Michael A. Chihak: Arizona was racist then, is racist now

Arizona’s long racist history is rapidly expanding, with chapters that detail actions against people of color, including denied equal protection, stifled voting rights and forced assimilation.

Our unapologetically racist U.S. president emboldens Arizona bigots by — serious pun intended — whitewashing history and eviscerating the Constitution, public policy and societal norms.

As U.S. Rep. Adelita Grijalva and others did on Tucson’s West Side Dec. 5, conscientious people must confront racism and racists to defend the rule of law and keep history whitewash-free.

For a time, prejudice seemed to ebb in the state. Then came resegregated education, also known as school choice, and laws disenfranchising people of color, dissuading Spanish speakers and requiring Brown people to “show me your papers.” Now, masked officers invade homes and businesses, pepper-spraying people who are exercising their First Amendment rights.

That’s the latest chapter in a zeitgeist of racism permeating Arizona for 500 years. Spanish colonizers subjugated Indigenous peoples from the 16th to early 19th centuries. White settlers followed, brutalizing Indigenous and Mexican peoples.

In 1871, about 100 Tucson men invaded Camp Grant, an Army-protected Apache enclave on the San Pedro River, slaughtering 108 women, children and elderly. An all-white jury took 19 minutes to acquit the men, including political leaders, of murder.

Three decades later, U.S. Sen. Albert J. Beveridge, who chaired a committee vetting statehood, stopped Arizona’s admission to the Union in 1902, saying we had too many Spanish-speaking Mexicans. This white “Christian” left office in 1911; statehood came in 1912.

Tucsonense historian Lydia Otero’s 2010 book “La Calle: Spatial Conflicts and Urban Renewal in a Southwest City,” details how white-led urban renewal in the 1960s destroyed Tucson’s historic central barrio, forcing out hundreds of Mexican families. Black and Chinese American residents and businesses also were removed.

Otero’s new book, “Storied Property: Maria Cordova’s Casa,” tells how white political and cultural elitists in 1973 evicted Mexican-born Cordova from what may be Tucson’s oldest house.

Gov. Evan Mecham rescinded the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in 1987, saying, "Black people don't need a holiday. Y'all need jobs.”

That’s all history. Now for some 21st century Arizona racism:

• Federal officers raided Southern Arizona homes and restaurants on Dec. 5, arresting 46 people of color. How many arrests have been made among the 12,500 white undocumented immigrants the Migration Policy Institute estimates live in Arizona?

• State schools chief Tom Horne wants English immersion and no bilingualism in public schools, tantamount to forced assimilation.

• Horne says political and judicial climates may favor reviving his 2010 law banning Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American Studies program. A judge in 2017 ruled it unconstitutional, citing the law’s “invidious discriminatory racial purpose.”

• Arizona requires voter ID and proof of citizenship, disenfranchising people of color. Indigenous voters, especially, may lack ID or citizenship papers.

• Two white legislators filed complaints in September against Phoenix Sen. Analise Ortiz, a Latina, because she reposted on social media where in public immigration officers were.

• Days later, a white legislator posted racist comments about Muslims. The House Ethics Committee chair rejected a complaint, saying the remarks were First Amendment protected.

Yes, courts have ruled such comments are protected speech if they don’t incite violence. That’s good, because we’re protected, too, knowing by their speech who the racists are.

White European descendants have colonized and dominated Arizona for five centuries, including the last 200 years under the Anglosphere. Racism continues, despite increasing diversity that eventually will reach political and societal tipping points.

Then perhaps, the final chapter in our racist history can be written.