For most of us, the state-sanctioned racial profiling bill in Arizona is shocking but intangible. For one young man, it is all too real.
LuisCarlos Davis is a voice you've never heard, with stories that seem incomprehensible.
He has now become the first-ever filmmaker to gain the confidence of a coyote -- those faceless smugglers who charge exorbitant fees to cross people over the border into the United States, and his film is, unbeknownst to most Americans, at the heart of this immigration controversy.
The coyote, named "Chuy", allowed Davis to film him in disguise and Davis, not sure of how to disguise the man, offered one of those iconic Mexican wrestler masks.
"To this day," Davis says "I have never seen Chuy or the mask."
But Chuy's story is seen clearly. He debunks the entire racial-profiling effort that Arizona Bill SB 1070 addresses in which, according to Davis "certain physical features which are generalized to those of the Latino Community" will undoubtedly be used by officers when they decide who to stop and check for immigration documents.
Chuy tells Davis that an increasing number of his clients are not Latinos but Chinese and Russian immigrants who have made their way to Mexico in order to be helped across to the US. He recounts horror stories of pregnant women who have lost children crossing the border and explains that he understands there's an immigration problem but until someone finds a proper solution, his business will continue and grow, with more and more non-Latinos paying the big bucks to get to the other side.
Davis's film, 389 Miles: "Living the Border" is, according to himself, "a documentary that doesn't try to impose ideas and has many perspectives; it just shows the human side of people living the border." In it, he follows the varied but intersecting lives of legal and illegal immigrants on the 389 mile long Arizona length of the border, of rogue American militias who take it upon themselves to police the border, of official state border patrol police, and of the coyote himself for whom the border is most porous of all.
While Davis recognizes problems at the border, he knows all too well the depth of the ties at the border: at the twin town of Nogales, which was famously split into a U.S. half and a Mexico half during the 1853 Gadsden purchase, most residents had history and family on both sides and that has changed little in the last 150 years.
It's not a malicious lifestyle or a criminal one -- for many, if not most of the 80% of the Arizona town of Nogales who are Hispanic or Latino in origin, both Nogales towns naturally maintained their unification through generations of familial, economic and cultural roots and many people have lives that run on both sides of the border.
"There is a different world right now at the U.S.-Mexico border, a mixture of cultures, and languages and many human stories," Davis says.
But the story is sensitive and even the Nogales city film council has taken exception to it being told, according to Davis. It has been banned from the city film festival. In response, Davis has screened the film throughout Arizona instead.
A screening at the University of Arizona this week was filled to capacity, with many viewers watching the entire film while standing. "I could tell there's a need for this topic. It also feels good to have so many people seeing your film after the border town of Nogales closed the doors on the project," Davis says.
For his next screening in Phoenix, Davis has invited the Governor of Arizona, Jan Brener, as well as key police and political officials, including John McCain.
"I think that it is important to have the entire story and the entire issue humanized so that then individuals can consciously choose what side of the debate they wish to stand on," he says.
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This Lecture was done in 1999. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM1YU-Ni_84
Looking at the chart when he gets there,
What they estimated in 1999 for 2010 is spot on what actually happened.
[Estimated in 1999 it would be just over 300 million in 2010.]
When he gets to the gumball demonstration keep in mind the large jar represents the people in the world that are WORSE OFF than Mexicans.
Because of illegal immigration from 1999 to present we've had to:
Build TWICE as many schools.
Build TWICE as many roads.
Build TWICE as many sewer plants.
Build TWICE as many power plants.
Build TWICE as much about anything else.
Had to add twice as many cops and firemen and teachers. [Or leave areas under serviced.]
And use TWICE as many trees and other natural resources.
Anyone that thinks illegal immigration isn't a significant load on our economy and natural resources is a moron.
If you don't want every city in the US to become a giant LA Slum within our or our children's lifetimes then it has to STOP NOW!
~
Link to just the chart. [Sorry about the quality.]
http://www.numbersusa.com/content/files/imagecache/fpage/files/cck_images/population.jpg...
Not.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FFjPLy6dnI&feature=related
Keep dreaming it is all about race...because it is not.”
And this by Dr. Frank Morris:
"As leaders of the black community, members of the CBC are in a unique position to frame the immigration issue in terms of social justice and ensuring opportunity to all Americans. Latinos and other immigrants are not entirely to blame for unemployment that disproportionately afflicts black Americans. Rather, it is immigration policies that ignore the profound impact of millions of people entering our country - legally and illegally - that are a huge part of the problem. "- Dr. Frank Morris-The Washington Times-Monday, March 22, 2010
Dr. Morris does not promote the hatred that I have seen around here. Including many that would like to make out Cubans as racists if their skin is too light or do not march in lockstep with the "movement"...whatever that might be.
Get the race out of the debate...Por favor!
And I don't see you waxing eloquent about it. Did YOU read it?
Don't look now Arizona Republicans, but George W. Bush and fellow lockstepping Republicans voted to build that border fence in 2005. Where is the fence? Why didn't John McCain do more to fix the illegal immigration problem?
No, I suspect this entire Arizona law is nothing but for political theatre - and to get some votes for their side.
Seems to me the only fair solution is to ask every person stopped for any purpose (note that convictions do not occur until a court hears a case, ... not an officer on the street) with cause to see papers that prove they are citizens of the US.
But then that wouldn't be good for tourism now would it?
I think in all states if you are pulled over for a traffic violation the standard statement the police make is ' May I see your license and registration.'
I do not see how that would effect tourism.
What a ridiculous, illogical argument. Would any sane person seek to apply that same bizarre logic to any other law enforcement activity?
First off, again, for the zillioneth time, the new AZ law only allows police to question a person's immigration status IF the policeman is already engaged in "lawful contact" with that person--such as a traffic stop, a traffic accident, witness to a crime, a neighbor complaint, an altercation, etc., etc. Under the new law, the police CAN'T just walk up to someone and start asking them about their immigration status, and the law expressly PROHIBITS using race, skin color, or national origin in any unconstitutional way to form "reasonable suspicion" about immigration status.
Folks, why don't you wipe the foam from your mouths, stop printing these silly wild exaggerations, and GO READ THE LAW?
If this is such a fine and constitutional law, ... why are some sheriffs in AZ refusing to enforce it?
Either a political agenda or some of their IRA was filled with drug money.
.