Resist Arizona racism

On May 3, the Tucson Unified School District board met once again to take up the issue of Ethnic Studies. This meeting had been rescheduled from the previous week, when nine courageous youth occupied the TUSD board members’ seats and forced cancellation of the meeting.... Posted May 12, 2011

Racist, reactionary forces in Arizona suffered a setback in the attempt to push their racist program through the state legislature on March 17 when five bills targeting immigrants and Latinos/as were soundly defeated in a Senate committee.... Posted Apr 1, 2011

This attack on the right of oppressed people to learn their own history is a continuation of the racist, right-wing offensive unleashed in Arizona, which is accelerating as the capitalist economic crisis deepens. Banning ethnic studies and passing the infamous anti-immigrant law SB 1070 are attempts to whip up a racist frenzy against Indigenous and Latino/a peoples and blame them for the misery and suffering imposed by the capitalist system itself.... Posted Feb 6, 2011

The Pima County Tea Party Patriots are holding a rally Jan. 28 in Tucson, Ariz., to launch a campaign to oust County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. The Tea Party and right-wingers all over the country have opened a campaign of vilification against Dupnik because he pointed the finger at the ultraright in his press conference on the day of the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, an attack that claimed six lives.... Posted Jan 26, 2011

A week after the assassination attempt on Congressperson Gabrielle Giffords, the political climate in Arizona remains unchanged... Posted Jan 23, 2011

Sarah Palin commented on the Arizona massacre on Jan. 12: “Especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence that they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.” How dare Sarah Palin compare her situation to that of the Jewish victims of anti-Semitism, which included 6 million murdered by the Nazis, one-third of all world Jewry, during World War II.... Posted Jan 23, 2011

The Jan. 8 shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson was a planned political assassination attempt.... Posted Jan 12, 2011

El 8 de enero, veinte personas fueron víctimas de disparos y seis de ellas murieron mientras asistían a un mitin político para la representante Gabrielle Giffords en Tucson, Arizona. Las autoridades ahora dicen que tienen evidencia de que los disparos fueron un intento de asesinato de la congresista demócrata, quien se encuentra en estado crítico.... Posted Jan 12, 2011

A protest took place Aug. 25 at the new Petco Park in San Diego when the Padres played the Arizona Diamondbacks. The protest opposed SB1070 and supported the boycotting of Arizona.... Posted Sep 12, 2010

Many people heaved a sigh of relief when a federal judge enjoined portions of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law SB 1070 in response to a lawsuit filed by the federal government. But, court order or no court order, the situation on the ground in southern Arizona has worsened. Arrests and detentions are increasing, and there are noticeably more Border Patrol agents roaming the streets of cities like Tucson, which is more than 60 miles north of the border with Mexico.... Posted Sep 2, 2010

On July 29 the racist, anti-immigrant law SB1070 went into effect in Arizona. On July 28, federal judge Susan Bolton temporarily blocked the worst parts of the law from being implemented. Nonetheless, July 29 was a day filled with nonstop protests and bold actions as people took to the streets to show their outrage at this bigoted attack against immigrants and workers.... Posted Aug 4, 2010

Despite a continuous onslaught of attacks against immigrant workers, resistance and opposition continue to grow in the U.S. — not only against Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070, but also against the entire campaign to criminalize and drive workers born outside this country underground... Posted Jul 28, 2010

Organizations from Arizona’s three major population centers — Tucson, Flagstaff and Phoenix — met on July 17 to prepare coordinated activities for July 29, the date of SB 1070’s implementation. SB 1070 is a racist, anti-immigrant state law that is opposed by immigrant rights advocates, progressives and justice-loving people in Arizona and around the country.... Posted Jul 26, 2010

Once again Tucson activists filled the intersection of Congress and Granada to call for resistance to the notorious SB 1070 law, slated to take effect on July 29. Gathering in front of the state building on July 9, Tucsonans protested and listened to local poets and spoken-word artists denounce SB 1070 and proclaim “We will resist” this racist law.... Posted Jul 15, 2010

Hundreds of people rallied for immigrant rights in Seattle on June 23.... Posted Jun 30, 2010

On June 18, a multinational crowd of spirited demonstrators protested the Arizona Diamondbacks at Comerica Park in downtown Detroit before the baseball team’s game with the Detroit Tigers. ... Posted Jun 28, 2010

A massive march filled the streets of downtown Phoenix on May 29 as close to 200,000 people gathered to denounce the racist SB 1070 law and show their determination to fight back against this anti-immigrant attack. The streets were packed from curb to curb for over three miles as demonstrators made their way along the six-mile route that began at Steele Indian School Park, snaked its way through downtown and ended at the state Capitol building.... Posted Jun 3, 2010

Protests in support of immigrants and against Arizona’s racist anti-immigrant legislation were held across the U.S. in solidarity with a national march and rally in Phoenix May 29 of 200,000 people. In many cities demonstrators also targeted similar legislation being pushed in their states as well as Obama’s failure to pass promised progressive national legislation for immigrant rights.... Posted Jun 3, 2010

