Amoxtli X - The X Codex

In Lak Ech, Panche Be & Hunab Ku & The Forgotten 1524 Debate

Eagle Feather Research Institute 2010 Collective Copyright

 

By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez, Arnoldo Vento, PhD, Vivian Garcia Lopez, PhD, Mixelle Rascon, Pricila Rodriguez, Norma Gonzalez, Crystal Terriquez, Jo Anna Mixpe Ley,          Grecia Ramirez & Luis A Valdez

 

SAVE ETHNIC/RAZA STUDIES 
 

Why did several communities support a run from Tucson to Phoenix through the Arizona desert in 115-degree heat in the middle of the summer last year? Probably for the same reason 15 of us were arrested for criminal trespass at Tucson’s state building this May: We did it to combat the effort to terminate, via HB 2281, Tucson’s highly successful Raza Studies program. This came on the heels of the anti-immigrant bill, SB 1070. One attacks our bodies; the other, our spirits.

 

While the bill was dropped in 2009, this year, the know-nothing Republican-dominated state legislature passed both bills, whereas the state’s unelected governor, Jan Brewer, promptly signed both “laws.” HB 2281 is particularly onerous because it is a Dark Ages-era law that attacks the thinking/teaching/learning process. It also creates an Inquisition-style mechanism to approve acceptable books and curriculums. Arizona State Schools Superintendent, Tom Horne, who has never set foot in an Ethnic/Raza Studies classroom, first mounted his campaign in 2006 when Dolores Huerta stated at Tucson HS that Republicans hate Latinos. Since then, he has isolated Rodolfo Acuña’s Occupied America and Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, as examples of books that promote hate, segregation and advocate anti-American views while calling for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. He is claiming that Raza Studies is out of compliance of the new law and is now calling on TUSD to force Raza Studies to videotape its classes.

 

Lost in this “debate” is the nature or contents of Raza Studies and its philosophical foundation. As a result, a collaborative mini-book: Amoxtli X – The X Codex, has been written to provide such an answer. The book stresses the concepts of In Lak Ech – tu eres mi otro yo – you are my other self – Panche Be – Buscar la Raiz en la Verdad – To Seek the Root of the Truth – and Hunab Ku – a view of the world that explains the nature of the universe.

 

These concepts are part of a maiz-based philosophy and curriculum that stress a human rights ethos. Maiz is the only food in history that was created by human beings, and the peoples of this continent – Cemanahuak or Abya Yalla – are the only peoples to have created their own food. Horne insists that Greco-Roman knowledge – as opposed to the maiz-based AmerIndigenous knowledge taught in Raza Studies-TUSD – should be exclusively taught in Arizona schools. For the past several years, these ethos have been in full display as Raza Studies youths have led the protests against both bills. More than protest, they have fully lived their peaceful meaning.

 

“This philosophy comes direct from the cereal that was created by the ancient settlers of the continent: maiz… yes, the maiz, that creation of the savage beast, and that thanks to them, lies the hope for humanity.” – Maya Linguist, Domingo Martinez Paredez, 1960.

 

Amoxtli X – The X Codex, in part, was also created to raise funds to combat HB 2281. Aside from forthcoming trials for the 15 of us, a lawsuit against the state is forthcoming. If you would like a signed copy, please make a $10 check per copy to the University of Arizona Foundation. Send to Roberto Rodriguez PO BOX 3812, Tucson, AZ 85722. If you would like to donate more, either add a greater amount to check or buy more books. (Discounted class sets are available. proceeds will go toward the Dec 2-4 Conference on Hate, Censorship & Forbidden Curriculums. For more info re books: 520-626-0824 XColumn@gmail.com).  Panche Be T-Shirts are also available for $20.

The Philosophical Foundation for Raza Studies

 

In Lak Ech, Panche Be & Hunab Ku: The Philosophical Foundation for Raza Studies... or What State Officials Don’t Want Arizona School Children To Know

by Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez, Ph.D.

