arizona: a gated community

Most people probably know that Arizona was once part of Mexico. The U.S. acquired most of Arizona at the end of the Mexican-American War and then the southern part of the state in the Gadsden Purchase. Sometime in the 1900s snowbirds began descending upon Arizona. These mostly white people from the frozen north were not only escaping the weather but big city problems. They came from cities like Detroit, Milwaukee, Chicago. They were searching for a clean slate with which to paint their utopias. They turned the desert green by building dams and borrowing water so they could have lawns and golf courses. They created the huge sprawl that is Phoenix. They built gated communities where residents were mostly white and all were over the age of 55. Mexicans watered those lawns, maintained the courses, worked in the assisted living centers, did the dishes at the local Chinese buffet.

And now those northern immigrants want to turn the whole state of Arizona into a gated community. They started on the southern border by building a fence between Arizona and Mexico. Their next move is to rid the state of all but the most necessary Mexicans. They'll make it look as though they're going after illegal immigrants but their hope is that most of the Hispanics in the state will get so pissed off that they will leave - even though their families have been in Arizona for fucking ever.

The politicians in Arizona will build a fence between Arizona and California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico. The citizens will vote not to pay taxes on things like schools and universities so those will close thus ridding the state of college-aged and younger people. Young families won't be able to move to Arizona, what with no schools, so eventually the northern immigrants will have what they want: a state of old white people (disclaimer: i can use that insensitive phrase "old white person" because i am an old[ish] white person).

But a place can survive only so long with just a population of senior citizens. When they die off, buildings will crumble, the saguaro and mesquite will reclaim the land, and some day the Mexicans will come back and take down that wall.