Will We Remember the Real Rosa?

In an era when Paris Hilton is a star, Elvira Arellano can indeed pass for Rosa Parks

By Mark Cromer
August 2007

In the aftermath of Elvira Arellano’s arrest in Los Angeles and subsequent deportation to her native Mexico, Latino activists and illegal immigrant supporters across the nation have declared her to be the new Rosa Parks.

While I couldn’t disagree more, I can’t say I blame them.

After all, in an era when instant ‘makeovers’ rule the pop media, why should these activists settle for a fugitive criminal alien that gamed the system to represent their movement when they can just as easily recast Arellano as the Second Coming of a beloved American civil rights icon?

The process of cynically expropriating the powerful symbolism of Rosa Parks—who indelibly made history by refusing to give up her seat and relinquish her rights or her dignity—is simple enough: Arellano’s activist handlers relentlessly cast her as Parks in the media until the portrayal takes on its own momentum, eventually eroding any distinction between a fugitive criminal alien and a proud American citizen.

The sheer audacity of their claim should be of no surprise.

Indeed, among many immigrant activists there has been no meaningful distinction between illegal immigrants and American citizens for quite some time; which is why they reject the very premise that an immigrant can enter the United States “illegally,” particularly if they are Mexicans like Arellano crossing the Rio Grande.

They argue forcefully that it is the border and the enforcement of immigration laws that is immoral and criminal—not the immigrants breaking the law. Therefore they see any action to enforce immigration law as social injustice or worse.

At rallies in support of illegal immigrants across the nation in recent weeks, ICE agents have been depicted as members of the Gestapo and enforcement actions labeled “terrorism.”

So it’s not a stretch for these same activists to adopt the glossary of the storied American civil rights movement that helped black citizens shake off the yoke of institutional oppression and defeat the racism that spawned it.

Dressing Arellano as today’s Rosa Parks also helps accomplish the activists’ goal of silencing critics by framing those who oppose illegal immigration as heartless bigots. In short order Lou Dobbs becomes Bull Connor and Tom Tancredo morphs into George Wallace standing in that schoolhouse door.

Former New York Mayor Ed Koch, who in fact ushered in that city’s sanctuary policy in the late 1980s, once famously asked, “Is the truth of no consequence?”

As the Arellano-as-heroine image gets traction in the press, the answer to Hizzoner is: apparently not.

The sheer absurdity of Arellano’s makeover reflects an American era that’s branded by television programming of the most bizarre and dysfunctional freak shows peddled as “reality TV.” It is an age where vapid Narcissism passes as hip even as the national attention span has been reduced to that of a toddler.

So if celebrity for purely celebrity’s sake now passes as high achievement, can we really blame Arellano’s handlers for jumping at the chance to market her as a civil rights hero? And if our collective historical grasp of the modern struggle for equal rights for all Americans is now so retarded that we allow foreigners here illegally to brazenly exploit our heroes, our icons, our history and our social achievements; then perhaps we don’t deserve the legacy that Parks and so many others left us.

The truth may no longer be of much consequence, but it remains the truth. And the truth is that Elvira Arellano broke into this nation twice, stole an American citizen’s Social Security Number, committed numerous incidents of fraud and was irresponsible enough to have a child under these circumstances.

The truth is Elvira Arellano was the beneficiary of a system that allowed her to stay in the very country she broke into while her case was being adjudicated; which took four years.

And the truth is that because she didn’t like the ruling of our courts, who ordered her deported, she again chose to disrespect our nation and its people by hiding in a church while claiming it was she who was the victim.

Now finally served her just desserts, Arellano cynically leaves her child behind all the while claiming she was torn apart from him by a ruthless American system—the same system that could have locked her up for 20 years for the felonies she committed. 

This is our new Rosa Parks.

If Americans allow such a perversion of our history to go unchallenged, if we surrender our heroes as well as our borders, then we deserve her.

Mark Cromer is a Senior Writing Fellow for Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS), www.capsweb.org . He can be reached at [email protected] or [email protected].