For the next few months, the world will be focusing on Arizona’s SB 1070 – the state’s new racial profiling law. However, in this insane asylum known as Arizona, where conservatives have concocted one reactionary scheme after another, another law in particular stands out for its embrace of censorship – the 2010 anti-ethnic studies HB 2281 – a law that seeks to codify the “triumph” of Western Civilization with its emphasis on Greco-Roman culture.

Unless it is blocked, HB 2281 – which creates an Inquisitorial mechanism that will determine which books and curriculums are acceptable in the state – will go into effect on Jan 1, 2011. Books such as Occupied America by Rodolfo Acuña and Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire, have already been singled out as being un-American and preaching the violent overthrow of the U.S. government.
Both laws are genocidal: one law attacks the physical presence of red-brown peoples; the other one, our minds and spirits.

Lost in the tumultuous debate regarding what can be taught in the state’s schools is the topic of what actually constitutes Ethnic/Raza Studies.

The philosophical foundation for Raza Studies are several Indigenous concepts, including: In Lak Ech, Panche Be and Hunab Ku. Over the past generation, the first two concepts have become fairly well known in the Mexican/Chicana/Chicano communities of the United States. The third concept, Hunab Ku, is relatively less well known, though it actually forms the foundation for In Lak Ech – ‘Tu eres mi otro yo – You are my other self’ and Panche Be – ‘to seek the root of the truth’ or ‘to find the truth in the roots’. As explained by Maya scholar, Domingo Martínez Paredez, Hunab Ku is the name the Maya gave in their language to the equivalence of the Supreme Being or the Grand Architect of the Universe (Hunab Ku, 1970). Such concept is an understanding of how the universe functions.

These three concepts are rooted in a philosophy based on maiz. Maiz, incidentally, is the only crop in the history of humanity that was created by humans. Also, the Indigenous peoples of this continent are the only peoples in the history of humanity to have created their/our own food – maiz – a food so special that it is what virtually unites not simply this continent, but this era. These three maiz-based concepts, in effect, constitute the essence of who we are or who we can be; human beings connected to each other, to all of life and creation. Part of creation; not outside of it. This is the definition of what it means to be human.

Despite the destruction of the many thousands of the ancient books of the Maya (along with those of the Aztecs-Mexica) by Spanish priests during the colonial era, these Maya-Nahua concepts were not destroyed, nor are they consigned to the past. Today, they continue to be preserved and conveyed via ceremony, oral traditions, poetry and song (In Xochitl – In Cuicatl) and danza. And they continue to be developed by life’s experiences.

In Raza Studies, these ideas are designed to reach those that are unfamiliar with these concepts, in particular, Mexicans/Chicanos and Central Americans and other peoples from the Americas who live in the United States and who are maiz-based peoples or gente de maiz, albeit, sometimes far-removed from the cornfield or milpa. Despite their disconnection from the fields and despite the disconnection from the planting cycles and accompanying ceremonies – and in many cases the ancestral stories – their/our daily diet consciously and unconsciously keeps us connected to this continent and to the other original peoples and cultures of this continent.

In part, this effort to understand these concepts is an attempt to reclaim a creation/resistance culture, as opposed to viewing themselves/ourselves as foreigners or merely as U.S. minorities. It is also an affirmation that de-Indigenized Mexicans/Chicana/Chicano and Central and South American peoples are not trying to revive or learn from dead cultures. Instead, as elders from throughout this continent generally affirm, these cultures have never died and neither have these concepts; peoples have simply been disconnected from them. That is one definition of colonization and/or de-Indigenization. The effort to understand these and similar concepts and to embrace and live by them, is also one definition of de-colonization. And to be sure, it is elders from Mexico primarily, that have for more than a generation reached out to these communities, imploring them/us to “return to our roots.”

Asserting the right to this knowledge that is Indigenous to this very continent is an effort to proclaim both the humanity and Indigeneity of peoples who are matter-of-factly treated as unwelcome and considered alien in this society. HB 2281 bizarrely treats this knowledge as “un-American.”

Additionally, asserting the right to write modern amoxtlis or codices – is also part of an effort to proclaim that de-Indigenized peoples also have the right not simply to repeat (or recreate) things ancient, but to produce their/our own living knowledge, based on the lived reality in this country. And in the case of Arizona – with red-brown peoples continuously under siege – these concepts can help us bring about peace, dignity and justice, with the potential to create better human beings of all of us.

