Securing Arizona: What Americans Can Learn From Their Rogue State

[pampango]

http://bostonreview.net/BR36.2/tom_barry_arizona_tea_party.php

A sense of solidarity led the Tea Party Patriots to Phoenix for their American Policy Summit in February. It’s “our opportunity to support the citizens of Arizona in their current political battles that carry so many national implications,” the organizers of the Summit said. Arizona’s capital, according to the Patriots, is “the great southwestern city, born from the ruins of a former civilization, now the rebirth place of American culture.”

Certainly Arizona’s history and geography make it one of a kind. Still, comparable demographic and cultural strife is cropping up almost everywhere in America. Arizona’s budget woes, while much worse than most states’, are mirrored throughout the country in conflicts over government downsizing and taxes. Hatred, economic stress, and fears of border insecurity are playing out in unusually grand scale in Arizona, yet mostly reflect the sense of vulnerability and uncertainty about personal and national prospects that are felt throughout the country.

Arizona faces dire problems, but, rather than address them, its leaders make political hay out of convenient distractions. This dynamic demands close scrutiny, especially if the country is facing its future on the border.

Even before the Great Recession, the state’s two wellsprings of population growth—Latino immigration and Midwest migration—were proving a volatile mix. Surges of snowbirds from the north and immigrants from the south have fed Phoenix and Tucson, with brown immigrant labor building the tile-roofed homes of mostly white transplants who previously had little contact with Latinos. These changing demographics have produced a white backlash that, when combined with historically low rates of Latino electoral participation, have contributed to a Republican resurgence in Arizona.

The political backlash in part reflects a “cultural generation gap.” Arizona’s “swift Hispanic growth has been concentrated in young adults and children,” says Brookings’ William Frey, creating a population with “largely white baby boomers and older populations.” In Arizona 43 percent of children are white, compared to 83 percent of the seniors. The 40 percent gap is the highest in the country, far outstripping the national average of 25 percent. Other states that have experienced rapid immigrant population growth—including Nevada, California, Texas, and Florida—confront comparably wide gaps.