Oh Arizona...

So let me preface this writing by saying I am not a political person. I don't vote, nor have I ever registered to vote, I don't follow political issues, or pay much attention to what the government does. My reasons, which everyone always seems to think are important when I bring up these facts about myself, are simple. I am a 26 year old white female. I am college educated and I work in the service industry. Very few of the things the government of the U.S. does affect me directly. I have seen MTV's rock the vote ads and specials, I've listened in classes and to friends when they tell me that my vote counts but I know in all honesty it doesn't. I think if everyone felt that way then yes it would make a difference but I know not everyone does. I refuse to chose between the lesser of two evils and until something rocks me hard enough for me to make a stand I will remain unregistered. However, this does not stop me from having an opinion.
So here it is.

What the heck is going on in Arizona!? The other day I was getting ready to step out and run to the store and left my television on the news while doing so. Whatever Chicago news channel happened to be on my TV was discussing the new senate bill passed by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer that deals directly with Illegal Immigrants. Much of what the news broadcast was covering was the opposition to this bill by many American citizens and people who fight in favor of immigration.
I am not going to pretend to know anything about the state of Arizona and it's immigration problems. I went there once like 7 years ago for a few days. It's a pretty state and I enjoyed my visit but I don't know about the politics there and I'm not going to imply that I do. However, I live in a city were 28 percent of the population is "Latino" how many of that percentage are illegal immigrants is really hard to say (they're illegal after all), but I can imagine it's a large number. I have worked alongside illegal immigrants, I have dated one, I have befriended others and I can honestly say that the illegal immigrants I have met (not just Hispanics) are perfectly fine human beings. They flee to the U.S. to make a better life for themselves, their families, their community and their own country. Imagine how much the economy of Mexico is stimulated by American dollars being sent back home to buy food, clothes, household appliances, cars, and so on for Mexican families. Since many of those things are manufactured in the U.S. or by U.S. companies that money is technically going right back into our pockets. Money that these families would have otherwise not possessed due to the fact that Mexico as a whole is a low income country.

Again I'm not saying that illegal immigration is a good thing. I'm also not saying it's a bad thing. I'm simply saying it exists and it's probably going to exist for some time. I'm also not saying that I have any grasp of Arizona's situation with crimes committed by illegals or anything to that nature. I'm simply saying that to me this law seems a bit much.

It's more so the things that this law could bring with it. Namely racial profiling.

Before I started my work in the restaurant industry I don't know that I had ever met an illegal immigrant. I'm not sure that I've ever known that anyone was or was not illegal. I could have made assumptions about cab drivers, or the maintenance people in malls, the guy who does landscaping for the wealthy people in the neighborhoods around where I grew up but I never thought about it. Nor did I ever care. It wasn't until I knowingly worked alongside illegal immigrants in restaurants that I ever started to wonder who was legit and who wasn't. Even then I still didn't care all that much. The point was to do a job, and to do that job well regardless of who was working alongside of me.

So if I am just a normal person, how am I supposed to know who is here legally and who isn't? How can I tell just by looking at someone or talking to them if they posses a visa or some sort of immigration papers or not? How am I to know if those papers have expired or if they are still valid? Unless I straight up ask,(And what is the likely hood that anyone would disclose that information to me? Slim to non.) there's no way of knowing. There never will be. You cannot be trained to know that, you cannot learn how to spot an illegal immigrant. I understand that the police are merely being given permission to ask for any reason other than when a person has committed a crime (which apparently used to be the standard). I also now understand that the Governor of Arizona has stated that along with this bill the law enforcement people who will be able to use this law are to be trained. How?

If the criminal element they are trying to eliminate is that of the drug cartel and gang members from Mexico and other Central American countries how on Earth will one be able to tell the difference between the legal citizens (those carrying visas, immigration papers, who are waiting for naturalization, or who are legitimate U.S. citizens) and those who are in the country illegally?
Will it be based on their ability to speak English? I know plenty of American citizens who speak poor English because they still haven't assimilated 100% after over 10 years in the country. I've used them as resources for my quest to learn Spanish. I also know several people who are not here legally who speak very good English.