The above has been redacted from Amoxtli X – The X Codex, 2010, Eagle Feather Research Feather Institute (http://eaglefeather.org/index.php), by Rodriguez, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona, in collaboration with several authors. He can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com /index.php

Leticia X is Human II: Tragedy & Waiting for Pres. Obama

 

Leticia X is Human II: Tragedy & Waiting for Pres. Obama

By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez

In October of 2009, I wrote a column about a brilliant high school DREAM student whose goal is to attend college in the fall of 2010. I referred to her as Leticia X. When she spoke to my class at the University of Arizona last fall, she had my students in tears, knowing full well that unless the immigration laws change, she will be unable to pursue her dream.

Leticia X has a special love of land (agriculture) and her dream as a new high school graduate is to become a teacher in Mexican American Studies. I saw her this past week at the annual Raza/Ethnic Studies conference in Tucson, but this time, it was she who was in tears because her father had been picked up that morning (as a passenger) on a minor traffic violation by local Sheriff’s deputies and was subsequently turned over to the border patrol.

The most dynamic of educators from across the country had come to learn about the battle against HB 2281 – the new anti ethnic studies law – and the SB 1070 law – the racial profiling law scheduled to take effect July 29. Her presence was a reminder of how Arizona has become the epicenter of dehumanization; her life, and the lives of her family are now in limbo. At the prompting of a professor who had just met Leticia X, the educators instantly sprung to her defense.

Because Congress has still not reformed the nation’s immigration system, she will not be living her dream this fall, though she is now undergoing an even greater tragedy, in this insane asylum known as the apartheid state of Arizona.

Leticia X is not afraid of using her real name. When she spoke to my class, she used her actual name and high school. It is I who chooses not to identify her publically (Recently, DREAM students staged a sit-in at McCain’s Tucson office, subjecting themselves to arrest so that they themselves can take control of their own movement. In Phoenix, other DREAM students served Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio with a community indictment, charging him with crimes against humanity.

Incidentally, Leticia X does not consider herself undocumented or an illegal alien. Neither do other DREAM students conceive of themselves in such a manner. Neither do I. To do so buys into the dehumanization that has become normalized in this society.

The notion that children, who had no choice in coming to this country can be considered illegal, stands logic and the law on its head. Minimally, it is immoral to say the least. To break the law, one has to consciously break a law. Leticia X crossed into the United States at age three… hardly an age when she could have consciously broken any law whatsoever.

She considers herself a U.S. citizen because she has no conscious memory of any other nation than this one; she is guilty of no crime, and should be treated as such. The potential deportation of her father/family puts a human face on the inhumanity that our society has descended to. Her father is not illegal either; his only “crime” was to try and make a better life for his family.

This is at a time when President Obama recently directed the Immigration and Customs Enforcement to concentrate on deporting violent criminals who are a threat to the public safety and (a canard) those who are a threat to national security. Leticia X’s father is neither. Neither is his family.

In the heat of an electoral campaign, where she is vying to become the elected governor of the state… and in the heat of defending the state’s racial profiling law, Arizona’s unelected Gov. Jan Brewer has taken the lead in the misinformation department, alleging that most migrants are carrying drugs and that drug cartels have been beheading people in the Arizona desert. Both are fiction.

Brewer should meet Leticia X. If she did, she would come face to face with a beautiful human being, guilty of no crimes and deserving to be treated as a full human being. If anything, this future teacher merits a full scholarship.

President Obama should also meet Leticia X. He should meet her father and be reminded about his recently declared immigration enforcement priorities. Upon meeting them, he would know the face of this debate; he would know that it is high time to reform the nation’s immigration laws and that it is also high time to bring millions of people, not into Arpaio’s infamous tents, but rather, into the tent of humanity.

 

For more info re this unfolding situation: landandfreedom@gmail.com. To support Leticia X and her father, checks can be written to: Barrio Sustainability Project – TYLO. They can be sent to: Tierra Y Libertad Organization, 3649 S. 7th Ave. Tucson, AZ 85713

Rodriguez, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona, can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com


* UPDATE... as a result of community support, Leticia X's father was bailed out and is now fighting his removal.

