In 1920, the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce advertised the city as “a modern town of 40,000 people, and the best kind of people, too. A very small percentage of the total population were Mexicans, Negroes or foreigners – a term used to identify Chinese immigrants, while the Native American population was disregarded within this state census. “You can’t go far in looking at the early history of the Valley without encountering that kind of casual racism,” stated the Chamber of Commerce as a means to boost American cultural values over those of the included other cultures.

Minorities – African Americans, Mexicans, Chinese and Native Americans – made up a significant portion of the population from the very earliest years. When Phoenix had fewer than 500 residents, half of them were Mexican. Early records define the word Hispanics, as a signifier for all/any individuals other than African Americans, Native Americans or Chinese, with little distinction made between those, of Mexican heritage, born in the U.S. after 1848, those born when Arizona was still part of Mexico, those who immigrated from the political and economic troubles in Mexico to find peace or opportunity in Phoenix, or, those who moved/migrated to the U.S. with Hispanic surnames from Texas or California. “Mexican,” therefore, became a default and generic descriptor, which itself becomes, over time, a racialized marker and stereotype.

Before Arizona achieved statehood, there were 19 restaurants in Phoenix run by Chinese families. These establishments had names like, “American Kitchen,” run by Sing Yee. They didn’t serve Chinese food, but they were run by Chinese immigrants, who functioned not only as restaurateurs, but, as the city’s primary grocers and launderers.

The first African Americans noted in the Phoenix records came with the Columbus Gray family from Arkansas in 1868. Mary Green – the first of many African Americans to come to Phoenix – arrived with her two children, while many others followed. The historian Matthew Whitaker wrote, “African Americans were pushed by circumstances and pulled by hope, eventually finding their way to Phoenix, where they believed social, economic and political betterment awaited them.” However, what remained to be found by these hopeful migrants was a cluster of segregation, racist communities, and little work outside of harsh manual labor.

There is no doubt that the founding fathers of Phoenix saw themselves as the cultural norm. They were White, spoke English, and wore the proper attire of suits and vests. Chinese, Mexican, Indian and Black were seen as part of the functioning community, but they were clearly seen as a racialized “other.” Likewise, the founding Phoenix fathers were also primarily descended from northern European stock, which meant that the prevailing prejudice included the “wrong” kind of White. This prejudicial attitude extended into how families composed and/or changed their names so that they could be accepted by, and within the larger Phoenix communities. As one Italian family account notes, “whatever you do, add an ‘e’ on the end or your name and tell them you’re French. They didn’t want Italians here.” This manner of segregation along racial lines firmed an unspoken ethic within the forming landscape of Phoenix, which would continue through the present era.

As Phoenix continued to grow so did a certain embarrassment about their non-White population. The Phoenix Herald wrote that the city needed to control “half-naked Indians who disgrace our streets, bringing a blush to the cheeks of our mothers, sisters and wives.” In response to this culturally accepted racist attitude, a city ordinance was passed in 1881 making it illegal for Indians to appear on city streets “without sufficient clothing to cover the person” or to be in the city after dark unless employed by a Phoenix resident.

In 1891, the Phoenix Indian School opened, and the Arizona Gazette wrote that, “hundreds of boys and girls were annually transferred from the native condition of indolence and uselessness into civilized and useful members of society.” One of the ways they attempted to make this transformation was to hire out the students as domestic workers, calling the opportunity an “outing,” as if it were a socially accepted event.

For many Phoenix residents, Indians were a popular tourist draw. It was not uncommon for community members to ask Indian School students to dress up in “war paint” for city parades. This aided in a sore historic reminder of American colonialism and the westward expansion. The geography of the roadways was drawn to designate east-west roads named for a particular U.S. President, whereas north-south streets were named for Indian tribes. As Phoenix itself began to grow, those streets named for Indian tribes were soon labeled with the numbers: Seventh Street and Seventh Avenue. This was, in effect, because the Indian names sent the “wrong message” about the forward looking, progressive image the city wanted to project. “Indians weren’t very modern,” says historian Philip Vander Meer. “If you wanted to project this image, then that would be the wrong one.” Following this progressive attitude and the need for Phoenix to position itself as an attractive contemporary location for incoming, acceptable – read: White – potential residents, it was noted by historian Vander Meer that Phoenix itself was to become a “get-up-and-go,” community. This, then, led to the confirmation of a racial standard which states that if Phoenix was to be consider a modern town – in the 20th century – they, “they [must] think that…a lively modern city, [recognized as a] get-up-and-go [city] is associated with Anglo Saxon and not with Hispanics, Blacks or Chinese.”

