Diaz 1
Scarlett Diaz
Period 2
American Lit.
January 16, 2012
One Pager: Civil Disobedience In the article “Undocumented Immigrants Take Cause to Defiant New Level” by Daniel Gonzalez, the author states that illegal immigrants of Arizona and other states are protesting the new “show me your papers” law. The “show me your papers” law was passed in 2010 in Arizona by a majority vote. This new law would allow government officials to ask anyone who they suspected to be in the country illegally during an unlawful stop. This conversional law lead to several acts of protesting. Eventually the immigrants were practicing acts of civil disobedience and purposely tried to get arrested. These “undocumented and unafraid” t-shirt wearing protesters sit in streets to block traffic. And while dozens of protesters are arrested deported, the protesters continue to plan more acts of civil disobedience. Personally, I know a lot about the “show me your papers” law because my father is a Border Patrol agent. And I know that when the law first was enforced, officers of the law abused this law. What do I mean by this? The law required that in order for the asking of a suspect’s citizenship papers, the suspect must have been involved in an action that broke the law and the officials must of done a lawful stop. Many officials would make up reasons to ask random
Diaz 2 people who were walking down the street just so they could ask for their papers. Is this fair? Of course it isn’t! Many American born Mexicans lived in fear of walking outside the safety of their homes because they would be asked for their papers. I’m not saying that I am for or against the “show me your papers” law because I’m pretty sure that this process was going on before the law was passed. I do however agree with the form of protesting that the immigrants are acting on. They send the message saying, “We are here, we are working, we cause no harm, and we are here
