Super Bowl Heads into Hostile Territory

… Hostile, that is, for Latinos. The Wall Street Journal published a front-page story today on the ugly impact that a new immigration law in Arizona is already having, even though it doesn’t go into effect until January 1. The story quotes a Carl’s Jr. Restaurants franchisee—the state’s largest—saying that “some customers, emboldened by the law, are confronting his Hispanic workers about their immigration status, sometimes using insults.”

Geez, with all due respect to Cowboy fans, perhaps you shouldn’t hope that your team and your star (Mexican-American quarterback Tony Romo) make it to the Super Bowl, to be played February 3 in Glendale, Arizona. Just think, vigilantes from the Minuteman Project might station themselves at the gates of the University of Phoenix Stadium, asking for Romo’s green card (Romo was born in San Diego, and his paternal grandfather immigrated to San Antonio from Mexico).

And perhaps the NFL should re-think its Hispanic strategy, which includes a Spanish-language radio campaign designed to increase its Latino fan base. Arizonans might think the NFL employs undocumented immigrants, or worse, is trying to encourage “illegals” to become NFL fans!

The aforementioned law would crack down on businesses who hire undocumented immigrants, and it would encourage ordinary citizens to report to local police agencies businesses that they suspect of employing undocumented immigrants. Some businesses have stopped expansion plans (i.e. Carl’s Jr. Restaurants) and some have started moving their operations to Mexico.

Hmmm….perhaps the NFL should move Super Bowl XLII to Mexico City! After all, it has staged NFL games at Estadio Azteca quite successfully before, and the Cowboys do enjoy a huge fan base in el DF. And it would teach Arizonans—once again—a lesson about civility.

Yes, if you recall, the NFL has punished Arizona before, when its legislature (and a former quirky governor) refused to establish a state holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday, and it took away a Super Bowl game. Arizona got the message back then.

I’m certainly not calling for another boycott of Arizona, but we all know the NFL is a powerful and very influential American entity (OK, the NFL Network notwithstanding), and it should leverage its muscle to once again, teach Arizonans about respect. And the NFL should recruit its big Super Bowl sponsors like Budweiser and Pepsi to issue strong and forceful messages that call for basic human decency and tolerance.

The Wall Street Journal story cited a recent University of Arizona study that concludes that Arizona’s economic output would drop if non-citizen foreign workers were thrown out. OK, I hate to say it, but who the hell is going to clean up the mess after the Super Bowl festivities are over?!

And I doubt it very much that the notoriously thrifty NFL is going to allocate more dollars to pay for higher-priced catering and cleaning service contractors. Mexico City doesn’t sound like such a bad idea, after all.

Que viva Tony Romo!

-Manny Gonzalez