Despite this growing racist ethic, and without argument, the early Chinese residents were among the most industrious of immigrants. These migrant residents operated businesses and cornered the early market in groceries and restaurants. In 1880, Chinese accounted for about one percent of the total population of Phoenix. Non-Chinese residents were suspicious of them and enacted Chinese-directed taxes to discourage more Chinese immigration. The taxation was unlike the overt violence directed at Chinese in early California, which was tolerated and accepted. Chinese immigrants were forced to live in a small area of town, which contrasted with the original “Chinatown” in Phoenix, toward the southern portion of the city where the U.S. Airways Center now stands.

Hispanics fared better in the early growing years of Phoenix. They were initially too large a percentage of the population to legislate against, and too well integrated into the farming economy to ignore. The first elected constable/ chief of police, was Enrique Garfias, who was widely admired. When Garfias died in 1895, his obituary read “he gave the greatest satisfaction to the citizens of Phoenix. He was brave and conscientious and never failed in his duty, no matter how danger menaced him.” Yet, as Phoenix grew and began modeling itself on older, Eastern cities, the Mexican “look” of the adobes began to bother the city administration. When the floods of the 1890s washed away many of the south Phoenix adobes, they looked on it as a good time to begin the long and slow attitude of distancing of themselves from the Hispanic community. The floods provided the structure for separating the wealthier, white citizens, who bought the richer land elevated from the floods, and Hispanics were left in flood-prone areas of South Phoenix. This action was regarded as a positive action on behalf of the Euro-American communities and aided in the further establishment of an already underscored racist attitude within Phoenix. The Arizona Gazette wrote, “[h]ere are none of the sleepy, semi-Mexican features of the more ancient towns of the Southwest, but in the midst of a valley of wonderful fertility, has risen a city of stately structures, beautiful homes, progressive and vigorous.” By 1910, however, Hispanics accounted for only 10 percent of the population inside the Phoenix city limits. Yet, these actions – both candid and openly stated – remained consistent, entrenching an attitude of racism, which remains visible today in the Phoenix socio-political environment.
In response to, and in assistance for segregation, schools that had been bilingual were now made English-only. That same year, 1910, segregation was established in city schools. The Territorial legislature passed a law allowing segregation, but Territorial Gov. Joseph Kibbey vetoed the measure. Kibbey’s veto was overturned by lawmakers, and soon after Phoenix voted to segregate its own schools. This action, in effect, began to take hold throughout the state of Arizona. The fight over bilingual education is only one movement that helped to satisfy a racialized environment within Arizona. Gov. Kibbey’s reasons for vetoing the segregation measure were almost word for word the reasons given by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954, when they ruled against school segregation in “Brown v. Board of Education.” Kibbey wrote, “[i]t would be unfair that pupils of the African race should be given accommodations and facilities for a common school education less effective, less complete, less convenient or less pleasant so far as the accessories of the school and its operations are concerned than those accorded pupils of the White race in the same school district; and the bill in terms contemplates nothing less,”
Residential segregation became the de facto, de jure strategy to keep white from black schoolchildren. Research by Whitaker, noted within, In Search of Black Phoenicians: African-American Culture and Community in Phoenix, 1868 – 1940, details the bitter fight between pro- and anti-segregation forces beginning in 1909, when the territorial legislature “passed a law permitting school segregation in Arizona.” According to the Arizona measure, school boards were free to segregate students based on race.

Response from the African-American community was swift and angry, further outraging the white territorial governor Joseph H, Kibbey. Kibbey continued his track record of vetoing such measures, calling this political strategy, “utterly ridiculous, un-Christian and inhuman.” The Arizona legislature overrode his veto, and in 1912, Arizona entered statewide as a segregationist state. A major supporter of segregation was Dr. Benjamin A. Moeur, who chaired the convention to draft Arizona’s Constitution for statehood. “You gentlemen can do what you please,” Moeur said in a fiery address to the convention, “but I for one won’t send my children to school with n******s.” Moeur’s language gives support to the opinion framed in 1915, by black Phoenician Frank Smith in a letter to the editorial page of the Arizona Republican: “There is more race hatred right here in Phoenix to the square inch than in any city I have lived in.”

