Searching for Common Sense
By Bruce Christian

Who’s Next?
One in three Arizonans are suddenly suspect

Next time you are out and about, look around. Whether you are dancing in a club, relaxing at happy hour, having dinner with friends, working out in the gym, hiking, shopping – anything where other people will be – you’ll see a Latino or Latina.

The LGBT community likes to quote Kinsey Report data that suggests that gays and lesbians make up 10 percent of the population: 1 in 10. That’s nothing compared to the percentage of Arizona residents with some Latin blood in their heritage. That ratio is 1 in 3.

And according to the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s annual DATOS report, compiled by Arizona State University, that ratio is growing rapidly. In another 20 years, or fewer, the DATOS projection shows that whites will be the minority in Arizona, and eventually nationwide.

That fact has some white people scared. I say this because my mother tells me about her neighbors in the retirement community where she lives who worry what will happen to them, when “the minorities take over.”

Many of those elderly white people are about the age or older of Sen. Russell Pearce, the Mesa Republican who sponsored SB 1070, the most blatant piece of discriminatory legislation since a majority of Arizona residents voted to amend the state constitution and deny LGBT couples the right to marry.

I can’t speak to how this hate-filled bill affects the minds or emotions of our Hispanic community, but I know many who are hurting.

In disbelief, they watched on April 23 when Gov. Jan Brewer signed the bill that tells brown-skinned people in Arizona: “You better be prepared to show us your papers at any time!”

It concerns me that a Canadian friend, who has blond hair, blue eyes and an expired visa, doesn’t worry about this. He said to me, “They won’t stop me, I don’t look Hispanic.”

Thankfully, just-minded people are planning court challenges, and there is a possibility this law may go no further than to make Sheriff Joe Arpaio feel more emboldened to continue his misguided quest.

Passage of the bill speaks volumes about our short-sighted state leadership.

“It doesn’t send a message that Arizona is a friendly state for business, for different ethnicities for other countries,” Luis Aliva, a board member of the Arizona Latino Media Association, told me.

On the contrary, the bill says Arizona doesn’t want Latinos as part of its state, Avila said.

This could create a paranoia among our Hispanic family members, friends, colleagues and neighbors, because as Avila said, “They will feel targeted.”

And that could hurt LGBT businesses.

“A lot of (LGBT Latinos) are afraid to go out,” said One Voice Community Executive Director Ernesto Ortiz. “They don’t want to drive at night; they don’t want to drive in groups.

“As much as people say this isn’t going to affect us, it will affect us,” he added, citing one bar owner, whose club attracts gay Latinos, expects a big decline in business.

Ortiz shared an example of a young gay man who sought protection at the center, after he was accosted on the street. When he was asked if he had called the police, the man said, “I’m not talking to the police. They might put me in jail.”

Sadly, many Hispanics already are leaving Arizona because of the anti-immigrant mood.

“It’s very unfortunate, because we are in the worst recession in decades, and now we are losing taxpayers who could be purchasing and spending,” Avila said. “We are losing people with talent, capital and purchasing power.”

The DATOS research shows Hispanics are big consumers.

“Every time they buy something, a cup of coffee, pay their rents, mortgages, vehicles, they are taxed,” Avila said.

Honest employers also pay their Latino workers – with or without papers – wages and withhold the necessary federal and state taxes. However, out of fear, some of these workers may not file income tax returns and never recoup any refunds that might be owed them.

Dishonest owners who pay these workers under the table to avoid payroll taxes are breaking the law. They are the ones who should be arrested and charged.

Brewer and legislators who supported this bill argue that it will help reduce crime. They cite how the murder rate among Hispanics was cut in half, from 250 to 125, since the Legislature began addressing immigration reform.

What they fail to consider is that as the recession began in 2007, the job market got leaner, and that slowed the rate of immigrant workers crossing the border.

Conservative Arizona Republicans came after the LGBT community last election and won. Now they’ve gone after the Hispanic community through the legislative process, and won.

It’s only appropriate to ask, who’s next in their efforts to create an Arizona that fits their narrow view of who and what is acceptable to them?