How time flies. Watching Cynthia Diaz at this year’s Centro Guerrero convocation at the University of Arizona brought back memories of when I first saw her. I did not actually meet her at the time. I first saw her on an “I miss my mom” poster when she was 15 and fighting in Phoenix to bring her mother back from Mexico as she had been inhumanely deported (whisked away from her home under false pretenses at the crack of dawn) by the migra that year.
The next time I saw her was at UA. She told me that a mutual friend had sent her my way. This was the fall of 2013. At the time, she still looked the same age as the young girl in the poster.
I had lunch with her the other day to celebrate her graduation. We were reminiscing about that first year. However, I should go back two years before that to better contextualize the significance of this convocation and Cynthia’s graduation.
It was the 2011 convocation and it was the only year that the Raza Studies faculty were unable able to attend. By coincidence, the 2011 Chicano convocation took place one day after the anti-Ethnic Studies HB 2281 legislation had been signed (will never be recognized as a law) by Gov. Jan Brewer. That’s why we were unable to attend. Middle and high school students held an unprecedented walkout and protest that day at TUSD headquarters.
It erupted because the inspiration for that legislation, then state schools’ superintendent, Tom Horne, had decided to come to Tucson to gloat over this development, home of TUSD’s Raza Studies, the target of that legislation. Most of my colleagues were also part of that action, which went from there to the state building, with two of us (out of 15) getting arrested in the process of a student-led building takeover and sit-in.
I recall that, because as the faculty advisor for the student organization MEChA, one of the great memories I have of Cynthia at the UA, is that after one of the MEChA meetings, we were both going to a meeting regarding Operation Streamline. However, while on the way, we received a phone call regarding two workers who had been arrested in South Tucson and were being turned over to the migra. By the time we arrived, there were a couple dozen people and more were arriving fast. At that point, the decision was made to surround and prevent the immigration vehicle from leaving, the one with the two workers in it. Without hesitation, Cynthia became part of the first group to encircle the vehicle. Because I previously had been arrested, I hesitated, but after witnessing Cynthia’s decisiveness, I followed suit.
That night was amazing. Several hundred people ended up showing up and blocked the several dozen police and immigration vehicles present. Several more people were arrested, plus a dozen people were maced at this spontaneous 3-hour rebellion. I walked away that day in awe of Cynthia’s fearlessness.
