Update 4-17: Today’s Arizona Republic has an article which mentions Miguel’s run in. Hopefully all of Mrs. Rosati’s foolish supporters get a good read.
Update 4-13: Today’s StatePress had and article covering the Educate the State event, and coincidentally an article about a recent bill by Mrs. Rosati.
Today the Arizona Students Association in conjunction with the Associated Students of Arizona State University and NAU’s equivalent, put on the Educate the State event at the Arizona state capital where students were given the opportunity and encouraged to speak to the state legislators in favor of state funding for higher education. Always up for a good argument and/or the chance to meet the leaders decision makers of our great state of Arizona, I gladly attended.
The set up was done quite well in my opinion as we arrived at the capital at about 9:45 this morning and the ASA organizers already had plenty of literature to get us closet political buffs up to speed, and plenty of bagels and cream cheese to get us breakfast starved into gear. The literature folder included a clear agenda for the day, a brief review of each of the relevant bills being discussed including ASA’s stance on each, lobbying tips, plenty of statistics charts and graphs, and a brief bio of each of the legislators that had granted us appointments for the day.
After shoving down a bagel and perusing the literature ASA took over by hosting a quick “Lobbying Tips Session” giving newbies like me some of the low down on how to be effective and surpress intimidation. From there we were divided up into either 1, 2, or 3 person groups and sent to our first appointments with the legislators. I paired up with the ASASU Undergraduate Student Government Senate President, Miguel Ruiz and was handed an appointment sheet for 11:00 with Colette Rosati a fine Republican Conservative from Tucson.
While I can’t say that I was not looking forward to speaking with her, I can say that I didn’t expect her to easily buy into everything we said. My first surprise however, came when we checked in for our appointment and were told that Representative Rosati was not in. We politely accepted our stand up and gave Mrs. Rosati’s secretary take our names and cell phone numbers so that she could call us when Mrs. Rosati arrived. Surprisingly, about 30 minutes later my phone was ringing. Sure enough, Mrs. Rosati had arrived and wanted to meet with us.
We were instructed to meet her on the second floor and meet her in the legislator lounge. Miguel and I introduced ourselves and shook hands with a much older looking version of the Mrs. Rosati than the picture on our profile, and were introduced to a University of Arizona professional lobbyist. My impression was that the UA lobbyist was slotted for Mrs. Rosati’s time, but Mrs. Rosati decided by engaging the students she would be able to simultaneously blow off the UA lobbyist.
As we sat into the lush over stuffed chairs in the lounge I began introducing the topics and bills which we were here to support. Unfortunately I was unable to force out more than a handful of words before Mrs. Rosati was pointing at me and looking me directly in the eye asking “How do you feel about paying for illegal aliens education who are in school on a free ride?”
Whoa, ok… subject changed. Time to counter subject change: “Well I understand that immigration is a very hot topic especially in Arizona right now, but we’re really here today to show you a few ways you can invest in the future of Arizona’s brightest students.”
Meanwhile, pretty much after I got through “Well I understand…” she was speaking over me saying “Illegal aliens are sucking this state and this country dry through education at all levels, universities included and I refuse to accept and encourage the state to waste money on education for Mexico’s poor.”
Miguel while biting his tongue from saying what he really felt managed to squeeze into the conversation saying “A great deal of the illegal aliens who are in the schools were brought across the border as children by their parents, having no control or idea of what they were doing.”
Oh did that set Mrs. Rosati off. Now shifting from directing her conversation at me to staring Miguel directly in the eyes she digressed, “That is criminal activity. Regardless of who brought them over, how old they are/were, or how much english they speak, they are illegally obtaining legal tax payer money… Mexico needs to fix itself from within… they need to build their middle class, they have a rich class, and they have plenty of low income citizens… Vicente Fox needs to find a modern day Cesar Chavez… I bet you worked hard for your education and I bet you will do well as an adult…”
Then it got real interesting. She continued, “YOU should go back to Mexico and start a Mexican revolution… YOU should be the Cesar Chavez of today.” I was awe struck. I thought politicians stayed away from the deliberate racial profiling. Furthermore, did she just racially profile while suggesting he should use his knowledge and hard work to break down the racial and ethnic differences?
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