically, what he means is that there would be fewer little brown, Spanish-speaking kids in Arizona classrooms because they—and their parents—would have been kept or kicked out of the country. I could talk about how I can see this law becoming a precursor to Arizona’s challenging of Plyler v. Doe, the Supreme Court case that established that all children in this country, regardless of their immigration status or that of their parents, have a right to an education. I could talk about how, when this great nation was born, we smacked a poem right on the Statue of Liberty that says, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”—but we get really pissed off when people, you know, actually take America up on her offer.
But what I really want to talk about is my grandpa. He’s the reason I take this whole thing very, very personally.
My grandpa was the only grandfather I knew; my other grandfather died before I was born. He was hilarious. He was incredibly fun. Us kids chased Grandpa around like flies, always looking for the next adventure. He was boisterous, he was loud, he was always getting into trouble with his daughters for getting their kids into mischief. In short, he was awesome.
He was also short and brown, and he spoke Spanish as a first language. He spoke English, but he had an accent so thick you’d swear he couldn’t have been born in the States. But he was. See, my grandpa’s family has been living in the western part of the country since long before those Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. They’ve lived there since before the United States stretched all the way to the Pacific Ocean, back when California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Texas, even parts of Colorado were part of Mexico. They spoke Spanish. Then one day, a president got it into his head that it was “God’s plan” for the United States to extend all the way to the Pacific Ocean. (Of course, this revelation was conveniently timed; it happened right after the first discovery of gold in California.) So we picked a war with Mexico, we took all that land, and my family became United States citizens. They didn’t move, not one inch; the border moved.
So, my grandpa was, I guess, what you would call Mexican, if you met him; however, in reality, he was more American than many white, English-speaking Americans are. He didn’t cross any oceans and steal any land. He couldn’t have told you when his ancestors came to the United States—they were just always there. He just got born in Colorado, like members of my family had been doing for centuries before him, back when everyone there spoke Spanish, and even before that when people there spoke Native American languages.
And you know what? He did so much for his country, more than any of those blowhards in Arizona have done or will ever do. The only time I ever saw my grandpa refuse to speak was when we asked him about the war. He was in the Army, and he fought in World War II; he was one of the first men ashore on D-Day. He was a radio operator, and those men had to get ashore first and radio back about the positions of the Germans on the beach. If you’ve ever seen Saving Private Ryan…well, that’s exactly what my grandfather lived through. He went on to fight in Germany; he captured German soldiers, he got shot, his feet nearly froze off because of the cold, when he didn’t have any dry boots. By the time the Army finally decided he was officially wounded, gave him an honorable discharge, and sent him home, he had earned two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star.
But he didn’t like to talk about any of that.
When he got home from the war, he worked for years as a mechanic for Pan-American Airlines. He and my grandma, the lady he jokingly said he married because she made the best tortillas in Colorado, had six kids. He died in 2004. I was heartbroken.
However, if my grandpa were alive today, and he were pulled over in Arizona for speeding or running a red light or not signaling when switching lanes, the police officer who pulled him over would now be required to ask him if he is in this country legally. The officer would be required to ask my grandpa to produce paperwork proving that he is in the country legally. My grandpa would be hauled down to the police station and possibly held in a jail cell until he could somehow get someone to deliver his American birth certificate to the Arizona cops.
I realize that my grandfather is an exception to a rule. I know that the people who are going to be affected by this law are mostly not Spanish-speaking war heroes in their 80s. But that’s not the point. The point is, this country was built on the sacrifices of people like my grandfather, whose families didn’t choose to come to America by any means; America chose them when it discovered it had something to gain from their land. But people like my grandfather embraced their new country wholeheartedly and gave everything they could for it, even when it became clear that what that country really wants to do to all of the brown, Spanish-speaking people here is use them up and kick them out.
I know it can be easy to forget that English is not the native language of this land. But speaking Spanish is not a crime, nor is it a signal of an illegal immigrant—or any kind of immigrant, for that matter. Being brown is not a crime—in fact (and I know it sounds cliché, but it’s true), this country was built and continues to operate on the sweat and suffering of brown people, regardless of where they came from or how they got here. Here’s an example; go look at the people who rip the feathers out of dead chickens for a living at your local Tyson plant, those people who came here to do that job because it was an incredible opportunity for them. Would you want to do that? Would you want your children to aspire to that? Would you want to view having that disgusting job as a step to a better life for you and your children? Probably not. But you’d be pretty mad if the price of chicken breasts at Walmart skyrocketed, wouldn’t you? America has an incredible hypocrisy problem; it always seems to have an incredible urge to bite the hand that feeds it—and defends it.
I wish I could tell all of this to the governor of Arizona. I wish there were so much more I could do, because there’s definitely so much more I could say. But I’ll just say this: the next time you feel the urge to gripe about having to press 1 for English, remember that because of the bravery and suffering of a little brown man who grew up in Colorado playing baseball and—oh, horror of horrors!—speaking Spanish, one thing you will absolutely never have to do as long as you’re in the United States is press 1 for German.
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