On the Justice Trail in Arizona, Part 1

Written by Ben Whaley, Friday, September 24

It’s no wonder tempers seem to flare so easily around issues here in Arizona. It’s hot. It’s hard to say anything else about my first impressions of Arizona. But have you ever heard the expression “where there’s smoke there’s fire”? I can tell you here it feels more like.. where there’s heat there’s fire. More than fire, an explosion.The logo of Promise Arizona (PAZ, the organization with which I'm volunteering to register voters in AZ) is a dove rising phoenix-like out of flame to symbolize the justice that will come after the struggle for immigrant’s rights here. But it's very clear to me that we're still in the flame.

Yesterday started early and brightly. As soon as we arrived, we were hooked up with Michelle (a fellow Boston-er) who's working on coordinating out of state volunteers for PAZ. Michelle has Boston connections to MIRA (www.miracoalition.org) and SIM (www.simforus.com) and knows the Massachusetts Immigration Rights scene well, so when I get back to Boston I'll definitely be emailing her for some perspective. She took us to lunch, we shared our stories of self, and then we got to work registering students to vote at a local community college. We had an awesome afternoon, registering votes at a ridiculously high rate (they tell you to shoot for getting one an hour and we got 8 in a half hour).

As the day died down at the community college (and after we were asked to leave by the friendly police officers), we headed to Ranch Market which is a supermarket chain in Phoenix. All the Ranch Markets have given permission for PAZ to come register voters in their stores, and it was soon clear why: 75% of their clients were Latino. They have a vested financial interest in immigrants staying in AZ.

This is when the day finally felt real, when the people we were registering began to take shape in my eyes. Many people I approached with my question "Excuse me, con permiso, are you registered to vote?" smiled and responded, happy that I was out doing this work. Many others showed wide eyes and shared nervous glances with their companions at being approached by a gringo with a clipboard. Their fear made me feel guilty - guilty for startling them, guilty for being a part and product of this country that is terrorizing them.

Others, still, seemed defiant of the state's new laws. I approached one woman and her daughter and when I asked, in my broken Spanish, if she was registered to vote, she laughed and fired something in rapid Spanish to her daughter. I didn't understand it, but the daughter told me "She can't."
"No problem," I said, "Someday soon I hope." The girl relayed this to her mother, who laughed again - a full, deep laugh - and said something else I didn't quite catch to her daughter, who looked hesitant.
"Dile, dile" the mother said, 'tell him, tell him.'
Finally the daughter said, a little sheepishly, "She says she's a wetback." We all laughed together for a long time right there in the aisle.
And then I said "Well... Bienvenidas."

Today, the work has been more difficult. We're told that Fridays are always hard days for voter registration campaigns, but I think we're all still feeling a little disappointed. We've been invited to leave a movie theatre and a grocery store. We went to a football game that wasn't actually happening. We tried a community college that was deserted on a Friday afternoon.

Voter Registration is not glamorous work. It's guesswork and luck and perseverance, so far, but it's also rewarding. Every completed form feels like a mini victory. Every new vote is a voice that wasn't being heard before. I only regret that there are so many voices that will not be heard in the election, voices that are proud and warm. But, like the woman in the supermarket, I have hope that if those voices are persistent they will one day be heard. And when they do speak, I hope this country gets to enjoy a long deep laugh in the supermarket aisle, a release after so much fighting and tension.

"Come, let us return to the Lord; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord; his going forth is as certain the dawn; he will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth."
Hosea 6:1-3