I was just reading Slaughter House Five, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.  and thought it had an interesting perception of time in it.  In the novel, the main character claims that he was abducted by a space craft and taken away to a planet called Tralfamadore.  He says that one of the most valuable things he learns from the Tralfamadorians is that there is no such thing as death.  Since they see in four dimensions ( the fourth being time) they see and know the past, the present, and the future, and understand that when someone 'dies' they simply cease to exist in certain moments whereas they certainly are still alive 'or were' in other moments in the past.  Since the Tralfamadorians know how the universe ends, they find it ridiculous that humans believe in free will since they understand that there is no such thing. 

This is interesting to me because as humans who can only see in three dimensions, we are in a way very fragile since we technically only exist in the present.  Although i am pretty sure that i existed a few minutes ago, since i cant see that moment like the Tralfamadorians can, i have no way besides my memory to back up my existence in that moment.  This scares me because in a way, all of the days and thoughts of my life that i dont remember do not exist since i have no way to see or remember them.  This leads me to thinking that really, dreams are just as real as anything, since in most dreams,  i think that the world around me is real, and i have just as much proof backing up my existence in my dream world as i have right now in the real world. 

In response to a certain law recently passed by the Arizona legislature in an attempt to curb illegal immigration, news outlets, the blogosphere, and the streets have been abuzz with protest and commentary.

The proposed law, S.B. 1070, requires law enforcement officers in the state to request proof of legal residency from any individual they have "reason to suspect" may be in the country illegally. Of course, the law immediately (and rightly so) came under heavy fire from individuals and groups arguing that it is impossible to enforce such a law without suspect classifications and racial profiling. With numerous lawsuits already pending to challenge the law, questions have been raised about the constitutionality of the law and whether or not it violates the "search and seizures" clause of the Constitution, which states that no individual may be subjected to unreasonable search and seizure, or the fourteenth amendment, which outlines equal protection under the law for all individuals.

The debate has even reached our marvelous newspaper, the Independent Record, whose articles (wonderful as always) on the subject have gathered an interesting number of comments displaying certain nativist and anti-immigrant sentiments. They call for "English Only," for "harsher punishments," and claim that any arguments the left (or, seemingly, individuals belonging to those targeted racial groups) might have against the law are simply knee-jerk reactions, unrealistic to a fault.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, today hundreds of thousands of individuals protested the bill. What objections do they have? Primary is, of course, the inherent nature of the bill which, in essence, prescribes racial profiling. After all, who are the police more likely to "reasonably" suspect, the caucasian soccer mom or the latino/a landscaper? Let's say both have been born in this country, both pay taxes, both contribute their time to their community, both believe in the ideals set forth by the Constitution and the bill of rights. Regardless of all of these factors, the individual who will be questioned, who will suddenly be unable to leave the house without a copy of his/her birth certificate will be the individual of a hispanic ethnicity.

For me at least, laws like this hearken back to the days of fierce anti-immigrant sentiments and rampant nativism in this country. They are reminiscent of a post-civil war south where so-called "vagrancy laws" required african-american individuals to carry their "papers" to prove they were gainfully employed in order to avoid arrest. These laws reek of times before the civil war, when african americans had to carry papers to prove they were free. But more than anything, they stink of a new sort of nativism, a new sort of bigotry placed behind the facade of a law, the sham of lowering crime rates.

Few would argue that immigration in this country is perfect. Far from it, immigration is in desperate need of reform. It is a broken system. It needs to change. However, what few stop to realize is that those "illegal immigrants" or just "illegals" or "aliens" (terms that wholly remove the human element from the equation) form the backbone of this country's economy. A common argument is that they "steal jobs" from "honest, hard-workin' Americans" and refuse to assimilate into American culture, that they benefit from being in this country without paying taxes.

However, where jobs are concerned the fact of the matter is that few Americans would actually wish to take those same jobs. They would never work for as cheap, they would demand representation and decent conditions. As legal citizens, they would not be an expendable work force constantly subject to abuse and degradation because of their status under the law.

As far as assimilating into American culture is concerned, the fact of the matter is that most immigrants (legal and illegal) do make attempts to learn English, to blend seamlessly into the culture (if only to avoid detection). A factor many fail to take into account is that the vast majority of illegal immigrants in this country do not come to stay. Most are working in the United States because US trade policies in their own countries have made it impossible for them to survive on the kind of employment that is available to them. They work, send money back home, usually with the aim of returning home.

Where taxes are concerned, where many people argue that they live off of society like parasites, the nation should consider the fact that each penny they save off of their heads of lettuce, their tomatoes, their flowers, their clothes are pennies that those illegal immigrants have saved them by working harder under worse conditions for less money than legal citizens would.

I apologize if my blog seems a tad long, but this is a subject I am quite passionate about, since I truly believe that nativism and anti-immigrant sentiments are incredibly destructive and counter-intuitive, not to mention baseless. After all, how many legal residents have actually worked for that status as much as even illegal immigrants have? How many have risked their lives, left everything they have ever known in order to stay in this country? None have. Yet they are content to judge from behind their computer screens, blogging and commenting and demonstrating sentiments that truly bring that good old friend nativism to mind.