Mexicans in the United States are often
treated as second-class citizens, regardless of legal status. Although I do not believe the treatment
of this population qualifies as genocide, there are many comparable overlaps
such as “us-and-them” rhetoric that describes Mexican immigration as a threat
to our national identity, the use of Mexicans as scapegoats for poor economic
conditions, and government enforced population displacement.
In his book, The Latino Threat, Constructing
Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation, Leo R. Chavez describes how Latino immigration
is seen as a threat to the United States. Mexicans, he says, have become a
“legally racialized ethnic group” through use of “labels that are socially and culturally
constructed based on perceived innate or biological differences and imbued with
meanings about relative social worth.”[1]
Mexican immigrants are often stereotyped in public discourse as being
uneducated, failing to assimilate, consuming public resources and taking jobs
from deserving non-Latino Americans.
The Mexican-U.S. boarder, which before
1848 was much further north than it is today, has created conflict around
immigration policy between the two nations. Restrictions on Mexican immigration
to the United States have fluctuated in the past. In the 1920s when the U.S.
economy was booming, Mexican immigration was encouraged and “many employers,
assisted at times by government-sponsored ‘bracero programs,’ recruited men”
for labor.[2]
When the great depression hit
attitudes changed drastically and the Mexican population was targeted as a
scapegoat for the bad economy. “In a frenzy of anti-Mexican hysteria, wholesale
punitive measures were proposed and undertaken by government officials at the
federal, state, and local levels. Laws were passed depriving Mexicans of jobs
in the public and private sectors. Immigration and deportation laws were
enacted to restrict emigration and hasten the departure of those already here…[and]
an incessant cry of ‘get rid of the Mexicans’ swept the country.”[3]
Ultimately, over a million Mexican-Americans, (many of which were U.S. citizens)
were forced to move out of the United States and “back” into Mexico in what is
now known as the “Mexican Repatriation,” an event largely ignored or about
forgotten today.
Mexican
culture is often targeted as an invading and threatening force within the United
States. In the current republican presidential campaign, for example, many
candidates have promised extreme anti-immigration programs including building a
35-foot double fence, employing thousands of Department of Homeland Security
personnel to patrol the border, and use of an e-verify system that would allow
employers to check on the legal status of job applicants.[4]
Rapael Lemkin’s definition of genocide focuses on the destruction or attempted
destruction of a culture. While Mexican culture persists in Mexico, it has been
attacked within the United States. Arizona, for example, has recently banned
ethnic studies programs, specifically ones teaching Mexican-American history.[5]
[1] Chavez, Leo
R. The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation.
Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2008. Print. (p. 24).
[2] Romero,
Mary, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, and Vilma Ortiz. Challenging Fronteras. New
York: Routledge, 1997. Print. (p. 116).
[3] Balderrama,
Francisco E., and Raymond Rodriguez. Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation
in the 1930s. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1995. Print. (p. 1).
[4] Full
Transcript: CNN Arizona Republican Presidential Debate Feb, 22, 2012."
Ironic Surrealism. Web. 22 Feb. 2012.
<http://ironicsurrealism.com/2012/02/23/full-transcript-cnn-arizona-republican-presidential-debate-feb-22-2012/>.
[5] 20, Gregory
Rodriguez February. "Why Arizona Banned Ethnic Studies." Los Angeles
Times. 20 Feb. 2012. Web.
<http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rodriguez-ethnic-studies-20120220%2C0%2C773799.column>.
I think this is a really interesting comparison that I would not have necessarily made. My question, then is what of the emerging culture that has arisen in the borderlands? There are many artists, writers, poets, and cultural figures that have come out of this area and its unique confluence of ideas and figures. While some aspects may be detrimental, such as the flow of arms to Mexico and the return of drugs to the United States, the artistic reaction is prominent.
ReplyDeleteThis post brings up very compelling similarities between genocidal characteristics and the circumstances of U.S.-Mexico relations. While Sam's post illustrates comparisons in the "how" aspect of genocide, I believe there are also important similarities in terms of the "why." My greatest defense against anti-immigration legislation has always been in the fact that the United States is almost exclusively a country of immigrants. Thus, anti-immigration policy is hugely hypocritical. This notion brings up a link to Michael Mann's article. In the context of Mexican immigration, the United States has appeared to transform itself from a stratified to organic nation. The examples Sam uses in her post illustrate the way in which American society currently suffers from the illusion of an innate ethnic identity. In this sense, we see a broader connection to the many other theories we have read on genocide, specifically those concerning the growth of nationalism and the subsequent creation of an "other." Mexican immigrants have been construed as a threat, both in terms of the economy and the safety of society. Thus, we see the familiar idea that in order to protect "us", we must get rid of "them."