Arizona’s SB 1070: A crack law by any other name

By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez

By now, most of the world has learned that the Republican-dominated legislature in Arizona and its unelected governor are capable of creating laws more associated with repressive regimes – or bygone eras – than with modern states. And it also knows it has become a magnet for supremacists of every stripe and color.

That’s not a good thing, but for those thousands who are bankrolling Gov. Jan Brewer’s defense of the state’s racial profiling law SB 1070 – scheduled to go into effect July 29 – many actually believe she is putting up a valiant defense against invading and violent [brown] hordes. Seemingly unbeknownst to her supporters, contrary to her recent claims, the vast majority of migrants are not involved in the drug trade. Despite Border Patrol officials telling her otherwise, she continues with her uninformed falsehoods and fear-mongering, with the effect of continuing to associate migrants with [drug] criminality.

Also unbeknownst to these legislators, is that ironically, one of their wacko laws can actually provide the solution to ending the drug cartel violence raging across  Mexico: the state’s anti-human smuggling law. In this state, migrants can be charged and convicted of conspiring [with their coyote] to smuggle themselves into Arizona. The law was not designed that way, but leave it to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to interpret the law in such a manner.

After having been stripped of his 287g federal immigration powers – stemming from his penchant for media choreographed mass dragnet raids aimed at red-brown communities – he now relies on the state’s anti-human smuggling law to stage his dehumanizing productions.

 As bizarre and abused as this law is – if emulated to fight the drug war in the United States – the drug cartel wars in Mexico would come to a virtual halt overnight. If the same Arpaio logic were applied to the nation’s drug trafficking laws, then every American who uses imported illegal drugs would be complicit and guilty of conspiring to smuggle those drugs into this country. And we would need a lot more prisons.

Either that or perhaps the drug demand by Americans would drop quite precipitously… pronto. No one can seriously doubt that it is the American demand for drugs that is fueling the drug cartel wars in Mexico. The American market is extremely lucrative. Cocaine, for example, is not grown or produced in Mexico. Yet, it is funneled through Mexico to quench the voracious American appetite. As part of this demand, American noses and arms are satisfied while many thousands of Mexicans die in the crossfire.

The state legislature or Congress could charge drug users with conspiracy to smuggle the drugs they use. There is but one reason this will never happen: WE ARE AMERICANS!

Americans have rules for everyone else and rules for themselves (Invading nations without a just cause is one example). Actually, “Americans” in this case is more specific; when it comes to drugs, there are rules for White, middle and upper middle class Americans, and then there are rules for people of color.

Cocaine is the perfect example. Since 1986, there has been a 100 to 1 possession disparity between its consumption as crack (wrongly associated with poor blacks) or in its powder form (middle class whites). Historically, under federal law, 5 grams of crack is the same as 500 grams of powdered cocaine. Each trigger a 5-year prison sentence. Over the past generation, this sentencing and incarceration disparity, not coincidentally, has long been indisputably racial in nature, resulting in the filling up of this nation’s prisons with black and brown drug offenders.

But back to how Arizona’s bizarre anti-smuggling law could be used to stem the drug cartel violence. American drug users – most of whom are white – could be charged, not with simple possession, but with felony conspiracy to bring in their own drugs. If applied judiciously and uniformly, the fear of long-term prison incarceration – 10 years, for example – would invariably dry up the fuel for the drug cartel violence.

It would also deflate the conflation between drug smuggling and migrants. As most of the world already knows, that conflation has always been false.

Yet that’s par for Arizona where bizarre is normal and truth is difficult to find. Perhaps the Justice Department – which has now sued Arizona over SB 1070 on the grounds that immigration policy is the purview of the federal government, not the states – will bring a little bit of truth to the desert. Meanwhile, 153 bodies have thus far been recovered this year in that same merciless desert (http://www.derechoshumanosaz.net/).

