The AAYA! Blog

HB 2281

Governor Jan Brewer has done it again. Just weeks after signing the controversial (and dumb) SB 1070, the law that allows officials to stop any suspected illegal immigrants and demand proof of citizenship, Brewer signs another bill targeting Mexican-American, African-American, and Native-American ethnic studies in the Tuscon school districts of Arizona.

HB 2281 bans schools from teaching classes that are specially designed for a particular ethnic group on the provisions that Arizona’s government:

Prohibits a school district or charter school from including in its program of instruction any courses or classes that…promote the overthrow of the United States government…promote resentment toward a race or class of people…[and] advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.

Do these people think ethnic studies classes involve the use of pitchforks and torches followed by plans for taking over America? Or is Jan Brewer just really really repulsed by the color brown?

Read more here!

“You’re in trouble if you’re really tan and you find yourself in Arizona…”

I actually don’t follow current events as much as I should, so it took me until yesterday to hear about Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signing some ridiculous bill on Friday. SB 1070, the Arizona law enabling and requiring police officers “to detain people they reasonably suspect are in the country without authorization and to verify their status with federal officials,” was met with immediate protests by immigrants and advocates for the illegal.

The law aims to “identify, prosecute and deport illegal immigrants,” but in actuality, will probably just increase harassment and racial profiling, especially of the Mexicans and Hispanics. Brewer did respond to critics’ concerns, “saying she would work to ensure that the police have proper training to carry out the law. But she sided with arguments by the law’s sponsors that it provides an indispensable tool for the police in a border state that is a leading magnet of illegal immigration. She said racial profiling would not be tolerated, adding, ‘We have to trust our law enforcement.’”

I guess I’m just wondering exactly what kind of training the police will be receiving. How to spot an illegal resident? Or as my friend Dan Ping pointed out in her blog, “tiny people with green skin and antennas jumping off spaceships or…people who look and are Mexican?” I also find the newly installed honor system to be quite amusing. Sorry, Arizonians, you’re just going to have to trust your police not to pull you over because they simply can’t be racists.

I wonder how this whole thing will work out. Will Obama follow through with his promise of a federal overhaul of immigration laws? In any case, like my professor said, “You’re in trouble if you’re really tan and you find yourself in Arizona…”

Arizona Enacts Stringent Law on Immigration