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Welcome to Mexizona
In the nation's immigration hot spot, voters are more concerned about cultural identity than jobs, says JOHN B. JUDIS

12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, April 9, 2006

The furor over illegal immigration is sweeping the country, but Arizona is ground zero, having surpassed neighboring states as the principal gateway to the United States for illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America.

Beltway politicians who want to clamp down on the border claim this furor is the result, as Colorado Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo has suggested, of immigrants "taking jobs that Americans could take." And many Americans far from the Arizona border certainly believe that.But that's not what's happening in Arizona's citrus groves or hotels or restaurants. And, in Arizona, those who are most up in arms over illegal immigration are far more concerned with its sociocultural than its economic effects. They are worried about what is commonly called the "Mexicanization" of Arizona. That kind of cultural concern extends to legal as well as illegal immigrants – and it can't be easily fixed by legislation.

Mexicans began crossing the border to Arizona in the early 20th century to work in "the five Cs" – construction, copper, citrus, cattle and cotton – but, until recently, the great majority of illegal immigrants came through California and Texas. In 1990, for example, about 90 percent entered through those two states, while only about 5 percent came through Arizona.

But, as the uproar over "illegals" grew – in 1994, for example, California passed Proposition 187, denying public benefits to undocumented workers – the Border Patrol instituted Operation Gatekeeper in California and Operation Hold-the-Line in Texas. These programs reduced illegal immigration to those states, but not overall. Instead, illegal immigrants were diverted to Arizona's desert border.

Going through the desert is far more dangerous than walking over a bridge into a Texas or California border town or even fording the Rio Grande. And it's more expensive, too. But Mexicans and other Latinos are willing to pay the coyotes because they hope to find well-paying jobs in the United States. And, relative to where they came from, they will. In 2000, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a farm worker in Mexico could expect to make $3.60 in an eight-hour day, while his counterpart in the United States made $66.32.

Most of those who make it do find jobs. And, with undocumented workers adding to the normal population increase, Arizona's Latino population has ballooned, from 19 percent in 1990 to 25 percent in 2000. Phoenix, which was once a primarily Anglo town, has gone from 20 percent to about 34 percent Latino. Says former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods, one of the state's prominent Republicans, "When I was in the first grade in 1960, Phoenix was the same distance from the border. Phoenix now feels much more like a border town than it did even 10 years ago. Billboards in Spanish, a lot of people speaking Spanish. Most of us think this is great, but a lot don't."

This transformation in Arizona society and culture, along with the disorder created by the dramatic rise in border crossings, has made immigration the biggest issue in Arizona politics. Anti-immigration Arizona Republicans have clearly tapped a growing sentiment among the state's white voters. Wes Gullett, a political consultant and a key adviser to John McCain, recently conducted a poll in Cochise County, south of Tucson, to test voter concerns. "Instead of asking what are the top three issues," Mr. Gullett says, "we have to ask what are the top four, because the first three are immigration. You have to ask, 'What do you care about other than immigration?' It's crazy down there."

But what, exactly, is this craziness about? In Washington, politicians and political organizations regularly attribute the obsession with immigration to illegal migrants taking the jobs of native-born Americans. That does not seem to be the case in Arizona, where unemployment hovers below 5 percent and where construction, agriculture and tourism are plagued by acute labor shortages. Illegal immigration doesn't even seem to be having a dramatic effect on wages, with pay for unskilled work in Arizona regularly exceeding the minimum wage.

In interviewing Arizonans, one rarely encounters complaints about illegal immigrants taking jobs away. One does hear about the cost of state services for illegal immigrants. And, in border towns, crime and disorder are pressing issues. But among many Arizonans, the most important issues are cultural. They fret about "Mexicanization" – about Arizona becoming a "Third World country" or "the next Mexifornia."

That's what bothers Randy Graf, a veteran Republican state politician running to succeed the congressional seat being vacated by the retiring Jim Kolbe. "We are talking about assimilation," says the candidate, as we sit in his East Tucson campaign headquarters. "I don't have any problem about anyone who wants to salute our flag and learn our language and be a citizen. What got me into the whole issue was that I was standing in line in a Safeway, and this woman was ahead of me, and she had an infant and was pregnant, and her mother was with her. She was paying for groceries in food stamps. And, when the clerk asked for her signature, she acted like she didn't understand English, and neither did her mother. I found it odd that an entire family could be here on welfare and not speak any English. On welfare!"

Longtime observers of Arizona politics confirm that a concern with Mexicanization lies at the heart of this opposition to illegal immigration. Dave Wagner, the former political editor of The Arizona Republic, who is writing a book about Arizona politics, says that, in Phoenix, "Mexicans and Mexican-Americans have their own culture and stores. It is possible if you are Spanish-speaking to disappear into that culture. That scares the hell out of some people."

And the underlying conditions that have fueled the protest and made Arizona ground zero are likely to persist. According to statistics from the Department of Labor, 13 of the 20 occupations in Arizona that will experience the highest growth from 2002 to 2012 employ unskilled workers. Many of these jobs are now filled by illegal immigrants. And, with all of Mexico's tariffs on farm products due to disappear under NAFTA, and with the Central American Free Trade Agreement going into effect, the supply of unskilled labor looking northward is likely, if anything, to mount.

As immigrants continue to cross the border, the "culture war" is unlikely to abate. Mexican and Central American legal and illegal immigrants probably won't assimilate in the way previous generations of immigrants did. European immigrants who came to the United States in the last century had to travel over an ocean to arrive here, and many of them came from countries undergoing political or economic upheavals. Their identification with the homeland rarely lasted past a generation. That's not as true of Mexican or other Latino immigrants, who have their own claim on the culture of the West.

Many migrant workers continue to support extended families in Mexico, call themselves Mexicans and consider their primary language Spanish. They are contributing to a bicultural America that stirs fear and resentment among some native-born Americans and that will continue to inspire calls to close the southern border.

Arizonans on both sides of the controversy are looking to Washington for solutions. But there is little chance that the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress – sharply divided between social conservatives and business interests – will be able to pass legislation this year. And even if the House, the Senate and the White House could agree on an approach, it would not end the furor over immigration.

That furor will not abate until at least one of two conditions is met. The first is a dramatic generational change in the cultural attitudes of non-Latino Americans – meaning the acceptance of biculturalism in large parts of the United States, including Arizona. The other condition is a change in the unequal economic relationship between the United States and its neighbors to the south, which would reduce the supply of unskilled laborers seeking jobs in the United States. Such a change could probably occur only if the United States were to assume the same responsibility toward Mexico and Central America that the more prosperous nations of Western Europe did toward Spain, Greece and Portugal when they wanted to enter the European Union – granting them aid, along with protection of their industries and agriculture, over a transitional period.

But neither condition is likely to be met in the near future. Americans are not ready to embrace migrants who cross the border illegally as their own, and U.S. business is not ready to see Mexico and Central America as anything other than a platform for exports and investment. As a result, the conflict over Latino immigration will continue. And if what's happening on the Arizona border is any gauge, that's not something to look forward to.

John B. Judis is a senior editor at The New Republic and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A version of this essay appeared in The New Republic (www.tnr.com).