Immigrant students and their supporters in Houston held a press conference and demonstration outside the federal building in solidarity with students arrested four days earlier in Arizona.... Posted May 27, 2010

Momentum is growing for the national march to stop SB 1070 to be held May 29 in Phoenix. The march will demand the repeal of SB 1070, Arizona’s “Show me your papers” law, and an end to racist immigrant-bashing and the blaming of immigrants for economic and social problems which in reality result from the capitalist economic crisis.... Posted May 26, 2010

Imperialist plunder of natural resources and the attempt to colonize an entire nation and its people is the sum of the history between the U.S. and Mexico. And today, not only do Mexicans and other immigrants have to seriously endanger themselves, even die to cross that border, Mexicans living on this side of the border cannot even study that history.... Posted May 26, 2010

On May 11, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law House Bill 2281, which eliminates ethnic studies programs from the state’s K-12 schools. This came just three weeks after she signed the repugnant anti-immigrant Senate Bill 1070.... Posted May 21, 2010

Dozens of opponents of Arizona’s apartheid law criminalizing immigrants gathered in front of Turner Field in Atlanta on May 15 to hold a “Don’t Play Ball with the State of Hate” pep rally, complete with a band, cheerleaders, street theater, large banners and signs.... Posted May 21, 2010

Ever since the signing of Arizona’s racist SB 1070, protests and outrage against this apartheid-like law have continued nonstop. In addition to the protests and demonstrations demanding the repeal of SB 1070, the call for “Boycott Arizona!” has emerged and caught fire.... Posted May 15, 2010

It was a significant event that not even the big-business-owned press could ignore, hard as they wanted to do. May Day 2010 in the United States was the largest national outpouring of protests since the May Day Immigrant Uprising of 2006, when millions of people, the great majority of Latin American and Caribbean origin, took to the streets against the reactionary Sensenbrenner bill that denied full immigrant rights.... Posted May 5, 2010

Eyewitness reports from some of the cities where May Day activities were held. Other protests took place in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Minneapolis, Trenton, N.J., and elsewhere.... Posted May 5, 2010

There have been growing protests at stadiums where the Major League Baseball team Arizona Diamondbacks play. The team’s owners financially backed Republican legislators who supported and pushed through the bill.... Posted May 5, 2010

Four years ago on May Day millions of immigrants and their supporters forced the capitalist government to back away from the vicious, anti-immigrant Sensenbrenner bill. This May Day more than 1 million immigrants and supporters demonstrating in more than 100 cities sent a powerful message to anti-immigrant racist forces in Arizona to drop their police-state, apartheid law that legalizes racial profiling.... Posted May 5, 2010

Besides the ones in Arizona itself, protests in the United States and abroad greeted a new Arizona anti-immigrant bill that was signed into law on April 23.... Posted May 1, 2010

Arizona’s reactionary new anti-immigrant law has given another impulse to the already growing pressure for powerful May Day marches around the U.S. focusing on immigrant rights.... Posted Apr 29, 2010

Arizona’s sweeping, racist anti-immigrant bill has unleashed a firestorm of outrage from Arizona’s oppressed communities. Even before Gov. Jan Brewer signed it into law on April 23, Arizona students and youths had called for protests of all kinds. The May Day action is expected to demonstrate this outrage.... Posted Apr 28, 2010

Despite all the assurances by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, the recent passing of Senate Bill 1070 is a racist attack against the U.S. working class. SB 1070 — which uses local police forces to question people about their documentation, and criminalizes immigrant workers — smacks of South African apartheid and a host of other repressive laws from U.S. history and elsewhere.... Posted Apr 28, 2010



In the early morning hours of April 15, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI and other Homeland Security agencies launched a military operation against Tucson’s mostly Latino/a and Indigenous south side neighborhoods. Activist Kat Rodriguez said: “What we have experienced for the last six hours is the terrorization of our community. People are afraid to leave their home, afraid to go shopping, afraid to go to the hospital, afraid to go anywhere.”... Posted Apr 21, 2010

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed a state budget for 2011 that slashes $1.1 billion from needed social programs, eliminates more state workers and cripples public education and health care. While preparing this anti-worker and anti-poor budget, legislators whipped up anti-immigrant racism by introducing a series of bills targeting the Latino/a and immigrant communities. These laws are designed to terrorize the oppressed communities while confusing and disorienting the white workers who are losing their jobs, their savings and their homes in record numbers.... Posted Apr 9, 2010

Prisoners began a hunger strike May 2 to protest the degrading and inhumane conditions they endure in the jails run by the notoriously racist Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The crimes of Arpaio are well documented: housing inmates in sweltering tent-cities, parading them through the streets of Phoenix like slaves on their way to the auction block, serving spoiled food referred to as “slop” by the inmates, and denying adequate medical treatment. Arpaio has continued to try to whip up anti-immigrant hysteria in any way possible.... Posted May 28, 2009


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