In 2010, a bill was passed in the Arizona legislature that became one of the strictest anti-immigration laws in the nation: Arizona SB 1070. State law enforcement officers would have the right to stop any individual to check on their immigration status, leading to accusation of racial profiling.
Protests began almost immediately across the nation, and poets made their voices heard on a Facebook post created by the late Chicano poet & educator, Francisco X. Alarcón (https://www.facebook.com/PoetryOfResistance/). The countless poems were compiled and released in a new collection called "Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice," edited by Alarcón and Odilia Galvân Rodríguez. Odilia joins us on this program to tell us more about the collection and about the role of poetry in addressing social justice issues.
Aired April 17, 2017