What History We Remember Determines All Our Institutions*

The Arizona legislature and current governor are acting as if their new immigration law is predicated on an almighty firm foundation. However, what they should fear the most is not the undocumented worker but the lawyer who decides to pursue the larger justice of restoring what is now the State of Arizona to its rightful heirs, the ancient tribes of Native Americans who historically roamed that mostly desert territory. Yes, the U.S. won Arizona as part of the settlement with Mexico after the Mexican-American War of 1848 and it justified fighting that war and taking that territory in the name of Manifest Destiny, a doctrine that said it was God’s will that we mostly white U.S. Protestants take that land from the perceived “lesser beings” who occupied it at the time.
The Arizonians who are behind this new illegal immigration law are starting from the premise that they are the rightful owners and legitimate citizens of what is currently called the state of Arizona. However, their legitimacy is based on the rather shallow roots of relatively recent history. That land was first “owned” by various tribes and then occupied by Spanish and eventually Mexican people. Since the U.S. has broken more treaties, especially with Native Americans, than it has ever kept, a long tradition probably carries more moral weight than a U.S. treaty in the larger scheme of things.
To complicate matters further, our Social Security system would probably be bankrupt right now were it not for the contributions to the SS system by undocumented workers who use phony or borrowed SS numbers with no hope of ever receiving a benefit. They, as it were, are keeping the system afloat as we the people sort out how we are going to finance that benefit in the future.
So rather than having law enforcement confront every suspicious Latino it sees in Arizona, it might be wise to count the blessing of the rather dubiously obtained privilege of Arizona citizenship on the part of Anglos and leave sleeping dogs lie. Or maybe count the number of lawyers you have and start worrying which one will find it lucrative enough to go after your historically questionable ownership.
*Modified from Emerson’s English Traits which said, “How man views nature determines all his institutions.”