A look back at a speech made by Marisa Franco in front of the offices of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio on the night that he lost the election in 2016, before we found out that Trump had won the presidency. Mijente was one of the coalition partners that formed the BaztaArpaio campaign to defeat the Sheriff that election.
Mijente's first electoral campaign was against Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County, Arizona as part of the BaztaArpaio campaign. We joined local community and labor organizations under the banner of ‘Bazta Arpaio’ to build upon the many years of organizing and advocacy against the sheriff and in perhaps his greatest moment of vulnerability in his more than 20-year tenure, knock him out of office.
At that point, Arpaio’s human rights rap sheet included the reinstatement of the (female and male) chain gains, ‘Tent City’, work-site deportation raids and a litany of cases of abuse, harassment and death. And we thought we had a chance to get him out. He was one of the people who made us see that even though Trump had not been elected yet, Trump’s America was already here, and that we could start showing how to fight back by winning this election against Arpaio. And so we did, right along side with the people and communities he had so harmed, who were in the end the ones that got him out.
Paid for by Mijente PAC, 734 W Polk St., Phoenix, AZ 85007, not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
