Dear Arizona.....

I'm angry and I'm hurt. I haven't felt like this since California's Prop. 187. But that's not really my point.

Let me tell you a not-so-well kept secret about being Mexican-American in the United States. What is the FIRST thing we look at when a baby is born? Why, the color of the skin, of course. People say things like, "oh, she's so pretty and light," or "he's handsome, but a bit dark, no?" Why do we care about these things? One could cite the history of colonialism, racism by the Spanish, mestizaje etc. but really it all boils down to this: the color of your skin determines how the world will interact with you. If you are dark, people will make certain assumptions about you and treat you a certain way. If you are light, you will look more Anglo and people will perceive and treat you differently.

Often within one famly, as with my mother's, you get a range of skin tones from very fair (and freckled in my mom's case), to very dark. Simply by a genetic code, I (and my children) ended up on the light side of the spectrum. As my mother noted the other day, my Tio Vildo would be flagged by immigration (and has been), but my red-haired, freckled mother never has, and likely never will be. Simply because of the shade of her skin. Yet they are both children of Humberto and Rafa Rios and both Mexican. Unfair, don't you think? I'll get to why I think this is significant, Arizona, in just a minute.

I understand some of the sources of your frustration, Arizona. The rancher that was killed on his ranch recently was very likely killed by drug smugglers. Tighter enforcement of the borders in California has led illegal border crossers to undertake the more treacherous and deadly route across the desert into Arizona. The booming economy in the Phoenix area drew a huge population of tile-layers, drywallers and other day laborers. Now the economy is no longer booming, but many of the problems of rapid growth in the immigrant population (schools, roads, housing) remain. I can see that you are frustrated, Arizona, that the federal government appears unable to confront the very real issue of how to deal with illegal immigration.

Passing this new law, however, Arizona is not the solution. Police officers absolutely should be able to question the immigration status of someone who has committed a crime. If they have committed a robbery, assault, smuggled drugs, driven a car while drunk, then absolutely their immigration status should be ascertained. If it is determined that they are here illegally, then absolutely they should be deported and forced to serve their jail time in Mexico. I don't want criminals from other countries sitting in our jails at taxpayer expense when they could be shipped off to their home countries.

However, you have to realize, Arizona, how dangerous your new law could be in the hands of a less than ethical police officer. If the color of one's skin can be a reason for questioning someone's immigration status, then the corroborating reason could be something as simple as a dark-skinned person driving a car that looks too nice late at night. So my Tio Vildo, or many of my other relatives, all legal citizens, could be stopped for driving while brown, while at the same time, my mother and I would not. Does this mean that my darker-skinned cousins would need to carry identification papers all the time? I certainly wouldn't need to. What about people who come from families that have been in this country for generations, yet still have dark skin and look very "Mexican"? Is it fair that these people, as "American" as apple pie, yet very brown to the eye would have their citizenship questioned? Can you see, Arizona, how I would find this whole idea of having SKIN COLOR be a reason for questioning someone's immigration status, so patently unfair and unjust? Is it a crime to be brown in Arizona?