Arizona’s immigration law, which goes into effect tomorrow, is generally seen as unpopular with Americans with Hispanic roots. But that’s not always the case. The Examiner has a story on legal immigrants who support the law. An accompanying video comes from an Arizona TV station, and some of the quotes are quite inspiring. A young Arizona legislator, who became a U.S. citizen the legal way: “The United States is not the color of your skin. It’s the way you see life. When you reach the day [when citizenship is official], you realize that citizenship is a responsibility, not an entitlement.” Those are sentiments all of us should embrace.
More on the Arizona law and Hispanics:
A fascinating CNN/Opinion Research poll reveals, not unexpectedly, that Hispanics don’t support the Arizona immigration law. But that’s (obviously) not what makes the poll results interesting. The interesting finding is that Hispanics 50 or older are almost evenly divided on the matter:
“The biggest difference in the Hispanic community on this issue is the generation gap,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “Forty-five percent of Hispanics who are 50 or older support Arizona’s law. Among Hispanics who are younger than 50, support for the new measure drops to 17 percent. Three-quarters of younger Hispanics oppose the law.”
This seems important to me-older Hispanics, presumably ones who have worked, established themselves in life and have a more realistic notion of what citizenship entails, are more positive towards the law.