Immigrant Protection Networks Vs. the Enforcement State in Tucson, Arizona: A Parallel Public Sphere?

Of all localities in the U.S., Tucson, Arizona is among those where expectations might be the highest of alienation felt by immigrants and their extended families as a result of several layers (federal, state and local) of enforcement-oriented legislation and police practice, as well as aggressive and sometimes racially targeted discourse and action at the state level. Yet in this city, over the past several years, a dense and variegated activist network, made up of immigrants, immigrants’ rights groups, labor activists, educators and local church-based groups mobilizing people of all origins, has formed an alternative public sphere, both within prevailing institutions and on their margins, in which the alienation engendered by zealous and racially targeted enforcement practices is channelled not into an ethnically and culturally separate universe but rather into a broad civic and popular cause, where the English-Spanish language difference is treated as a source of cultural wealth more than as a barrier. This paper will explore salient characteristics of this alternative public sphere on the basis of field observation, including several interviews with local actors, conducted in the summer of 2014.