Ah, spring is in the air! And aside from the debilitating flu that seems to be having its way with many tired students across campus (present company not excluded), many new beginnings are afoot.
Like the weather over the past month or so, these events have been unpredictable, offering us refreshing breezes on a warm afternoon at best, and scorching desert heat at their worst.
The construction all around campus is an example. Traffic slows to a crawl along Apache and University, but it does so with the promise of a future of a light rail to speed us to our desired locations with no traffic at all. At least there is some semblance of light at the end of the tunnel.
The election of Ross Meyer and Liz Simonhoff started off as a victory that provided a nice contrast to the usual political campaigning based on smear tactics and collateral damage that ends up leaving a bitter taste in everyone's mouth. Until, of course, Richard Sales filed a complaint for an activity in which he himself participated in.
Naturally, several writers here at The State Press used this as an opportunity to focus solely on the negative vibes presented by a few immature individuals in student government, completely ignoring USG's involvement in several other new beginnings -- a new tuition campaign (larger than any in recent memory), a new living-wage campaign and a new constitution.
The echoes of the marches on the state Capitol in protest of new laws cracking down on illegal immigration provided us with a new opportunity to look at the issue and reveal our society's often-times bigoted and misinformed opinions on the subject.
Whether supportive of illegal immigrants or not, the statements of many opinion-writers and politicians have been grossly ignorant. Contrary to what some lawmakers would have us believe, the marches on the Capitol were not invasions of foreign forces; the majority of the marchers were likely completely legal Hispanic residents supporting a cause they believed in.
Polls show that Arizonans vastly underestimate the number of illegal immigrants as compared to the number of legal Hispanic immigrants in the Phoenix area. If we can't all see eye-to-eye on the issue of what to do about the border, hopefully we can at least learn to cease the proliferation of uneducated opinions and dehumanization that occurs when the topic is discussed.
The question at the heart of all of these changes deals with the meaning of progress. Is all of this construction going to benefit society, or will it only drive up land value and tuition in Tempe and force out the poor? Will the USG election be resolved in a way that sets a positive precedent for future disputes, and will whatever new administration ends up in place continue the positive campaigns for workers' and students' rights? Will the hundreds of thousands who strive to make their voices heard at the Capitol be dismissed as a nuisance, or will a healthy dialogue on a very unhealthily discussed issue come to surface within the Capitol's walls?
The answers, of course, depend on one's perspective. Regardless, it is a very exciting season to live in the Valley - one that will remain forever etched in my mind as being filled with a charged atmosphere of change.
You can share in a moment of nostalgia with Ben Horowitz by writing him at benjamin.horowitz@asu.edu.