ReplyDeleteThis post touches on the topic of economic unrest, which has been identified by many genocide scholars as one of the factors often present in cases of genocide and ethnic cleansing. I find this very interesting and unsettling. The economy is one of the most complex systems in the functioning of a nation, and problems with the economy are often very difficult to explain and understand. Oversimplifying the problem by placing the blame of economic failure on particular, usually ethnic, groups is a common strategy used in politics to district the public from the real issues by creating and "us-and-them" mentality referenced in the above post. For example, the Jews in Germany were blamed for the failing economy, when in reality the economy was suffering from the myriad of effects caused by the first World War. I believe there is a direct correlation between the growing anti-immigrant atmosphere in our country and the recent economic decline.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting comparison I see between the treatment of Mexican Americans and other instances of genocide and ethnic cleansing is in the practice of the deporting established citizens, particularly from a land in which they are ancestrally more settled. As mentioned in the post, the southwestern part of the United States belonged to Mexico until the mid-nineteenth century, meaning Mexican culture existed there long before Americans had settled the region. This was also true in the case of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. The idea of sending American citizens "back to Mexico" begs the question of what makes an one an American citizen? Many people who are legally citizens of this country are not considered to be such by popular opinion. This was also seen in the case of African Americans who were told to "go back to Africa" after their families having been in this country for hundreds of years. Meanwhile, it takes only one or two generations of European immigrants for them to be considered "Americans". Why is more than just legal citizenship necessary for some people to be wholly absorbed and accepted into a country?
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ReplyDeleteSam's blog addresses a variety of ideas associated with debates around 'the topic of immigration' in the U.S. I agree that Latino people (many people's journeys begin farther South than Mexico) are scapegoated for numerous forces, real and imagined, which they are not responsible. To push it a step further, 'anti-immigration' rhetoric obscures the forces which provoke people to leave home for work in the first place.
ReplyDeleteFor starters, using the word immigrant shifts people's focus away from asking, for instance, 'Why must poor brown people from the global south risk their lives for low-paying, menial work, in a hostile society which treats them poorly?" Substituting the term 'immigrant' with 'economic refugee' forces people to interrogate their own complicity in systems which privileges the lives and labor of some nationals over others. It my eyes, it has the power to dismantle the scapegoat.
Ironically, many of the fallacious arguments leveled against undocumented communities in the U.S. hold significant truth, reciprocally. We are told that 'they' flood into 'our' country like disease, or vermin; that 'they' steal 'our' jobs; and that, 'they' threaten our cultural integrity and spiritual grounding, among other widespread, destructive myths.
Actually, we flood their homes, with literal and figurative diseases. NAFTA is a broad-sweeping, neo-liberal, economic policy which legalizes corporate migration under the guise of global freedom. U.S. corporations and governmental agencies support violent, totalitarian regimes in Latin America (and across the global South), which disrupt life for most people in every imaginable way. People are kicked of their land (where they've farmed and lived sustainably forever), massacred, forced into wage-labor factory positions, unhealthy urban sprawl, and ultimately consumed by global capitalism.
People in Mexico and elsewhere have been forcibly prevented from their fulfilling traditional, self determined lifeways in order to support the material comfort of U.S. citizens, people in Western Europe, and other global elites. People are expected to work for others, rather than their families - mindlessly assembling electrical components and struggling in agricultural fields to maintain the steady flow of cheap commodities.
So when we talk about 'stealing jobs', I think it's important to think big picture. Even if 'they' did 'steal' jobs, almost every American 'steals' way more than that every day. When you buy an ipod, it indeed represents the theft of land, labor, freedom, and tradition.
Particularly in the context of historical construction and 'othering' a specific racial, ethnolinguistic group, I would like to problematize the widely unchallenged distinction between North America and South America. We walk, eat, and sleep on genocide every day in this country - and support the continuation of such in the form of apartheid in Arizona/other states, to mere deportation in Oberlin (and across the country). We [racially/economically priveleged Americans] aren't supposed to associate the struggle of Latino people with the genocide of the romantically imagined plains indian; however, it is the same story. When people shoot the shit about 'immigration' as a 'political issue', it should be taken seriously for what it is: one of the most oppressive, highly racialized, trends within our empire that this generation must own up to and take responsibility for.