You're invited to the next AIGA conference! Unless you look like an immigrant.

Why AIGA, an association so whipped up with energy in encouraging socially- and ecologically-responsible design, would pick Phoenix, Arizona as the site of its next national conference is beyond me.

Arizona, thanks to the state's passage of SB 1070 and other anti-immigrant laws, is a hostile place for anyone not very clearly white. (While courts have put temporary injunctions on some of SB 1070's particulars, the rest of the act is still in effect.)

Here's a list of some of the organizations who have refused to hold or have actually moved their conferences away from Arizona (of which there are at least 40):

- National Minority Supplier Development Council
- American Anthropological Association
- National Urban League
- Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity
- American Immigration Lawyers Association
- Glass Art Society of Seattle
- National Association of Black Accountants

So, AIGA doesn't have the institutional backbone that one can find in a Glass Art Society?

Let them know what you think. AIGA's contact form is here.