SB 1070: Looking Illegal

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

There’s a big old brouhaha about Arizona’s new anti-illegal alien law, effortlessly passed by the state legislature and signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer on 23 April 2010. The law relies on police officer discretion to determine if someone stopped for, say, a traffic violation or for loitering in low-end attire in a high-end neighborhood is in the United States illegally — based on reasonable suspicion (this exists in the ethereal zone between a hunch and the cold, hard circumstances of probable cause). There are some additional provisions that, all told, make the law some rather fascist reading. Critics say such street-level discretion inevitably leads to racial profiling, something we abhor in this great nation of ours — unless it’s the other guy being profiled, the guy whose looks we don’t like.

Along with other Constitution-loving patriots, I must take issue with Senate Bill 1070. Having various family members who’ve dabbling with undocumented immigrant status, starting back in the 17th century and continuing into the not too distant 20th century, is a darn good motivator. Given that heritage, my kiddo and I figured the only sane response to Arizona’s los jefés locos (that’s illegal-alien Spanish for “xenophobic crazies in charge of Arizona”) is to go for the illegal-alien look and head to the Grand Canyon State so we can be stopped by the local gendarmes (that’s illegal-alien French for “police”) and get arrested for failure to carry legal documentation of our status — “Heil, Ausländer! Zeigen Sie mir Ihre Papiere, du Juden!” (that’s illegal-alien Nazi for “Yo, aliens! Show me your papers, you Jews!”). Then we can make a big old stink about the racist law that will lead to its being overturned, and we can shuffle home to sunny Southern California to watch our favorite novellas.

So, we figured, we just have to look like aliens, which shouldn’t be too difficult for us. We’re used to looking different, what with Katie’s genetic olio and the dominant sub-culture in Fallbrook, where my liberal lapel pins serve as bull’s-eyes for right-wingers. Upon exploring various closets and drawers, we came up with a pretty good option: a very nice, very simple illegal-alien French look — beret and faux fishing shirt (“faux,” that’s also one of those illegal-alien words). Katie modeled the look for us, and it seemed a tidy little snapshot of an alien.

Hmmm, but maybe too tidy? Too pretty? Too appealing to members of the white supremacy? And, although our fearless leaders felt compelled in a moment of pique to rename their fries, Americans really like French stuff — their fashions, their food and wine, their kisses — we even co-opted their Eiffel Tower for Las Vegas! So, nope, we decided we can’t rely on a French facade to get us stopped and tossed in the hoosegow (yet another illegal-alien word, from the Spanish juzgado, court).

Instead, we thought, a more practical, less sexy approach might be more likely to produce the arrest we’re after — which led us to Canadians! They’re much easier — all we need is earflaps and a six-pack of Moosehead, eh?

But rats! We realized we could be too easily mistaken for someone from Washington, Minnesota, upstate New York — any of the northern states. And even though they’re just not quite as cool as Americans, we still like the Canadians. So, no, this will never do. Double rats!

We were getting a little frustrated, and we did briefly consider an ET mask, but we really didn’t want to make a mockery of our campaign to bring down what amounts to a Down With Brown People Law, oh no, no, no. But wait! Down With Brown? Down with Brown!

In a flash of inspiration, we got it: Surely there is no better way to demand the attention of Arizona’s law enforcement officers seeking illegal aliens than to show up in brown face — brown face! — it’s perfect! ¡Perfecto! Parfait! Perfekt! Eh?

Yep, brown skin, sullen glare, gang sign — definitely illegal-alien material. We’d stumbled on the perfectly malevolent mask of the bandido, the savage Mexican criminal hell-bent on sucking up our social services and spewing out anchor babies into constitutionally protected citizenship (unless Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, CD-52, successfully “clarifies” the Fourteenth Amendment and sends the U.S.-born offspring of illegal aliens packing with their mamis and papis).

In the meantime, it’s off to Arizona we go, and we encourage all brown-loving people to join us. We can caravan, do on-the-road civil disobedience training, print leaflets in the back of a psychedelic van and get high on silkscreen cleaner fluid, sing Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, and do a little strategic planning for the subsequent round of protests, when Arizona spins its next bit of xenophobia — legislation to ban the burqa. At least that look will be a lot easier to emulate.