Saphire
Miramontes
Dr.
BrownENG 306
06 May 2016
Tucson’s Call for Good Samaritans
Introduction [1]
“Land of the free, home of the brave,” is
what we, as citizens of the United
States of America, tend to claim. However looking ahead, this rhetorical
analysis argues that bravery comes from being supportive of immigration as a country with a
particularly humanistic approach towards helping immigrants in their journey into the U.S. Unfortunately, the
lives of many have been taken away sooner than expected due to their dangerous decision to illegally cross Mexican-American
border. With such great tragedy that keeps reoccurring daily, a group of
individuals known as the Los
Samaritanos de Tucson (The Good Samaritans of Tucson) took it upon themselves to take a stance
against existing stigmas behind illegal immigration while simultaneously taking measures to save
lives.
According to author Leland Griffin (1952),
Los Samaritanos de Tucson are currently in the inception phase of their protest; this phase is when resistance is
initially displayed which leads to creating rhetorical strategies. Being
that Los Samaritanos de Tucson is a non-profit organization, the best way for them to protest the intent of the SB 1070 law
would be to fight it by knowing their constitutional rights and presenting their work through social
media and technology. With this approach, Los Samaritanos can successfully
refrain from negative encounters with law enforcement while also reaching a large population via the internet (Milan). And
so, this rhetorical strategy is most effective for Los Samaritanos to reach
their goal of gaining support of their cause to save immigrant lives by taking
proactive measures.
Historical Context
At first glance, the topic of immigration is very
controversial especially in southern border states like California, Arizona,
and Texas. Specifically, much of the controversy exists because in 2010 Arizona Governor Jan Brewer
signed a law known as SB 1070; this state law resulted in racial profiling
people of color by questioning
their citizenship
status (Center for American Progress). It can be concluded that this law
was intended to reduce immigration
and diversity in the state of Arizona. This law received great support from the
Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department and has had no changes in legislation to present date. Therefore,
in this analysis an evaluation
of the rhetorical strategies of Los Samaritanos de Tucson against SB 1070 will
take place. Los Samaritanos de Tucson declared that they would collect hygienic
products, non-perishable foods, gallons of water, and clothing to spread around
the Sonoran desert for individuals attempting to cross the border on foot. This
group claims that by doing so, they refute the purpose of SB 1070 by
approaching immigration
from Mexico with a more humanistic and inclusive attitude.
Rhetorical Break Down
In today’s day in age, technology is the
main source people use to divulge, circulate, and remain connected with issues
going on throughout the globe. Further, technology uses, “… mass media dissemination as an important
contemporary form of citizen participation"
(Deluca & Peeples 184) to keep people engaged with those issues. As a part
of this protest, Los Samaritanos de Tucson appeal to rhetorical strategies in
their use of social media and technology for community support in their direct
protest against SB 1070. Thus,
authors Winet, Jacobson, and Tucker (2014) describe ethos as a rhetorical
appeal to credibility, pathos to emotion, and logos to the logic of a character or group. To gain
credibility as a united opponent against the law, Los Samaritanos made well use
of social media and technology to reach a vast amount of people very quickly. In
addition, Los
Samaritanos claim that, “Deaths in the desert last year [were] 133” (Tucson
Samaritans/Los Samaritanos) as an appeal to the sentiments of their website
visitors. Lastly, as an appeal to logos, Los Samaritanos work with retired
police officers and retired border patrol officers to gain knowledge of laws
and their constitutional
rights so that they may protect themselves and educate those that are
attempting to cross the border.
Author Franklyn
Haiman (1967) claims that legality and ethics are at the root of each protest.
Consequently, with more of one or the other, or both legality and ethics together,
a protest can bring leaders to be more proficient in reaching their goals. In
this case, the Los Samaritanos de Tucson gain much reliability as a group
because they are able to gather a legal and ethical background in topic of immigration. A rhetorical
goal of Los Samaritanos de Tucson is to gain awareness and understanding of the
hardships that people face during their immigration journey. The purpose of this goal is to
stress how traumatic this experience can be when done illegally. Los
Samaritanos have a legislative goal of gaining support from the state
government to change their SB
1070 policy that allows officials to demand proof of citizenship from people of
color under subjective reason of suspicion (Center for American Progress). The objective of their goal is to
reduce the probability of discriminating any person of color that has
rightfully gained citizenship through a legal process. Lastly, the intended
audience of this protest is Arizona citizens as they are asked to support Los
Samaritanos in their fight against SB 1070.
Finally, on an annual basis an average of
130 individuals die in their attempt to enter this country. With racially
charged laws such as SB 1070, people of color in Arizona have been associated
with the negative connotations
of immigration. The inspiring
work of Los Samaritanos de Tucson encourages Arizona residents to lend a
helping hand in saving lives of those struggling to cross the border illegally.
When it comes to a matter of race, so many traditional forms of protests have taken place
throughout American history. A foreshadow is noted in Haiman’s (1967) claim
that, “The mass rally, an old form in itself, has been expanded to new locations and new dimensions" (14). On
that account, race being a commonality amongst protests like sit-ins for Civil
Rights, Grape Boycotts for farmers, and #BlackLivesMatter for victims of
unjustified killings, the only significant difference of these types of
protests is the way they were carried out. Although Los Samaritanos de Tucson
did not take a customary route of protest, they were effective because they
fulfilled their rhetorical goal of approaching immigration with a humanistic approach. Lastly, in
disseminating information,
gaining community support, and breaking down the stigmas SB 1070 created, Los
Samiritanos have so far been successful in their ongoing protest for immigration policy reform.
Works Cited
Center for American Progress. "Fast Facts on
Arizona’s Immigration Crack Down." 2010. Web.
DeLuca,
Kevin M and Jennifer Peeples. “From Public Sphere to Public Screen: Democracy,
Activism, and the “Violence” of Seattle”.
Tactics for External Audiences. 2002.
Print.
Griffin,
Leland. "The Rhetoric of Historical Movements." Readings in the
Rhetoric of Social
Protest.
State College, Pa Strata Publishing, Inc. 2013. Print.
Haiman,
Franklyn S. "Rhetoric of the Streets: Some Legal and Ethical
Considerations." Readings
in the Rhetoric of Social Protest. State
College, Pa Strata Punlishing, Inc. 2013. Print.
Milan,
Stefania. “From social movements to cloud protesting: the evolution of
collective
identity.” Information, Communication
& Society. 2015. Web.
Winet,
Kristen, Brad Jacobson, and Madelyn Tucker. “A Student’s Guide to First Year
Writing.”
Hayden McNeil Publishing. 2014. Print.
[1] Paragraph Structure – The purpose
of this paragraph is to introduce the protest’s topic and an opposing side. The
main characters of this paragraph are citizens of the United States of America,
immigrants from Mexico, and Los Samaritanos de Tucson (The Good Samaritans of
Tucson). Mixed topic strings can be identified in this introduction paragraph.
[2] The purpose of this final paragraph
is to bring all the ideas together, offer other traditional protest ideas that exist for issues
similar to immigration
and race, and to discuss the effectiveness of Los Samaritanos de Tucson in
their inception phase.
This form of conclusion
was selected because it recollects the thoughts of the author and it is
intended to encourage the reader to look into contributing to the cause of Los
Samaritanos on their own time.
[3] Extra Credit – Natalie Polston
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