Rodriguez: Anti-immigration law spurred by manifest insanity

Opinion

Monday, June 21, 2010

"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 that dramatically different from other states and not that different from Washington. That more than a dozen states are waiting in the wings with copycat legislation and that the Obama administration continues to view migration through a law enforcement and military prism is plenty proof.

Those politics, fueled by hateful and cowardly politicians and the hate-radio universe, are undeniably anti-Mexican and anti-immigrant. Yet in truth, they actually are anti-indigenous. In effect, the politics that we are seeing are undeniably an extension of Manifest Destiny. Its modern expression is Manifest Insanity, an attempt to maintain the myth of America conceived of as a promise of a pristine, God-given home reserved for English-speaking White Anglo Saxon Protestants – this amid the browning of the nation.

These Arizona laws are part of a spasmodic reaction to this demographic shift, an attempt to maintain a political and cultural dominance over [brown] peoples seen as less than human and as defeated peoples. These laws seek to maintain this narrative of conquest. This is why the loss of some 5,000 Mexicans and Central Americans lives, primarily indigenous peoples, in the Arizona/Sonora desert in the past dozen years mean little in this clash. The same is true in regards to the recent killings of two Mexicans by U.S. agents along the U.S./Mexico border.

For those who are attempting to uphold this dominance, this browning represents a time reversal, a cultural and political reversal 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."

Get the Story:
Roberto Rodriguez: From Manifest Destiny to manifest insanity (Indian Country Today 6/21)