While the temperament of racism grew throughout the state of Arizona, Kibby continued to fight segregation and racist political measures. Judgments in favor of statewide segregation – residential and within the school system – commented that they, the politically dominant White/Anglo lawmakers, couldn’t understand why “Africans” would want to attend White schools when they would be “happier with their own.” The Arizona Democrat newspaper editorialized, “The colored people in Arizona are nicely treated,” and continued with barely concealed threat, suggesting that, “they conduct themselves in such a manner as this kindly feeling will continue.” With all these actions, lawsuits, measures and legal strategies for and against segregation, forced relocation of immigrants, and an openly controlled sense of racial injustice, the population in Phoenix, in 1910, was 11,134, with 10 percent Hispanic, 4 percent Black, and 1 percent Chinese.

“Racial segregation in Phoenix matched the segregation of southern U.S. cities of the day, certainly in regard to African-Americans,” observes Prof. Thomas J. Davis of the Dept. of History and College of Law, Arizona State University. This is exemplified historically as during a 1921 Arizona Republican gathering where among those who gathered to celebrate Arizona’s statehood were dozens of African-Americans (men, women and children). In an expected move, “the children of Phoenix” – i.e., those in political offices and state officials – did not include African-Americans in the eyes of the state and were latter turned away. Seeing that the growing African-American communities within Arizona required some form of attention, separate gatherings were instituted and announced by Republican administration. This action was considered a “solution” to the African-American controversy while retaining a structure of racial injustice in favor of the white, republican politic, which became, throughout the years, the political platform for Arizona. This attitude accompanied those white immigrants who came to Arizona from the South and maintained their Southern attitudes and racial prejudices. In order to firm the racial ethic of Arizona, those African-Americans who sought to purchase homes within the Phoenix area – 150 African-Americans, or 2.7 percent of the total city population up to that point – were residentially segregated. Legislation was organized to locate the African-American community to areas specific within areas of Arizona, while white real estate agents simply refused to sell to blacks in white neighborhoods. Eventually, openly racist operations and housing discrimination was applied to all minorities seeking to live within Arizona. In 1920, for example, one white entrepreneur developed tracts in Tempe exclusively for African-Americans, a move designed to keep the modestly increasing African-American population well east of white-dominated Phoenix area. The evil of race hatred was long growing within the Arizona, giving credence to the importance for African-American civic leaders to stand against such tensions. African-American civic leaders fought hard against both the de facto and the de jure segregation with “agency and resilience in the face of malevolence and apathy,” writes Whitaker. Their actions became visible as in 1919, when African-Americans leaders formed the Phoenix Advancement League (PAL), and began a decades-long struggle against centuries-old prejudices. Their collaborative actions took aim at the racialized struggles, which plagued Arizona and were becoming widespread. However, from time to time, one African-American civic leader – often with the aid of limited EuroAmerican political assistance – or another would challenge the right of segregation, but such challenges came to nothing.

However, in 1953, taking up again the mantle of institutionalized racism within the Arizona school system, Arizona suddenly became an unlikely leader in civil rights when Maricopa Superior Court Judge Frederick C. Struckmeyer, Jr. handed down a decision in “Phillips vs. Phoenix Union High School District.” Struckmeyer, declaring that, “half a century of intolerance is enough,” ruled the Arizona law permitting school boards to segregate unconstitutional. Filing the case were prominent Phoenix attorney Herbert B. Finn and Hayzel B. Daniels, the first African-American to pass the Arizona bar. Neither lawyer was paid; Daniels paid the filing fee. Stuckmeyer’s ruling anticipated by a year the groundbreaking U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education.

De jure segregation in the schools appeared to have come to an end. However, persistent de facto segregation in Phoenix neighborhoods meant that students attending neighborhood schools were likely to go to a school populated almost entirely by their own race and class. In 1985, the Phoenix Union High School District entered an agreement with the U.S. Dept. of Justice to desegregate through a series of measures designed to assure equal access to all educational programs. The programs involved included a dozen magnet schools. This amounted to de jure desegregation, the effectiveness of which remains as a “much debated” situation. In May of 2005, the U.S. District Judge Robert C. Broomfield lifted the desegregation order for the Phoenix Union High School District, calling the efforts over two decades “a success story” and pointing to higher academic achievement for all students in the district. Once a hotbed of racist oppression, later a spearhead for social change, Phoenix settled the issues upon a middle ground. The 2000 U.S. Census identified 5.1 percent of Arizona’s population as African-American, but the majority live in areas not far from the original black neighborhood of 1900. “A glance at the neighborhoods throughout the Valley in 2006 demonstrates the persistence of residential racial segregation,” the records state. “Black residents may dot various neighborhoods throughout the Valley, but the imperative realities of race and class continue to cluster the bulk of the Valley’s black population in south Phoenix. By no standard has there been much penetration.” In their 2005 book, Metropolitan Phoenix: Place Making and Community Building, authors Patricia Gober and Barbara Trapido-Lurie admit that, “Anglo Phoenicians are retreating from the city center and are isolating themselves in gated and guarded master-planned communities, rather than face the challenges of diversity.” Such retreat may signal a new need to reexamine the prejudices and policies of Phoenix’s majority population. One Arizona historian continues to state that, “I am not sure racial segregation in the Valley of the Sun was ever broken.”

