Lost Grrrls

“ILLEGAL CANADIAN/ PULL ME OVER” is currently what’s written on the back window of my tiny little Yaris in white shoe polish.

A week ago, on my way back to LA from a visit home, I had to drive through AZ.  I’m sure each of you following me is aware of SB 1070, as well as the other ridiculous things that have been going on there for the past several months.  I figured, if I HAVE to drive through, I’d do my best to protest along the way.  I’d initially intended to wash the back window off once I got back into California, but because of all the funny looks I was getting from people passing me on the drive, I decided to leave it on, in hopes that it will get people thinking and talking.

Anyway, I’m posting this here because of all those funny looks, curious comments from people who didn’t get it (“What does that mean?” “Are you really Canadian?”), and random people I’ve caught taking photos.  I hope that if someone decides to google the phrase, this post will pop up.

So, for anyone who has seen my car around AZ, LA, or other parts of CA, no, I’m not actually Canadian.  I was born and raised here in these United States.  Here’s what I’m protesting and why:

Arizona has recently passed a bill called SB 1070 that’s supposed to go into effect in July.  The NY Times explains better than I can what it says:

The law […] would make the failure to carry immigration documents a crime and give the police broad power to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. Opponents have called it an open invitation for harassment and discrimination against Hispanics regardless of their citizenship status.

Basically, it says a police officer can pull someone over or detain them for no other reason  than that they “suspect” they’re an illegal immigrant, and ask them to show their papers.  What does that ultimately mean?  That they can pull people over simply for being or looking Hispanic.  Nevermind the fact that people immigrate to the US from all over the world, or that there’s a long and rich history of (legal) Hispanic heritage in Arizona, as well as the rest of the Southwest.

So why have I written “ILLEGAL CANADIAN/ PULL ME OVER” on the back of my car?  I was inspired by the person who wrote “I’M MEXICAN/ PULL ME OVER” on the back of their car.  It’s a dare, and a courageous one at that.  It’s making a point that just because someone is Mexican doesn’t mean they’re illegally in this country.  However, I’m very clearly white, so I can’t pull off that slogan.  A friend of mine, who’s Native American so can’t do it either, was trying to coerce some of his white coworkers to write what I did on the back of their cars, but no one would.  I decided to take up the task when I had to drive through the state anyway.  On top of calling attention to how messed up SB 1070 is in the first place, I think it also raises the point that not everyone who immigrates to this country, legally or not, is coming from Mexico.  You really can’t make assumptions about where people are from based on their skin color alone.  Humans have a long history of migrating around the world, and cities like New York and Los Angeles are especially proof of that.  You can’t walk down the streets in those cities without seeing people of all ethnicities.  And you know what?  That diversity is a huge part of what makes it so great.

Then there’s also the issue of HB 2281, which was signed into law shortly after SB 1070, which bans the teaching of “ethnic studies” in public schools.  As Huffington Post explains:

Under the ban, sent to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer by the state legislature Thursday, schools will lose state funding if they offer any courses that “promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.”

I understand that they don’t want classes that will teach overthrow of the government, and that because the government funds public schools, they can enforce that.  But the ethnic studies classes in question are an important element of a well-rounded education.  While I’ll admit that I didn’t understand their value as much when I was younger, the truth is that history is written by those who win, which in this country mostly means that history is written by white males.  Everything else is ignored, and the losers are painted as evil and wrong.  As an adult, I can see that the world isn’t just black and white; there are many, many, MANY gray areas, and just because you have a disagreement with someone over anything doesn’t necessarily mean they’re evil to the core.  Teaching people about their own heritage and history is valuable in itself, but allowing people to learn about the history of a culture other than their own is also extremely valuable.  Tolerance, acceptance, and understanding come from education.  If you dislike someone for something superficial or something they have no control over, and refuse to understand what made them who they are (which, to a large part, is the community around them), then of course you’re going to have problems getting along. 

“Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”  We all remember World War II, right?  The horror of not only the mass murder of millions of Jews, gays, and disabled people by Nazis, but also the internment camps within our own country?  That all started with sparks, small things like SB 1070.

This is getting long-winded so I’ll just end it here: I wrote this on the back window of my car because Arizona’s racist laws scare me, even as a white girl living in California who’s not actually affected by them.  They reflect a very sad past that we should have learned from by now but apparently not all of us have.

Have a question?  Leave a Disqus comment below or email lostgrrrls@gmail.com
(And FYI, I will not tolerate or respond to trolls, so don’t even bother.)