 

Rodriguez, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona, can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com

Ipalnemoani: That For What We Live For

Ipalnemoani: That For What We Live For

By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez

As we prepare to get arrested as a result of the passage of a new anti-ethnic studies law in Arizona, several attorneys explain to about 30-40 of us in Tucson’s state building the consequences of getting arrested. As such, the numbers are winnowed down to 15 due to legal reasons, parental authority, age, etc. Many of those making these decisions are middle and high school and college students.

All of us who remain on the 2nd floor have thoughts racing through our minds. As I think about why I will get arrested, all I can think of is the Nahuatl concept of Ipalnemoani: That for what we live for – or the Maya concept of Hunab Ku.

We can summons all the linguists and all the great philosophers of the world, but in the end, their translations will not suffice. It is meaning that I am looking for, not words. This is about who we are and about what makes us human. At this time, it boils down to one question: What in life is worth getting arrested for?

For those of us here, the right to our own narrative – the right to memory – is one of them.

The decision to get arrested is a collective one. These youngsters are courageous and determined to defend that which is theirs: a department (Ethnic/Mexican American Studies) that affirms who they are as full human beings – as peoples with a thousands-of-years culture, history and philosophy on this very continent.

Perhaps another 200 protestors on the first floor are also subject to arrest because they are also participating in a boisterous demonstration inside the state building. It is here where the state superintendant, Tom Horne – who spearheaded this law – has taken refuge after he failed to show up at Tucson Unified School District headquarters where perhaps 1,000 students surrounded that building.

Now in the heat of summer, that question – as to what triggers a decision to get arrested – is foremost on peoples’ minds, especially here in Arizona. It has come to that.

Several weeks before the racial profiling law (SB 1070) was signed, nine students and community members chained themselves to the state capitol and got arrested (The charges have since been dropped). After the 15 of us got arrested for criminal trespass, the week after that, five Dream students and community organizers staged a sit-in at Sen. John McCain’s office in Tucson. All subjected themselves to historic arrests – exposing themselves to deportation. Then a week later, a dozen members of the statewide O’odham Solidarity Across Borders Collective took over and occupied the Border Patrol Headquarters in Tucson (http://oodhamsolidarity.blogspot.com/). Six were arrested for Disorderly Conduct and Criminal Trespass.

This flurry of arrests highlights and brings to the fore what is happening in this insane asylum called Arizona, including the forthcoming attempt to void the 14th Amendment, which guarantees birthright citizenship to all those born in this country. This is also happening amid the constant arrival of racial and political extremists to this state.

As Arizona gets more insane, we have arrived at a moral precipice. Soon, others will face the same question; beyond protesting, people will ask: what am I willing to get arrested for?

In other countries, and at other points in history, this has triggered a different question: What am I willing to fight and die for? Here, that question has been inverted: What am I willing to live for? That such a question is being contemplated tells us that many people here are not content with simply sending emails or blasting text messages to our senators, etc.

And thus, as the anti-Mexican/anti-Indigenous and anti-immigrant hate-and-fear drums continue to increase in volume, the Obama administration capitulates by continuing to further militarize the border. This Arpaioization of not simply the border, but the nation, continues to elicit an unprecedented response. Human rights activists nationwide have united to boycott the state, while more than 100,000 recently protested in Phoenix.

As July 29 fast approaches, the date when the racial profiling law will take effect, people in Arizona, but also nationwide, will face a life-changing decision (We will also face that decision on Jan 1, 2011, the date when the anti-ethnic studies law goes into effect). Will we commit to mass civil disobedience or will we lack the courage as happened when Americans sat idly by as their fellow Japanese American citizens were illegally and inhumanely marched off to camps during World War II?

This is when history calls upon all of us to make that momentous decision. This time around, hopefully, the right decision will be made.

Rodriguez, an assistant professor at the university of Arizona, can be reached at: XColumn@egmail.com

FROM MANIFEST DESTINY TO MANIFEST INSANITY

FROM MANIFEST DESTINY TO MANIFEST INSANITY 

As a result of several recent draconian laws, Arizona's image has taken a drubbing internationally. And yet, Arizona is but the spear. In reality, its politics are not dramatically different from those of other states, or from Washington's. More than a dozen states are waiting in the wings with copycat legislation, and the Obama administration continues to view migration through the prisms of law enforcement and military might.

