Roberto Rodriguez: Leaving Footprints; Running for Justice

Leaving Footprints; Running for Justice

By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez

In Arizona, we know that the eyes of the world are upon us.

Perhaps this is why many of us hold vigils and forums, why we march, protest, rally, get arrested… and run.

In the past several years, the Sonora desert has become a super magnet for the forces of hate, bigotry, ignorance, false patriotism, censorship demagoguery and especially, scapegoatery – or the art of blaming Mexicans for everything. So too has it become a magnet for those who struggle for peace, dignity, justice and human rights.

I am a newcomer to the desert and as such, I marvel at the amount of activism all around me, especially by youths. Actually, activism is not the right word for what I have been witnessing here for the past 3 years. Commitment is a better word. The level of commitment to social justice and for the right to a relevant education has been affirming. What is daily affirmed is the belief that all human beings are created equal and all are entitled to full human rights, regardless of race, color, creed, religion, citizenship or migration status.

All this has occurred as a result of a relentless campaign against the red-brown peoples of this state – whether they have been here for many thousands of years or if they just got here today. The racial profiling that everyone fears has always existed all along the U.S.-Mexico border, so much so that Cesar Chavez used to refer to the migra or the U.S. Border Patrol as the “Gestapo of the Mexican people.”

That’s the reason for the relentless pushback against the state’s SB 1070 law. It seeks to federalize local police – giving them the “rights” that the migra has long exercised against the red-brown peoples they have always illegally and inhumanely profiled. In Tucson where I live, the pushback has been against both SB 1070, and HB 2281, the effort to ban ethnic studies.

What’s most impressive about the resistance is that it has been waged largely by K-16 students. That’s not too minimize the role of community organizers and community elders; quite the contrary. It is precisely this sector, led by groups such as Derechos Humanos, that has trained and essentially grown these young activists and organizers.