View of a legal alien unaffected by Arizona’s new law

“Cologne is a very multicultural city,” said one of my German friends in the middle of a conversation during my time living in that German city a few years ago. “In Germany it’s very serious if you criticize our multicultural society,” added another. “Although,” interjected another, “sometimes it’s the people who create the multi who cause the problems.” This is about as explicit as anti-immigrant language is ever allowed to get in Germany if you’re not at a meeting of a political party that the state is trying to outlaw. “You mean me?” I said, with enough of that dry British wit in my voice to take the edge off. “No,” laughed my friend, “of course not you, Martin.”

But why not me? I wasn’t from there. I couldn’t name all 23 varieties of Koelsch beer (well, not when I arrived anyway). I didn’t know who was the star player of FC Koeln the last time they won the Bundesliga. I was not cheering for the same team as them in the World Cup. Why not me?

Basically, I was a national of a fellow EU state and walked in without the need for a work permit, I was white and European and I spoke German. Auslaender? Possibly. Immigrant? Meh. Viewed the same as a Turkish or Iranian migrant? Absolutely not.

Similar story in the US. To be fair, comparatively few people here complain about any foreign accents, but when they do, it’s not my accent they’re complaining about. In fact people fall over themselves to coo over my accent and tell me how beautiful they thought my country was the last time they visited.

It might not be so easy anymore, though, if I travel to Arizona, not after SB1070, the new law that requires state and local police to determine the status of people if there is “reasonable suspicion” that they are illegal immigrants and to arrest people who are unable to provide documentation proving they are in the country legally. Better pack that greencard lest I commit the crime of not having my papers on me.

But wait. How would any cop looking at me have any reasonable suspicion that I am an illegal immigrant? What is reasonable suspicion?

The most uncomfortable part of this whole story is actually not the eerie connotations of Nazi Germany thrown up by the notion of police officers asking “Ihre Papiere, bitte,” for no reason other than the fact that you look a bit shifty. It’s knowing that I would not be checked, but that other, perfectly legal, immigrants, and umpteenth-generation bona fide Americans, would be, simply because they look like your stereotypical illegal immigrant.

One of the first places I took my parents to visit when they came to see me in the US was Gettysburg. The proposition that all men are created equal must be a distant one if you’re a Latino in Arizona.