The other America Tucson or not Tucson - political issues and activism in Tucson, Arizona

New Internationalist, Nov, 2002 by David Ransom

Nowhere is entirely typical of the United States, and nowhere less so than the American archetypes themselves--Hollywood, Washington DC and Wall Street. So how about Tucson, Arizona? David Ransom tells a tale of two very different cities in one.

HIGH summer is a bad time to live in a desert so hot, so dry, so beautiful it takes your burning breath away. Wildfires have been tearing through the mountain forests. The rare figure you can spot on the streets of the Tucson Central Business District is likely to be destitute or staggering through the 110-degree heat from one airconditioned capsule to the next.

Yet people are flocking here. A settlement of 7,000 less than a century ago, the city had swollen to 863,000 by the last count in 2000 and had grown by more than a quarter in the previous decade alone. (1) The newcomers are mostly white pensioners in pursuit of golf courses and relatively cheap 'gated communities'. But a substantial part of the population is also indigenous--not only 'American Indian' (at five per cent of the total, the same as 'Black American') but 'Hispanic' (more than a quarter).

Tucson has not so much grown as sprawled to a bloated 40 miles across--and the city is rapidly running out of basics, like drinking water. Squads of SUVs (sports utility vehicles) advance like tanks across the expanding city grid. Buses are as elusive as the coyote.

Sixty miles due south is Mexico. Not so long ago Tucson - like the whole of the Southwest, including Texas and California - actually was Mexico. But the US Government invaded the country in 1846 and unceremoniously grabbed half of it. Arizona became the 43rd State of the Union only in 1912, little more than a long lifetime ago. Perhaps partly as a result, the white-immigrant majority seems to favour an assertive form of political expression. In 1964 Barry Goldwater, Senator for Arizona from 1953 to 1987, was the most reactionary Republican presidential nominee in the party's history--which takes some doing. Current Senator John McCain describes himself as 'an early foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution'.

Arizona is, after all, part of the legendary Wild West. Tombstone, site of the gunfight at the OK Coral in 1881, lies halfway between Tucson and the Mexican border. Today it is a heritage centre where closet cowboys don fancy dress and fire blanks from six-shooters in the name of tourism and charity.

But, not far away, is its modern-day equivalent -- the vast Fort Huachuca military-intelligence and satellite-communications base. Along the border with Mexico are the Barry M Goldwater Air Force Range and the Yuma Proving Ground. Tucson itself has the DavisMonthan airbase right at its heart. Ranks of mothballed B52, bombers, jet fighters, tank-busters, great pyramids of military junk, litter roadsides like the corpses of monstrous insects. More Fl6 jet fighters than civilian airliners seem to use the international airport which has an exclusive Military Lounge - and there is a dedicated military TV channel. Close by is the sprawling Raytheon plant which makes missiles like the ones dropped most recently on Afghanistan. Raytheon shares with of Arizona in Tucson a lucrative chunk of the Son of Star Wars missile-defence development programme. Robert E Walkup, Mayor of Tucson, is a former senior executive of the Hughes Aircraft Company, later swallowed by Raytheon. Concrete-hooded bunkers for nuclear intercontin ental ballistic missiles ring the city. Just to the north is Biosphere 2 which mimics how humans might fare if they ever felt the need to flee to another planet altogether.

As if to precipitate that day, this patch of Mother Earth literally bristles with military paraphernalia. Quite why, or where the threat to Tucson's migrant pensioners might come from no-one can say.

The other Tucson

There is, however, another Tucson. The Sanctuary Movement was created here 20 years ago. An alliance of faith-based groups decided to offer protection to refugees fleeing repression invariably sponsored by the US Government in Central America. The migrants are still coming but today they are fleeing the economic effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement. A Samaritan Patrol combs the desert for people in distress, though it has been prevented from doing as it would wish and leaving stores of water at strategic points.

A terrible human tragedy is unfolding here. Between 100,000 and 250,000 migrants are thought to cross the Tucson sector of the border every year, most of them heading on for family or friends in California, Chicago or New York By the end of July this year more than a hundred of them had died crossing the desert so far -- already breaking the annual record set last year.

Two young activists, Chris Ford and Jennifer Allen, work for the Southwest Alliance to Resist Militarization (SWARM). (2) For the past 20 years, they say, the death toll has risen in step with an accelerating military build-up on the border. The Border Patrol is now bigger than the FBI; its freewheeling local agents are periodically accused -- and sometimes even convicted -- of drug trafficking and murder. Walls, roads and surveillance devices have wrought havoc on the fragile desert environment. They are intended to direct migrants towards the most desolate and dangerous crossing points. Vigilante groups from Texas and California with names like 'American Patrol', 'Voices for Citizens Together' and 'Ranch Rescue' patrol the border on the look-out for unwanted foreigners. 'War on crime. War on drugs. War on immigrants,' laments Jennifer Allen. 'And now, of course, war on terrorism.'