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In other words, Arpaio and his minions were messing with American citizens who have a strong sense of identity and place.
The Yaquis were some of the fiercest fighters the Mexican government faced in its history and have been referred to by some as "the Apaches of Mexico." Yaquis who fled persecution around the turn of the 19th century established several communities in Arizona and sent guns and ammunition to their homeland so that their kinfolk could continue to battle Mexican troops.
The bloodlines and cultures of the Mexican-American and Yaqui communities have mixed in Guadalupe. Family bonds are tightly interwoven. Attempts by neighboring Tempe to swallow Guadalupe resulted in the city's incorporation in 1975. Outside forces such as the MCSO are tolerated, as long as they don't overstep their bounds, as was done during the sweep on April 3 and 4.
History helps explain why ordinary Guadalupanos were so irate at the sheriff's heavy-handed presence. At the protest in front of the Family Dollar late on April 3, residents accused Town Council members and the mayor of allowing the MCSO to perform the anti-immigrant dragnet. City leaders denied the accusations, and the mayor distributed to the news media her press release, which said "the sweep is not supported by the Guadalupe Town Council."
Authored in part by former Town Manager Jose Solarez, whose daughter Alma Yolanda Solarez is currently a council member, the four-paragraph release concluded, "We are asking the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office to cease their operation immediately."
In general, council members seemed shell-shocked by the quick escalation of events.
"It looks like they got caught off-guard," observed Alfredo Gutierrez that evening as he watched council members explain themselves to the crowd. "They didn't know what the heck was going on."
Nor did they know the most insidious episode in the sweep was yet to come.
It's often remarked that Guadalupe has the feel of a sleepy border town. And there is a certain charm to the place that's impossible to find elsewhere in the Valley. The town clings stubbornly to a proud heritage that involves famous Lenten and Easter ceremonies by Pascua Yaqui "deer dancers." The dances interweave the Christianity taught Yaquis by Jesuit priests with their native religion, which honors the deer as sacred.
As then-ASU student Leah Glaser, now a professor of history at Central Connecticut State University, documented in her 1996 master's thesis, The Story of Guadalupe, Arizona: The Survival and Preservation of a Yaqui Community, Yaqui refugees in Arizona "kept a low profile for fear of deportation and harsh retaliation by the Mexican government." For this reason, many "adopted the identities of other Indians or Mexicans who worked alongside them in the fields." Yaquis took Spanish surnames, and conversed in Spanish. The two groups have intermarried. In the 2000 census, 72.3 percent of the population identified itself as Hispanic or Latino. And 44.2 percent of Guadalupanos identified themselves as Native American, indicating an overlap.
The central plaza and surrounding homes are referred to as La Cuarenta, the first 40 acres around which present-day Guadalupe developed. Actually, the original Yaqui town was where the Guadalupe cemetery survives today, a mile or so northeast of the town on South Beck Road, just off Baseline. It's now well hidden by a housing development, a ghostly echo of modern-day Guadalupe's near-encirclement by Tempe.
At the heart of La Cuarenta, on the dirt and gravel plaza, are two main houses of worship, Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and the Yaqui Temple, sometimes referred to as Santa Lucia or just El Templo. The adobe structures, with their eggshell-white exteriors, mirror and complement each other. The Mission-style Our Lady of Guadalupe boasts simple stained-glass windows, creaky, wooden pews, and a charming cupola situated behind towers topped by crosses. Santa Lucia is more mysterious, with a Mission-style exterior, an open, dirt-floor interior, strewn with flower petals, and a back altar crowded with candles and effigies of saints, including the ersatz head of John the Baptist — on a platter no less.
It was on the plaza in front of Our Lady of Guadalupe that the April 4 confirmation of about 70 of the town's children took place, in a ceremony presided over by Bishop Thomas Olmsted, head of the Phoenix diocese. But what was meant to be a day of holy sacrament became one of anxiety, said the church's religious education coordinator, Mary Lu Ramirez. The children had been preparing for a year to be confirmed in their faith. Ramirez explained that at least four, maybe five, steered clear of the event because they were afraid the MCSO would collar their parents.
"When we were doing the setup, that's when we started getting calls," remembered Ramirez. "[The children] let us know they weren't going to make it because of the sweeps the night before. They were afraid to come, afraid that their parents were going to be deported if they were caught or pulled over."
News cameras gathered at the plaza. Some TV crews thought a town meeting was about to take place, but Ramirez explained that it was a confirmation, planned long in advance. As she spoke to one reporter, she could see Sheriff's Office SUVs circling the plaza. An MCSO helicopter sputtered menacingly in the distance.