Will it be based on the type of work they do? The Russian girl I worked with was a bartender. The Mexican guys I worked with (who were legal) worked as cooks. What about people who are protected by the refugee laws? Will they appear to be illegal? Do Latin-American's have to carry their birth certificates, Passports, or citizenship documents to go on vacation in Arizona now?

We are a nation born from Immigration. My grandparents were born in the United States, the son and daughter of illegal immigrants from Germany. Their brothers and sisters were illegal immigrants. Depending on how you gauge a generation I could be a 2ND generation American. Was my family wrong to come to America? Work for American companies? Produce American children? The only people who have a real legitimate right to claim they are not products of immigration are American Indians whose tribes were here before the Pilgrims, before Columbus, before the Vikings. And look what we've done to them!

Is it fair to assume that a white, black, Asian, Indian, or other person walking down the street is possibly illegal? Sure it's a fair assumption but how often do we think that the white guy who lives across the street from me walking his dog is not American? Or the black guy who works at best buy and helped me buy my router is not American? The Thai man who works at the hotel by my old job and speaks broken English with a thick Thai accent might not be legit, but he's a good tipper. What about the Greeks who own many bars and restaurants in Chicago? Or the Nigerian man who drives the taxi I took to work the other day? How can anyone tell just by looking at someone without using some sort of racial profiling? One answer. They can't.

I've read that one of the issues people have with illegal immigrants is that they take jobs from American citizens. Okay, I'll bite. What jobs do the illegals that you know posses? They work in Fields, they work in factories, kitchens. They do jobs that most Americans are too cocky to accept. I don't want to pick fruit, or work with grease, mow someones lawn, or deal with garbage. That's just not me. Some Americans I'm sure in this unstable economy would be happy to take any job that's available, I understand that but you wont see me getting down and dirty.

I hate outsourcing. It is one of the few things in the world that bothers me more than traffic (and I loathe traffic). My reasons are not racist or prejudice, they are simple. I have a problem with my computer, I would like for the best person available to help me. I do not want to be stuck on hold while someone flips through the pages of a manual that is written in whatever language only to have them come back on the line to try and translate to me what those pages say in a thick accent that over a crappy trans-Atlantic phone connection I can barely understand.
I'm all for putting jobs in foreign countries to help stimulate their economies and help break them out of poverty. I'm all for people being given jobs that otherwise did not exist. Don't get me wrong I'm a big fan of life and I believe everyone in the world deserves the right to have one and to have a good one. I am not, however, a fan of being treated like I'm a moron because I can't understand a language other than my own. I do not expect anyone to speak English unless they live and work in America (or other English speaking countries). So why should I be expected to understand a language other than my own when I call the "English" help line for an American company? Now going to other countries is different, when I visit France on vacation I should be able to speak a little French. It's fair for them to expect that.

If we're so concerned with Americans not having enough jobs available to them because the immigrants are snatching them up, lets bring some of those call centers back to the states so that the many unemployed American college grads with degrees in IT or computer sciences can be the ones to help us set the clock on our VCR.

I guess everyone has an opinion. Here's mine. I'm not saying it's the right opinion. I'm not saying it's the wrong one. I'm just saying it is. As a person who doesn't vote or even have the ability to I'm often told I'm not entitled to a political opinion because I do nothing to change the problems I see in the way our country may or may not do things. I think that as a writer and an American, and a human being living in the world I have every right to my opinion. This is how I attempt to change the problems. I bitch about them in a blog that maybe a handful of people read. Maybe someone will stumble across this one day and agree or disagree with what I have to say. Maybe they will feel so passionate about it that they will take the steps needed to do something. That's all I've got to give. The possibility that something might be done.