It’s sometimes daunting how much times have changed. As the change occurs, it seems scarcely noticeable at first–then it becomes so monumental it affects everyday life. Recent events in the world of immigration politics have brought this into sharp focus. In Arizona the idea of official documentation has led to a firestorm of criticism.
Growing up in Roanoke in the 1950’s, I would wager there were not a dozen families in the city who were new immigrants. I was in college before I ever heard a foreign language being spoken here. The first ethnic restaurant was on Salem Avenue and did not appear until the late 1960’s. People commented: “Imagine . . . real Chinese food right here in the Star City!”
The only time the word “immigrant” came into play was in conversations about Ellis Island or the problems of Mexicans stealing across the Rio Grande into Texas. Their pejorative description was “Wetbacks”; there was still water in the river then.
Itinerant crop harvesters were around, but they were almost universally poverty-stricken Americans. When the trickle of “foreigners” became a substantial stream that turned into a torrent is difficult to say. The social problems and upheavals that have resulted were, at least in the public mind, never considered until they had reach near-insoluble proportions.
While the border states of Texas and Arizona have special problems of their own, no section of the country has been spared the necessity of supplying goods and, more importantly, services to tens of millions who have arrived, legally or otherwise, in the last half century.
The economy has found a place for many of them to work, although their employment is generally menial, providing barely enough on which to live and none of the benefits that most citizens take for granted.
Health care has been a flash point. When immigrants, documented or not, become ill, they go to emergency rooms where they are almost universally treated. Without any form of insurance, the cost of such care has been shifted to the indemnified patients. Nationally, that amounts to billions of dollars a year. That is a partial explanation for the $30 aspirin tablet you may find on your itemized ER bill, should you happen to ask for one.
So critical has the problem become that Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law a provision for law enforcement officers to require a document of official identification for anyone who “they might reasonably suspect is an undocumented immigrant.” The ACLU and their minions must feel as though they have awakened in litigation heaven. It will be interesting to see how quickly this reaches the Supreme Court.
While I am always leery of comparing such actions to those of a fascist state, the concept of an officer of the law approaching anyone who they choose and asking, “Papers, please,” does smack of brown shirts, jackboots, and yellow stars of David.
The dilemma facing Governor Brewer is understandable. It is not her fault that Arizona is in this position. The federal government, who should have taken ownership of the immigrant problem, has been in a state of near paralysis for years. It was only a matter of time before a state would take action on its own. The bumper stickers will soon be out there: “Arizona 2010—The Alabama of 1963.” That isn’t fair. There is nothing of the evil, mean-spirited malice of George Wallace and Bull Connor in this, but class distinction is written all over it.
President Obama has called the law “ill-advised,” but it is going to take lot more than labels and name-calling to bring this into line with principles which we, as Americans, treasure. If only the governments, federal and state, had addressed the problem 40 years ago, we wouldn’t be in this mess, but in 1970 we had too many other things on our collective minds to see the nightmare this would become.
Stay tuned. It may get worse before it gets better.
By Hayden Hollingsworth [email protected]