From an Arizona Dreamer: SB 1070 Should Not Be a “Model” For The Nation
via The Huffington Post
Fifteen years ago, my mother asked me to pack one bag with my most valuable belongings. I was only eleven, so I decided to pack three of my best outfits and dozens of letters that I had collected from my closest friends in the 5th grade. I wanted to take everything from our home in Mexico, where I lived for the first eleven years of my life, but I knew we were going to walk for a couple of days across the Arizona desert. I also knew that between my mom, my seventeen-year-old sister and I, we would have to take turns carrying my chubby two-year-old brother. So, I left all of my memories behind. But it was ok, because I knew that coming to the United States meant that we were no longer going to be afraid of my father’s abuse.
Of my first memories living in Arizona, I remember living in a one bedroom apartment with about ten people. I quickly learned to adjust to any situation I had to face. Unable to find work, my mother and I went door-to-door in Mesa selling tamales (Mexican food). After much sacrifice and very hard work to put food on our table, my mom was able to find a job that overlooked her immigration status. We were finally able to buy a small home in Mesa and I was living the American dream.
A year later, Sheriff Joe Arpaio conducted a raid at my mother’s workplace. I spent two days inside my house on my 21st birthday with our lights off, waiting for the sheriff’s truck to leave our home. My mother was really scared and I thought we were going to be deported.
As a result of the raid, we lost everything. We abandoned our home and sold everything in order to make rent on an apartment. We had to start from scratch once again.
Unfortunately, stories like mine are not uncommon in Arizona. Due to the ideologies of anti-immigrant figures like Kris Kobach, Russell Pearce, Joe Arpaio, and most recently, Mitt Romney, attrition through enforcement or “self-deportation” reinforces the idea that people like me will leave this country if the government makes our lives miserable enough.
In 2010, my community saw an escalation of such scare tactics with the introduction of SB 1070, a law that allows racial profiling by the police to detain and deport undocumented immigrants. My neighbors started leaving to other states because they were scared of losing family members, and many of the local stores I used to frequent are now gone.
In this interview with Diane Sawyer I speak about our experience as the implementation of SB 1070 was approaching in 2010.
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