Show Your Papers

With a stroke of the pen, Arizona’s Governor Brewer, has reduced every Mexican-American in the state to a second class citizen. What is overlooked, forgotten or ignored by the passage of this law is that Arizona, together with most of the southwest was part of the Republic of Mexico until 1848 when the treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo ceded it to the United States. At that time the indigenous people of Arizona were the hispanic Mexican and Apache Indians; they became American citizens as a matter of law. The Apaches, as a threat, are gone; the Mexicans have been Americans for generations; now subject to warrantless stop and interrogations as if the 4th amendment to the Constitution no longer applies to them. Concerns for unlawful immigration, drug smuggling and other crimes, shall henceforth be regard as likely the result of activities by dark skinned, spanish speakers who shall henceforth be subject to strict police surveillance and harassment without concerns for due process of law or other niceties warranted by civility and civilized conduct. ‘Show me your papers “ shall henceforth be the mode of greeting rather than buenos tardes.