Fueled by hateful and cowardly politicians and the hate-radio universe, these new and emerging laws are undeniably anti-Mexican and anti-immigrant, but most of all, they are anti-indigenous. In effect, they are an extension of Manifest Destiny. Its modern expression is Manifest Insanity - an attempt to maintain, amid the "browning" of the nation, the myth of America as the pristine home God promised to English-speaking, white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants.

The new Arizona laws are part of a spasmodic reaction to the demographic shift that immigration sets in motion; they are an attempt to maintain a political and cultural dominance over indigenous peoples, who are seen as nonhumans from defeated nations. The laws seek to maintain the narrative of conquest, an archetype dictating that the deaths of some 5,000 primarily indigenous Mexicans and Central Americans in the Arizona/Sonora desert in the past dozen years mean little in this clash. It is the same narrative used to rationalize the recent killings of two Mexicans by US agents along the US/Mexico border.

For those who are attempting to uphold this dominance, the browning of America represents a time reversal - a cultural and political turnabout of the so-called triumph of Western civilization. This is what Arizona represents: a civilizational clash, and a clash of narratives over the myth of America itself - nothing less.

Rodolfo Acuña, author of "Occupied America," came to Arizona last week offering a stark reminder about this clash. His book - along with Paulo Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" - has been at the center of the anti-ethnic-studies firestorm that culminated when Gov. Jan Brewer signed HB 2281 last month. (She had signed SB 1070 - the racial profiling law - the previous month.)

The controversy surrounding Acuña's book has been fueled by an extreme Eurocentric ignorance. For several years, State Superintendent Tom Horne has been pushing an "Americanization" agenda, insisting that Arizona students be exposed only to "Greco-Roman" knowledge. Knowledge centered elsewhere, including the Mesoamerican, or Maize, knowledge that is indigenous to this continent, is generally considered subversive and un-American. This knowledge is at the philosophical heart of Mexican American, or Raza, studies. Arizona is not alone in this insanity; Texas education officials recently banned the inclusion of labor leader Dolores Huerta in the state's school curricula.

Horne has long claimed that Raza studies preach hate, result in segregation, and promote anti-Americanism and the violent overthrow of the US government. Truth is, he has had a vendetta against Raza studies since Dolores Huerta proclaimed at Tucson High in 2006 that Republicans "hate Latinos." Horne (who constantly denigrates Huerta as "Cesar Chavez's former girlfriend") and his allies have spent the past several years trying to prove her right.

As Acuña found out in Arizona, the mere act of embracing a different philosophical center constitutes a threat to those invested in the cultural and political domination that would negate inclusive worldviews in education. More than that, it threatens the national narrative of taming a wild, savage and empty continent and conquering, exterminating and civilizing "the Indians."

Occupied America upsets the carefully crafted myth of the United States as the land of freedom and democracy or Paradise on Earth.

Raza studies' critics in Arizona - including media professionals - are barely familiar with Acuña's book. (He matter-of-factly tells them to read his book before attacking him.) At best, they spar over its title and a few catch phrases (mistranslating "La Raza" to mean "The Race" as opposed to "The People") and attempt to denigrate an entire discipline on the basis of their ignorance. Yet, at the core of their argument, the critics are correct. Ethnic studies is indeed a threat to the mythical America where the genocide, land theft, slavery and dehumanization that are the foundation of this nation are denied, or are mere footnotes. (Unchallenged, this glossed-over view permits US citizens to view permanent war as a God-given birthright.) Such complete denial - accompanied by the complementary myth of an empty continent - renders the concept of occupied America completely unfathomable.

Raza studies' critics attempt to dehumanize Mexicans/Chicanos. In the critics' conjured narrative, Mexicans/Chicanos are neither legitimate Americans nor legitimate human beings, neither are they afforded the status of indigenous peoples. At best, they are mongrels, undeserving of full human rights. The survival of this narrative is dependent upon the process of deindigenization and dehumanization. Those of us that cannot be deported (it remains to be seen what's in store during next year's battle in Arizona over the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship) are welcome here - as long as we participate in our own assimilation - or ethnic cleansing - and accept this nation's mythologized narrative.

