I wrote for the Examiner and posted my most heartfelt thoughts on SB 1070 here...
http://www.examiner.com/x-13562-Phoe...-BS-er-SB-1070
...but you could also look at this from that "police state" and "racial profiling" perspective. Logically, the only way to avoid either is for illegal immigrants to abide by the honor system and volunteer their citizenship status. To avoid racial profiling, police would need proof of
everyone's citizenship status. Check out the chick who played Jean Grey in the
X-Men trilogy... she's quite convincing, but not American. Ditto Hugh Laurie from
House. They're likely here on visas, but they can nail that American non-accent.
I'm a strange hybrid-American. My grandfather on my mother's side traced our ancestry in this country (or what would become it) to the early 1600s. My grandmother on my father's side moved here in 1954 from war-torn Vienna just weeks after giving birth to my father... also an immigrant. If I speak with my grandmother "auf Deutsch" in public do I need to have my papers ready? Or does she? Her accent is much, much, much more noticeable than Arnold Schwarzenegger's and she's lived in the US longer.
It's a stupid law and frankly... I posted in the main community awhile ago I was unhappy with my job. I toyed with the idea of opening my own business in Phoenix but after seeing how unlikely it would be that I would get funding for it, I had to give up that idea. Then, my boss had some axe to grind and fired me under questionable circumstances. I've been unemployed for two months and have been looking for work with much fervor in that time... well, actually I've been looking since December 2008, and have found nothing. That is to say, I've found things if I want to blow off the fact that I spent so much time and money in grad school, moved my ass to Asia for two years to get more work and international experience... and I find nothing but customer service horse shit prevalent in Phoenix.
Why is this relevant? The same legislature elected to sit around the Capitol just to jerk off enacted this. BUT, they enacted this while in the same session they dicked around instead of fixing the budget, despite pleas from the business community to get the state to change the laws and work to attract new businesses they did nothing, they ensured that women who have abortions must disclose a lot of personal information, they proposed a bill that would give adoption preferences to married couples and they actually passed a bill that would prevent human-animal hybrids in Arizona. So yeah... any mad scientists we previously had will have to take their lairs elsewhere. In the end, this November these same vote-whores will get re-elected.
In the end... when I lived overseas I recommended people come visit this city. I went to school out-of-state and sang its praises. And now, I could move to West Virginia and have the ability to look down on Arizona. I fully support this boycott and though I live in Phoenix now, I'm busting my ass off to get out as fast as possible. My partner loves ice cream... but we've agreed no Coldstone or Shamrock Farms. Our dog is like our child and we previously went to PetSmart to support a local business... but now we go to PetCo. I know there's little I can do to support these outsiders boycotting Arizona when I still live within it and pay sales taxes... but I think they need to sink this state and remind Arizona that
THIS is not the proper path to immigration reform.
This place used to be home, but it's nothing more than a disappointment now.