Arizona’s Immigration Enforcement Law – The next wave of racism in Arizona:
In April 2010, Arizona enacted two laws addressing immigration, SB 1070 and HB 2162. These laws added new state requirements to crimes and penalties related to enforcement of immigration laws, which become effective on July 29, 2010. Before the laws could go into effect, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit asking for an injunction against these laws arguing that they are unconstitutional. On July 28, Judge Bolton granted the request for injunction in part and enjoined those provisions related to state law officers determining immigration status during any lawful stop. This requirement forces immigrants to carry alien registration documents, a prohibition on applying for work if unauthorized, and permission for warrantless arrests if there is probable cause the offense would make the person is removable from the United States. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer appealed the injunction, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments on Nov. 1, 2010. On April 11, 2011, the court upheld the injunction.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on a separate Arizona law enacted in 2007 that mandates use of a voluntary federal employment verification system and penalizes employers who hire unauthorized workers. On May 26, 2011, the Supreme Court upheld Arizona’s 2007 law that required the use of E-Verify by Arizona employers, punishable by suspension or revocation of the employer’s business license. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) preempts any state or local law from imposing civil or criminal sanctions – other than through licensing and similar laws – upon those who employ, or recruit or refer for a fee for employment, unauthorized aliens. The Supreme Court, by a 5-3 vote, found that language in IRCA did not preempt the state because it was a licensing law permissible under IRCA. The E-Verify program also did not preempt the state, “although Congress had made the program voluntary at the national level, it had expressed no intent to prevent States from mandating participation.” The ruling on the case is, CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF UNITED STATES OFAMERICA v. WHITING (No. 09-115).

SB 1070, “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act,” was approved by the Arizona Legislature on Monday, April 19, and signed into law by Governor Brewer on Friday, April 23, 2010. SB 1070 includes provisions adding state penalties relating to immigration law enforcement including trespassing, harboring and transporting illegal immigrants, alien registration documents, employer sanctions, and human smuggling. The trespassing provision appears to be the first of its kind to be enacted in the United States. In the most recent reports by NCSL on state immigration laws, few states have attempted to create a state trespassing violation for unlawful presence. Similar bills were introduced but failed in Arizona in 2008 and 2009, as well as in Texas (2009), Colorado (2008), and California (2007).

On the same day Governor Jan Brewer signed the bill, she also issued Executive Order 2010-09 requiring the Arizona Peace Officers Standards and Training Board to establish training to ensure law enforcement officials and agencies apply SB 1070 consistent with federal laws regulating immigration, protecting the civil rights of all people and respecting the privileges and immunities of United States citizens. The executive order also requires clear guidance on what constitutes reasonable suspicion. The concept and legal use of “reasonable suspicion” has been noted, by those opposed to this law, as being a legal justification for illegal racial profiling which, then, maintains a transparent level of prejudice and bigotry throughout Arizona. The board is to provide a list of the specific forms of identification that provide a presumption that a person is not an alien unlawfully present in the United States.

A series of questions have been raised about the implementation and constitutionality of Arizona SB1070. Some concerns include the costs to the state for enforcing federal immigration law, particularly in tight budget times. How is the concept and use of “reasonable suspicion of immigrant status” going to be interpreted? Who will monitor, and maintain the narrow list of documents eligible to demonstrate lawful presence? Court challenges have raised constitutional issues including due process, equal protection under the 14th amendment, the prohibition on unreasonable search and seizure under the 4th amendment, and preemption under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
On April 29, the last day of legislative session, the Arizona Legislature approved, and the governor signed HB 2162 that included provisions intended to address the racial profiling concerns. HB 2162 amended SB 1070 to specify that law enforcement officials cannot consider race, color or national origin when implementing the provisions of the original law, except as permitted by the U.S. or Arizona Constitution. The law clarified the original law’s language around “reasonable suspicion” by requiring state and local law enforcement to reasonably attempt to determine the immigration status of a person only while in the process of a lawful stop, detention or arrest, whereas the original language referred to “lawful contact.” HB 2162 also stipulated that a lawful stop, detention, or arrest, must be in the enforcement of any other law or ordinance of a county, city or town of this state. HB 2162 lowered the original fines in SB 1070 for state or local entities sued by legal residents and found guilty of restricting the enforcement of federal law from a minimum of $1,000 to $500 for each day the policy is in effect. The law also lowered the fine for people who fail to complete or carry an alien registration document from $500 to $100 for the first offense. The law was scheduled to go into effect on July 29, 2010, 90 days after the end of regular legislative session. Parts of the law, however, were enjoined on July 28, 2010.

