Check for web archive captures
The Unintended Consequences of Arizona's Immigration
Law
By lynmiller-lachmann on 2010-06-14 17:24:52
At the end of April, the state of Arizona passed SB 1070, which required people in the state to carry immigration documents
or proof of citizenship and gave police the power to arrest and detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally.
Although SB 1070, the strictest immigration measure since the 1930s, gave police broad powers, most law enforcement
agencies reacted coolly to the new law. Because the law placed a heavy burden of proof on legal immigrants and citizens of
Hispanic origin, police officials were concerned that it would drive a wedge between law abiding citizens and law
enforcement officials who protected them, their families, and their communities, and who counted on their cooperation to
investigate and root out criminal behavior. That even people in the United States legally might fear the police after SB 1070
is not a superfluous concern. Being a newcomer puts one in a vulnerable position, and every display of anti-immigrant
sentiment or every restrictive law only exacerbates that fear. And behind the closed doors of fearful people, terrible things
can happen. Three years ago, I received in my MultiCultural Review in-box a young adult
novel Touching Snow (Atheneum, 2007), by the Haitian-American debut author M. Sindy Felin. The novel had been
endorsed by Edwidge Danticat, one of my favorite authors, so I decided to read it before sending it on to a reviewer. This
turned out to be one of the bleakest YA novels I’ve ever read, the story of 13-year-old Karina, a Haitian immigrant to the
United States whose family has been terrorized by her stepfather, The Daddy. Every little thing--and sometimes nothing at
all--leads him to administer his “beat-ups.” When his brutal beating of Karina’s older sister lands him in jail, the family
blames Karina for his absence, the loss of his economic support, and the possibility that the family may be deported back to
their impoverished and war-torn country, even though they are in the country legally and Karina’s stepfather is working.
Touching Snow went on to become a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award, a deserved honor for a book that so
unflinchingly explores the twin problems of domestic violence and child abuse in an immigrant family. As difficult as it is
for any woman or child to escape domestic violence, the problem is further compounded in immigrant families, where
cultural factors, concern for the image of the community, and the fear of deportation play a major role in silencing those
enduring abuse. The dilemmas faced by Karina and her Haitian-American family in Touching Snow came to me again
earlier this year when I was reading an advance! copy of Iris Gomez’s Try to Remember (Grand
Central Publishing, 2010). Published as an adult novel, Gomez’s semi-autobiographical debut is the coming-of-age story of
Gabriela de la Paz, the oldest and only daughter in an immigrant family from Colombia. Beginning when Gabi is 11 and
recently moved to Miami with her family after her father loses his job in New York City, the story spans eight years of her
life in the late 1960s and early 1970s. When she’s not in school, Gabi is forced to type her father’s mostly incoherent letters
applying for jobs, and she, her mother, and her two younger brothers must dodge harm from her father’s sudden,
unexplained rages. At one point, her father attacks a neighbor’s child over a perceived slight and is arrested, leaving Gabi
terrified that the entire family will be deported to their poor mountain village in Colombia. Fear of deportation leads Gabi’s
mother and other relatives to spike her father’s drink with sleeping pills, with the dosage increasing as his behavior becomes
ever more erratic and violent. Like Karina’s family in Jouching Snow, Gabi’s immigrant family in Try to Remember chooses
to handle a violent and mentally ill member by themselves, in isolation from the resources that can offer assistance and make
everyone’s lives easier and safer. Again, this happens even though Gabi’s family is in the United States legally, and no one
will in fact be deported if her father is arrested or institutionalized. As Congress begins to debate immigration reform,
attention needs to be drawn to immigrant families that live in the shadows, vulnerable to domestic violence and child abuse
because they cannot turn to the authorities. These families deserve a chance to survive and recover, free from the source of
the abuse and free from fear of being returned to the places that they fled in their quest for safety and opportunity. And, as
local law enforcement officials have pointed out, legislators in the state of Arizona need to pay attention to the unintended
consequences of their efforts to punish and banish undocumented immigrants.
