Arizona: Ground Zero in Immigration's New Race Wars

By George Ciccariello-Maher, CounterPunch. Posted December 26, 2008.

Repeal members such as Xochitl Trevizo insist that their view is a moral one, and this is reflected in their slogan, which insists that "all people, regardless of documentation, have the right to live, love and work wherever they please." I had the opportunity to speak with several active members of Repeal Coalition to better understand their motivations, arguments and prospects for long-term success.

Two Conservatisms, Two Immoral Visions

Asuka began working with the Repeal Coalition shortly after arriving in Arizona for an international student-exchange program in September. As a Japanese-Peruvian, Asuka was initially surprised to discover the severity of the situation along the southern border: "Before I arrived in Arizona, I didn’t realize how bravo, how rough the situation is, how much damage these laws are doing to the people here." According to Katie, a Phoenix native and Repeal member, many local activists felt that, while No More Deaths had been effective in providing a minimal degree of humanitarian aid to those crossing through the desert, "things had gotten so bad that humanitarian aid wasn’t enough, and someone had to step forward with political proposals."

While some in No More Deaths were critical of the push toward political organizing, arguing that to do so would encourage repression of often subterraneous immigrant communities, many NMD members eventually joined the Repeal Coalition. The Repeal Coalition initially coalesced in February 2008 around the idea to write a resolution that would declare Flagstaff a "sanctuary city" in which "all human beings -- with papers or without -- be guaranteed access to work, housing, health care, education, legal protection and other public benefits, as well as the right to organize."

As members of the nascent coalition saw things, Arizonans were confronted with two conservative sectors with equally unethical perspectives on immigration: either to "kick them all out" (the response, generally, of social conservatives), or to institute a new form of highly exploitative guest worker, or bracero, program (the response from local capitalists who thrive on immigrant labor). But needless to say, these are not the only two options, even if cowardly liberals bow to the conservative dichotomy. On the ground in Arizona, the Repeal Coalition has provided a basis through which undocumented workers and activists are forging new paths of resistance to these false alternatives.

But according to the coalition’s "power analysis," establishing Flagstaff’s sanctuary city status was to be no easy task, the city’s relatively progressive credentials notwithstanding. "I would like to say the City Council looks friendly," Taryn tells me, "but our resolution is aggressive, asking the city not to enforce any immigration laws, or to do so at a bare minimum." And if Repeal Coalition was to avoid falling into the trap of being a largely white organization speaking for the interests of the immigrant community, members recognized that they needed to respond more directly to the needs and desires of that community. As a result, the "sanctuary city" resolution has, in practice, served, in the words of Katie "more as an organizing tool to build a community movement," and the Repeal Coalition members have been canvassing Flagstaff’s Latino community heavily for months in an effort to put the undocumented community in the driver's seat of the coalition while building the organizational basis for further resistance and struggle. As members put it:

Each door has brought us closer to the reality and fear that undocumented and people of color are facing on a daily basis. This is the fear of the police, the fear of deportation and the fear of being excluded from something as basic as the right to live, love and work wherever they please… One woman told her story, while holding her baby, of her fear to drive to the hospital when her child was sick. She was too afraid to leave her house. And she could barely get the words out of her mouth as tears dripped down her face. 

When asked how the undocumented community has responded to Repeal’s message, Katie is upbeat: people are responding well, she says, noting that membership in the coalition and recent meetings have seen significant growth. But there has also been more demand for community support, reliable contacts that undocumented residents can call upon for groceries or supplies if they are too at-risk to leave their homes safely, "you know, little things that make the day easier if you’re under attack." Asuka says, "we have created a close connection with the community; for me that’s the best part."

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George Ciccariello-Maher is a Ph.D. candidate in political theory at the University of California, Berkeley. He lives in Oakland, Calif., where he is completing a people’s history of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, "We Created Him". He can be reached by e-mail at gjcm@berkeley.edu.

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