That's the definition of Manifest Insanity.

Rodriguez, a professor at the University of Arizona, can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com

Tolteka has converted this column into hip hop. Go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiG8p1MUXxA

Arizona: Rushing Toward the Wrong Side of History

 

By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez

Before the Dream students made their historic stance in Tucson, Arizona last week—to stage a sit-in, in Sen. John McCain’s office, and thereby subjecting themselves to deportation proceedings – this sun city had already been in the eye of the storm. The perfect storm.

And yet, they were not the only ones to take a powerful stance that week; several hundred Indigenous peoples from throughout the world rallied at the Tucson Immigration Department Headquarters, protesting Arizona’s new racial profiling law; it was followed by the dramatic takeover of a Border Patrol station in Tucson by more than a dozen members of the statewide O'Odham Solidarity Across Borders Collective. They were protesting the state’s draconian and nation’s anti-Indigenous immigration policies. Six were arrested (http://oodhamsolidarity.blogspot.com/).

That law confirmed that Arizona is governed by extremist politicians. On the day it passed in April, nine human rights activists chained themselves to the capitol building. The anti-ethnic studies law, which was signed in May – resulting in 15 arrests as a result of the takeover of the state building – proved that the state has returned to the Dark Ages as this law sets up a mechanism to censor books and curriculums (It was preceded by a siege of the Tucson Unified School District Headquarters by middle and high school students).

Two days before the racial profiling law passed, 800 military-clad federal agents swooped into South Tucson looking for human smugglers. This unprecedented action, along with the two laws had precipitated protests, walkouts, marches, community forums, boycotts, vigils and runs in both Tucson and Phoenix.

 

Now, as Dream students gathered in Tucson – something even bigger was about to happen. Dream students from throughout the country – students deemed to be without U.S. legal documents, in this country since they were children – had decided to intentionally turn themselves in so as to bring awareness regarding the approximately 65,000 Dream students who graduate annually and cannot continue their higher education. In the realm of civil disobedience, subjecting themselves to deportation was unfathomable.

 

But as they spoke of their proposed action, they stated that their historic action was to be taken because they could no longer wait for others to act for them; the leadership of their movement would hereafter be in their own hands. And if they did enter deportation hearings, they believed they might be able to remain in the country between 3-5 years – enough time to bring about passage of the Dream Act.

The Dream Act, in its original form, was first introduced in 2001. The logic of the act is that children are not responsible for the acts of their parents, etc… meaning, that to break a law, one must be conscious that one is breaking a law. Many of the Dream students were brought to this country as infants, thus, incapable of breaking any law. The Dream Act permits such students to continue on with their higher education.

The calculated gamble by the Dream Students has paid off (see: http://www.thedreamiscoming.com/). Since then, other dream students have stepped forward nationwide. Just but a few weeks ago, the true identity of Dream students was a closely guarded secret. Now, they are confronting Sheriff Arpaio himself (June 3) and are leading marches nationwide… including the massive march and rally in Phoenix last week (Filming from a fixed point – a 4-lane street – it took 1.5 hours to film the march. The media is notorious for underreporting numbers, but the travesty in this case is that the media made the number of counter-protestors -- a few hundred – appear to be comparable to the more than 100,000 marchers).

 

The dramatic developments these past two months in Arizona – along with an international boycott of Arizona – reveal that resistance has entered a new phase. And with the addition of Indigenous peoples sending the world a dramatic message – regarding who is legal on this continent – it is clear that indeed, Arizona is rushing toward legal Apartheid.

Despite more than a dozen copycat states, those who fear a brown nation have decided to make their stand in the Arizona desert. Next year, legislators will attempt to revoke the 14th Amendment in Arizona, which guarantees citizenship to all born in this country. The state’s undocumented [unelected] governor, Republican Jan Brewer, is one of those with this fear. Appealing to the nation’s anti-Mexican and anti-immigrant sentiment, she has established a nationwide fund to support her legal retrenchment into the Dark Ages.

 

Morally, Brewer -- akin to George Wallace of a generation ago -- is on the wrong side of history.

Rodriguez, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona, can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com