Deep Impact: Three Mexican-American Scholars Discuss Arizona's Immigration Law and Its Ramifications on the State's Colleges and Universities

Rogers, Ibram, Diverse Issues in Higher Education

Since its enactment last month, the Arizona law that gives local and state police the ability to arrest and detain people they suspect to be undocumented immigrants has spurred a whirlwind of discussion and activism concerning immigration policy and race relations. With the specter of racial profiling and civil rights violations looming, a coalition of civil rights groups and activists around the country has condemned the law (SB 1070). The National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) and the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) are among groups calling for an economic boycott of Arizona.

Diverse interviewed three prominent Mexican-American academics about the law, its impact on Arizona colleges and what they hope to see in real immigration reform moving forward. Dr. Roberto Rodriguez is an assistant professor in the Department of Mexican American and Raza Studies at the University of Arizona. In his nationally syndicated "Column of the Americas;' he compared Arizona to the apartheid South Africa. Dr. Josephine Mendez-Negrete, an associate professor of bicultural-bilingual studies at University of Texas at San Antonio, is the editor of the journal, Chicana/Latina Studies. Dr. Devon Pena, the chair of NACCS and author of its statement against SB 1070, is a professor of anthropology and Chicano studies at the University of Washington.

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What do you think about the new immigration law passed in Arizona?

Rodriguez: I look back at the Japanese-Americans who were put into concentration camps during World War II. I think it is very similar. That is, we have an opportunity to take a moral stand to prevent …

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Publication information: Article title: Deep Impact: Three Mexican-American Scholars Discuss Arizona's Immigration Law and Its Ramifications on the State's Colleges and Universities. Contributors: Rogers, Ibram - Author. Magazine title: Diverse Issues in Higher Education. Volume: 27. Issue: 8 Publication date: May 27, 2010. Page number: 15+. © 2008 Cox, Matthews & Associates. COPYRIGHT 2010 Gale Group.

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