On Cinco de Mayo, a Mexican independence holiday that many immigrants in America will celebrate, it seems that those who come from a culture which participate in this holiday will have to face down fear and bigotry especially in public displays of celebration. This may not be entirely new for Mexican immigrants in the southwest part of the United States, but because of SB1070, the focus on immigrants in this country has taken on a fearful and hostile nature nationwide.
Specifically, in Arizona there is a group of National Socialists (or neo-Nazis) who have handed out fliers that rebrand the holiday of Cinco de Mayo "Report an Illegal Day." It asks "recipients [of the flier] to fax or email Congress demanding that the 'border be secured.' It also seeks the aid of local businesses in an effort to verify and turn people in to the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement."
Another group, the Arizona Citizens Militia, is also rebranding the holiday "Cinco de Ammo" Day. Asking members and people sympathetic to their cause to buy up five boxes of ammo on May 5th, the group seems intent on pushing armed residents to take the law into their own hands.
This may seem like fringe activity, but there is reason to believe that the neo-Nazis may have support for their white civil rights/singling out of "Mexican" people in Arizona.
A majority may not be participating in militant activity, which whips up support for explicitly targeting people who look Mexican or may be Mexican. But, the majority of the state of Arizona has its citizens fearful of illegal immigration and convinced that illegal immigrants bear some responsibility for the drug cartels and the death of cattle ranchers in the state.
Nationally, there is a slim majority of Americans who support this law, which essentially is a law that codifies racial profiling and encourages people to "report an illegal."
Jim Gilchrist's Minuteman Project is a group that has been at the forefront of setting the agenda against illegal immigration. It is a group that organized to patrol the border and report "illegals" to law enforcement along the border so they could be caught or shot on sight.
Comments on the website are indicative of the fearful and vitriolic attitude that those passionately against "illegals" harbor. For example:
Steve: "Carlos,I understand that Illegal aliens want to come here to better their families lives but if it means us Americans have a lesser quality of life, then You have to go home.We Americans are some bad ass mother f*ckers and we will not give away our Country to a bunch of freeloaders.Carlos, a f*g is a man who likes a man.I have a wife.Why dont You Illegal Aliens go back to Mexico and make your own Country great.Or do You know how?I am certainly not going to let Illegal Aliens come to my Country and ruin it after all the wars we have fought to make it a great Country.I know that Mexicans do not understand that kind of thinking because You Loose all the few wars You have been in and You will loose this one too.Go home and do something constructive in Your own Country.We have it covered here thank You."
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