Who decides who gets to be included or excluded within our society?

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To View the flier I am speaking of open Vasquez_posters2.

The Boise State College Republicans have informed the Idaho community and the National public of their racist political stance by utilizing a controversial flier to advertise an event around "America's Illegal Alien Invasion" with the support of Robert Vasquez, 2006 senate candidate. This flier is disturbing on many levels, and it speaks to the fact that racism is still so prevalent in America today and contributes to the culture of fear that permeates the social and political environment.


Over and over I return to the conflict between who belongs and who doesn't in the United States and I can see how undemocratic practices are generated and maintained. While I want to avoid the "Othering" behavior of those who thrive on perpetuating bigotry, I have a difficult time respecting and understanding how any political party would degrade their platform with hate propaganda. Despite how humorous they may have thought the flier was, this type of racist commentary is intolerable. Their message, which is aimed at influencing the opinions of Idahoans, draws on xenophobic stereotypes in order to mislead the public and oversimplify a very complex issue that exists in the United States today.


This flier is speaking to the regulation and negotiation of who belongs and who doesn't in the US. It is an example of the systematic prevention of Mexican's and other Latin American people from coming into the country and from attaining citizenship. It is apart of a discriminating process that allows certain groups of people to gain the rights of citizenship while others are prevented unless their membership is beneficial to Americans.


The flier is directed at illegal Mexican immigrants because it contains an image of a yellow warning sign with the silhouette of three people running, as if to say "watch out for the undocumented Mexican's crossing our border and threatening our way of life." The flier seeks to espouse that illegal Mexican immigrants are not worthy of equal treatment as human beings or deserving citizens, while simultaneously offering the reward of a dinner for two from a Mexican Restaurant. This schizophrenic dynamic portrays blatant disrespect for Mexican culture and makes a statement that says "we don't want your people, but we sure love your food." This also expresses the fact that many people believe that employment for certain immigrant's is permissible as long as "illegal" immigrants aren't taking the desirable jobs of US citizens.


The flier is supposedly in celebration of Caesar Chavez week, however it tarnishes Chavez's legacy. While Chavez may have protested the hiring of illegal immigrants during worker's strikes, he was adamantly against racism and he fought for Mexican-American civil rights and worker rights.


The flier constructs illegal immigrants as deviant "Others". By using the statement "climb through the hole in the fence and enter your false ID documents into the food stamp drawing!" the BSU Republicans are displaying their ignorance of the larger problems. Most illegal Mexican immigrant's have families with needs, just like any of us, but this flier mocks the result of this inequality rather than mocking the systemic conditions that contribute to widespread poverty and the lack of adequate nourishment. People who lack sustenance, "illegal" or "legal" seek resources to survive in desperation of their lives, not as criminals.


I also find it quite disturbing that Robert Vasquez's campaign slogan on his website is "Put America First, Protect our Nation's Borders." It appears Vasquez has traversed the border of racism, forgetting his ethnic heritage in the name of politics. Certainly he must recognize his own oppression within US culture and recognize that his position is recreating those same inequalities. He has poised himself as a Mexican-American who is against illegal Mexicans which is a position that does not reflect Chavez's legacy.


While I recognize that our country was built on violence, domination, and the genocide of indigenous people, I also recognize that it was built by those seeking refuge, freedom and economic opportunities. Today immigrants, legal and illegal, come here for those same reasons in addition to attempting to reunite with family, fleeing repression or escaping political strife, and yet they are met with hostility, belittlement and criminalization.


Those of us who are citizens must recognize that we are privileged, we became citizens either by birth-right or by legal means, but that does not make us more human than "illegal" citizens.


Additionally, we have to also recognize that the clothes on our backs and the food on our tables would not be here without the employment of legal and illegal immigrants. There are millions of people in the US who work for minimal wages in order to survive. The costs of our food, clothes and material products are kept to a minimum because of the employment of illegal immigrants, legal immigrants, and citizens of other countries in other countries.


The ideas projected by the BSU College Republicans don't offer adequate opportunities for change or the promotion of the pluralistic equality promoted in the United States Constitution. I'm not sure if the BSU College Republicans were trying to provoke the community with a political statement, but they certainly have my attention.


This is no way to win the hearts of the Idaho constituency.