Sergio Romo: “I Just Look Illegal” T-Shirt.
San Francisco Giants pitcher, Sergio Romo, acknowledging the state of immigration and negative stereotypical portrayals of immigrants throughout the United States with his “I Just Look Illegal” T-Shirt worn during the 2012 World Series Champions Parade held today.
Although this display may have just been comical in nature, issues of immigration and stereotyping have become raised in importance, especially with the American presidential election arriving this Tuesday. President Obama will be relying on a large Latin American immigrant vote, whereas Governor Romney won’t have any help in that category due to his position on immigration in the U.S.
It was just in September that the controversial ‘Show-your-papers’ immigrant provision was denied a motion in a San Francisco court of appeals. If it had been fully put into effect and not appealed by many groups of immigrants in Arizona and San Francisco, police would have been able to approach any person they believed was an immigrant in the country unlawfully and make them “show their papers”. The issue is, “How do you determine if one is an illegal immigrant or not?”…Appearance? Sadly, it ‘looks’ that way.