New Yorkers Want All-Star Game Out of Arizona in 2011

July 9, 2010

From the New York Immigration Coalition:

New Yorkers Rally to Move Next Year’s MLB All-Star Game Out of Arizona

July 8, 2010, New York City. In the lead-up to next Tuesday’s All-Star Game, around two hundred New Yorkers rallied in front of Major League Baseball’s headquarters in midtown Manhattan today, calling on the league and its commissioner, Bud Selig, to move next year’s All-Star Game out of Phoenix, Arizona. The move would signal major disapproval of the state’s controversial SB1070 immigration law, which threatens the civil rights of Latino and immigrant players and fans and sets the stage for rampant racial profiling, said participants.

“Major League Baseball should refuse to hold next year’s All-Star Game in Arizona until all baseball players and their fans can live in and visit Arizona with the confidence that their civil rights will be respected and the police will not single them out because of the color of their skin or the accent of their speech,” said Ms. Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, lead organizer of today’s rally. “The league needs to give serious consideration to moving the game, and meet with elected officials and community leaders ASAP to discuss this urgent issue.”

The Arizona law is inherently an issue for the professional baseball league, where 27 percent of the players are Latino, and 28 percent of players are foreign-born. The Major League Baseball Player’s Association has already publicly denounced the law because of the negative impact it could have on its members. The league has a similar responsibility to back up its players and fans, said participants.

“Major League Baseball has a responsibility to show not only its players, but also the millions of Latino and immigrant fans of baseball, that it values their support and contributions to the sport and is prepared to take a stand for them,” said Angela Fernandez, executive director of the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights.

“Moving the 2011 All-Star game out of Arizona sends the message that baseball, the quintessential American sport, will not accept the un-American treatment of its players and fans. Major League Baseball is uniquely positioned to show that Americans hold their laws to a higher standard,” said Hazel Dukes, president of the NAACP New York State Conference.

The Arizona SB1070 law requires police to ask any person who looks “reasonably suspicious” for their immigration papers. In effect, it forces police to engage in racial profiling targeting Latinos and other people of color living in or visiting the state. It also marginalizes immigrant communities in the state and drives a wedge between immigrant community members and the law enforcement officials who are sworn to serve and protect them, said critics of the law.

Beyond the repeal of SB1070, organizers said the federal government must act now to fix the broken immigration system—a critical step for our nation’s security and prosperity. Instead of forcing local police to go after immigrants, they said, President Obama and Congress should enact legislation that legalizes undocumented youth and agricultural and other undocumented workers; unites families; and restores due process and fairness in the immigration system.

There is a long history of sports leagues and organizations standing up for what is right: from the international boycott of South Africa during Apartheid, to the National Football League’s refusal to hold a Super Bowl game in Arizona when the state did not acknowledge Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday as a holiday. Major League Baseball itself is tied to the struggle for civil rights in America, beginning with Jackie Robinson as the first African-American player in 1947.

A number of prominent elected officials joined the rally, including Congressman Charles Rangel, Congressman Jose Serrano, New York City Comptroller John Liu, State Assemblyman Peter Rivera, and City Council Members Danny Dromm, Melissa Mark-Viverito, and Ydanis Rodriguez.

Today’s rally was loosely modeled after a baseball game: it opened with the national anthem, featured an intermission where participants sang “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” with new lyrics, and had the audience doing the “Wave.” The participants, representing more than 30 co-sponsoring groups from New York’s diverse immigrant, religious, labor, and civil rights communities, wore T-shirts and held signs that read, “Support the Players, Support the Fans, Move the Game,” and “Strike Out SB1070!”