A Memo Concerning: Zonies, Migrants, and Cowards.

Every year my community is invaded by a vicious hoard of unholy land beasts in pastel colored SUVs wearing oversized fanny packs and thick white cotton socks pulled high and split by Tevas. They come and go in migratory fashion, like Wall-Mart outfitted vikings pillaging up and down the Southern California coastline, sacking and raping our resources and turning our beloved homeland into a melancholy whore. Over time we have come to anticipate their migratory return just after the two days the grass is green in Spring, usually about the time we get that first sun burn, when the Padres are playing good baseball. Just as our beaches reach their most aesthetic potential, like petals of a flower finally extending themselves, a heard of monstrous, pastey white asses decide to plant themselves in the middle of it-- a shit streak down the middle of a recently washed pair of undies. They are leaches who threaten the safety and well-being of our children, are burdens on the tax paying citizens of Southern California and blights on the aesthetically appealing San Diego landscape. They are of course Arizonans. And so we have A Memo Concerning: Zonies, Migrants, and Cowards.

I'd say its about long time for residents of San Diego to rise up and confront the beast. Housing prices have dipped drastically, unemployment is up, the city flirts with bankruptcy, it is about time we start doing what everyone else does when they are frustrated and feel powerless: start assigning blame to faceless groups of people. The Arizonan, or Zonie, is obviously the destructive force behind our current plight. They make roads unsafe with their clueless stumblings through our cities, fumbling along the 101 or I-5 like geriatrics trying to find and mix Metamucil in the dark. The result is about the same as well: a series of curse words and shit flung everywhere. Recklessly driving the wrong way down one way streets, parking in fire lanes, veering into bike lanes while desperately stabbing at GPS devices fixed to carpeted dashboards, it almost feels like these people are purposely trying to get in car accidents so that they can extend their Southern California vacations longer by claiming residency in our hospitals.

I can't blame them though; their state undeniably blows. The people of Arizona are bleach white from days on end spent indoors in air conditioned cellars because their summer is hotter than donkey balls. Lets be honest, what does the desert state really have to offer? People have no business living there in the first place. It is no wonder then that Arizona is the crystal meth capital of the world, boasting the highest percentage of positive results for meth in workplace drug tests. But that is what makes the annual migration of Zonies to Southern California so dangerous. In addition to aqua colored Ford Excursions, chin strap facial hair, gold chains with faux-chinese medallions, tribal band tattoos, and oversized, grease stained No Fear T-shirts, Zonies also bring their meth in droves, specifically targeting small children, puppies and Shamu with their extraordinarily addictive drug. Whats even worse, some Zonies are even setting up shop on our side of the border, creating meth labs in East San Diego County. They have crept from El Centro all the way to Lakeside, slowly infesting the county with peach fuzz mustaches and TapOut apparrel, establishing anchor-businesses in form of meth labs in grandma's trailer. While not having a full set of teeth used to be a Zonie thing, their invasion into SoCal has made it an East County phenomena. Sometimes I wonder if I'm even in my own hometown when I see the amount of 98 Ford Mustangs with chrome painted plastic rims on the road. We must act swiftly, before our own children start wearing bandanas underneath their baseball hats. The number of dudes swimming in the ocean with white tank tops on is rising at a frightening rate. Outside of filling our restaurants and hotels, and buying messloads of pointless shit, I have a hard time seeing how these people really contribute to our economy at all.

When assholes force me to look at history, something many people try to avoid at all costs, I will admit that it is hard to acknowledge that yes, even my own family immigrated from western New Mexico to San Diego in the 1920's. But listen, the difference between my family's move from the desert to San Diego and modern day Zonies is huge. Those people in the past were my family, these Zonies are not. That's a difference whose weight cannot be minimized.

Considering the hazards that Zonies present I suppose we could close off our border with them and systematically remove those who have infiltrated (a task as dubious as removing gray from tan grains of sand). But, I don't think we should because outside of it just not working, that level of short-sightedness, mis-directed angst, and cowardice is the kind of shit Zonies like to pull of late. I call their recent legislation cowardly because it targets those with the least amount of power in the equation while at the same time doing little if anything to combat the issues that they face.

This is because confronting the real problem would mean acknowledging the extent to which America depends on migrant workers to fuel their economy. It would mean acknowledging how the US has looked at Mexico as its personal battery for the better part of the last 75 years. It would mean acknowledging how powerful domestic industries have used migrant labor as a means to navigate around our own labor laws. It would mean acknowledging the extent to which, because of agreements like NAFTA, our own successes are dependent on the success of Mexico, how our fates are intertwined. It would mean acknowledging that our trade decisions with Mexico hold significant impacts on our own qualities of life domestically. But Arizona Senate Bill 1070 does not acknowledge any of this and I think this is for a very clear reason. Deep down inside, we as Americans don't really want to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into this country. If we really did, we'd stand up and acknowledge the issues we like to keep secret.

What this legislation does is simply scratch the itch of a group of confused, angst filled individuals. It points their attentions to the least powerful in the equation, allowing those with heavily invested, domestic interests to continue to maintain their status quo while avoiding blame for their involvement in this horrendous scheme. It is a trap, a means of giving people the illusion of victory. Perhaps the most disingenuous accomplishment of this movement has been the ability of its supporters to illustrate that gestapo tactics are the only way to combat illegal immigration.

This could not be farther from the truth. As Mark Flores of the Critical Minds recently put it, “you do not have to condone illegal immigration to condemn racist policies.” Its not just that the strategy outlined by SB 1070 isn't the only way, it is that it is the least effective. We are in the middle of a crooked relationship, one whose problems are exacerbated by our willingness to deny it. I feel it is best described as domestic abuse. No matter how much we beat the shit out of our favorite girlfriend (migrant workers) in front of our friends, the next day we'll still offer roses and chocolates, because in the end it's not that we don't like her company, we are just embarrassed with how much we are in love with her.