Following these legal strategies and racially biases footsteps of Arizona, as of November 2010, similar bills had been introduced in six state legislatures, including, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Michigan and Illinois. Each of these bills has, on their own, faced a backlash of resistance similar to those presented by the communities, which oppose the Arizona bills.

To counter the actions – both current and in the foreseeable future as it relates to immigrant status, racial injustice, and constitutional equity for citizens – six resolutions have been introduced in legislatures that address Arizona’s immigration law. The California Senate, Illinois House, and New York Senate introduced resolutions opposing the Arizona law, while Tennessee enacted a resolution supporting it. Resolutions both supporting and opposing Arizona’s law were introduced in the Michigan House. Each of these states have acted, by way of introducing and/or passing their own legal structures, to call attention to what is viewed as an unjust, illegal and racially founded legal techniques in the state of Arizona, thereby applying inter-state restrictions and actions against Arizona until such reconciliations – or legal removal – of these laws takes effect.

In California, SCR 113 urges various state and private entities to withhold financial support of Arizona businesses in response to recent Arizona state laws relating to illegal immigration. The resolution was introduced on June 23, 2011. The state of Illinois introduced HJR 119, which calls upon the Arizona Legislature to repeal SB1070 and asks Congress and the President to act quickly to enact comprehensive immigration reform. The joint resolution was introduced on May 4, 2011, adopted by the House on May 7, 2011, and is pending in the Senate. The legislature in Michigan drafted HR 291, which urges the repeal of SB 1070, and asks Michigan businesses and public and private organizations to refrain from doing business with or in the state of Arizona. The resolution was introduced on May 26, 2011. Michigan’s HR 295 expresses support for Arizona’s new legislation regarding immigration and opposes any boycott of Arizona businesses. The resolution was introduced on June 9, 2011. The state of New York introduced SR 5081, which denounces policy that encourages racial profiling and asks cooperation on all levels of government to enact immigration policies and laws. The resolution was adopted on May 4, 2011. Tennessee’s HJR 1253 commends Arizona on its upcoming Centennial and salutes the initiative of the Arizona Legislature and Governor Jan Brewer in their actions to protect their citizens and the border. HJR 1253 became law without the governor’s signature on June 19, 2010.

A number of challenges within the legal court system have followed these state bills. Presently, three individuals (two law enforcement officials and one researcher) and the Coalition of Latino Clergy filed the first challenges to the Arizona law based on equal protection, due process and preemption under the Supremacy Clause. A coalition of organizations including the ACLU, National Immigration Law Center and MALDEF filed a class action lawsuit against Arizona counties seeking a permanent injunction. The lawsuit states that SB1070 violates the Supremacy Clause, the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, the Fourth Amendment right to freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, and the Equal Protection Clause guarantee of equal protection under the law, and Article II, Section 8 of the Arizona Constitution. The lawsuit was filed May 17, 2010 (U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona). On July 6, 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the district of Arizona seeking a permanent injunction of SB 1070. The civil action states that SB 1070 is preempted by federal law (8 U.S.C. 1101, and following sections) and by U.S. foreign policy, and violates the Supremacy Clause and the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. On July 15, 2010, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton heard arguments on a request for preliminary injunction filed by the earlier lawsuits and on Arizona’s request to dismiss those lawsuits. On July 28, 2010, Judge Bolton granted in part and denied in part the motion for preliminary injunction. The sections that were barred from taking effect (pending appeal) were: Section 2B, requiring law enforcement officers to determine immigration status during any lawful stop, Section 3, creating state crimes and penalties for failure to carry federally-issued alien registration documents, Section 5 making it unlawful for an unauthorized alien to knowingly apply for or perform work in Arizona, and Section 6, permitting an officer to make a warrantless arrest if the officer has probable cause to believe the person has committed any public offense that makes the person removable from the United States. As expected, following this injunction, Governor Brewer filed for an appeal on August 26, 2010, which, to date – 2017 – is still pending legal action.