An immigrant’s trip to Arizona

So I sent my mother the immigrant off to Arizona.

She had her U.S. passport, of course. But thinking she needed something more, she took her wallet and showed me she was carrying her Social Security card too.

“No, mother,” I said. “You don’t need that. And it’s sort of dangerous to have it with you because there’s this thing called identity theft….”

She took it anyway.

Mercedes Dotson, nee Alvarez, is 67 years old and a cautious woman.

A few months ago, I mentioned her desire to cancel her long-planned trip to the Grand Canyon State in light of SB 1070, the law that gives Arizona police new powers to enforce immigration laws.

My mother was born in Guatemala, and came to the U.S. at the age of 20. She had heard that Arizona police could detain anyone they suspect of being undocumented — presumably anyone, like her, who had an accent. I persuaded her that she should go to Arizona anyway. So did all of her old friends in Arizona.

Since my mother is an excellent reader of emotions, I was interested in getting her take on what’s going on over there, on the other side of the Colorado River.

So as she prepared to board the train to Flagstaff, I asked her to take notes. To be my eyes and ears in Arizona. I knew this was like asking the pope to say Mass — because my mother lives to reflect on the things that happen to her and then write them down. That’s probably how I got the writing bug.

“No se preocupe,” she told me. Don’t worry.

It was to be her first visit in many years to the place where she lived with her late husband. A week later, I picked her up at Union Station and she presented me with a notebook filled with 36 pages of observations.

“To my son Hector,” the first page reads. “A small summary of my trip to Sedona, Ariz.”

While she was in Arizona, my mother visited majestic Cathedral Rock and prayed at an outdoor chapel — but did not once feel in danger of the authorities. But her notes reveal that she did experience something nearly as wrenching to the heart.

In Sedona, she was reminded of the growing tension between the two worlds she has lived in since she was 20 — one English-speaking, the other mostly Spanish-speaking, both filled with people she respects.

She found some English-speaking friends a little glib in their dismissal of people’s fears.

“Mercedes, how could you be concerned about the new law?” one asked her. “There’s no profiling. You’re only going to be stopped if you’re breaking the law!”

This same longtime friend, who before had seemed apolitical, was upset at the immigrants rights groups calling for a boycott of the state.

My mother was surprised by the sudden anger.

Being in Arizona made her reflect on her own immigrant experience. She thought about the people who’ve arrived in the U.S. after she did and was inspired to write down a list of principles all current and future immigrants should follow.

“1. Learn the language. 2. Obey and respect the law. 3. Be careful of the image you project — without losing your identity. 4. Imitate the good things — but don’t get caught up in [the Americans’] bad habits. 5. Never be embarrassed to say where you are from. 6. Be grateful for the opportunities you are given. 7. And give something back that will enrich your adopted country.”

Words of wisdom, of course.

But she kept feeling rankled, despite all her perspective.

“Our governor is only trying to protect our borders because we don’t have any federal help,” another of her Anglo friends told her.

“Somehow, the word ‘protect’ bothered me,” my mother wrote, because it was said with a “tone of discrimination.”

The new Arizona law is meant to “protect” Americans from danger — and it bothers my mother that so many Americans think of their Latin American neighbors as a source of danger.

Her Mexican-born friends spoke of strange encounters with local police. Some involved traffic stops made with what seemed like the flimsiest of excuses. A son-in-law of a friend, she was told, was pulled over for “leaving a dog on the street corner” — even though he’s never owned a dog.

“All I know is that before I felt free to go anywhere,” said Antonia Rodriguez, a native of Agua Prieta, Mexico, and a naturalized U.S. citizen. “And now if I don’t have my passport with me, I feel scared.”

Those who aren’t citizens, her Mexican-born friends told her, fear being deported and separated from their U.S.-born children.

After listening to all these stories, and seeing the fear in her friends’ eyes, my mother wrote: “Just the idea of seeing a police car behind you, and knowing they can stop you and ask you for your papers does something to your dignity.”

“I’ve never been a person with a complex,” my mother wrote, by which she meant she’s never been hung up on the idea that she was the victim of discrimination. “But this new law makes me feel sad.”

It would be inaccurate, however, to say that my mother didn’t enjoy her trip to Arizona.

“This has been a great trip in which I’ve realized how wonderful it is to have friends who are North American and Mexican American,” she wrote in her final entry.

She went to two Catholic Masses, in English and Spanish. She watched the sun set over Sedona’s red rocks with her friend Marilyn Dyer, and enjoyed a meal of carne asada under a full moon with her friends the Rodriguezes.

In other words, my mother got the full Arizona smorgasbord: a little fear, a little loathing, much natural beauty and the satisfaction of enduring friendships.

Doesn’t sound like a bad place to visit — if you don’t mind carrying a passport.

hector.tobar@latimes.com