Xenophobia In Latin America
Attitudes, values and racist and xenophobic systems establish, openly or covertly, a hierarchy between ethnic or racial groups that are used to justify the privileges and/or advantages with which a dominant societal group enjoys. Xenophobia is the hatred, disgust or hostility towards foreigners. Racism is an ideology of superiority, while xenophobia is directed against a refusal directed against foreigners. Therefore this growing xenophobia is what has contributed to the growing hostility that the American people and government have against the rapidly growing Latino population. America is a nation of immigrants and although not all Americans are considered immigrants, their ancestors were once immigrants. The Latinization of the United States
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is a process that goes hand in hand with the Latino threat narrative that, in recent years, has become a popular rhetoric that has been constructed through political and social avenues. It is very evident that there are many benefits to being a citizen of the United States but for Latinos is very questionable. Citizenship among the Latino population born in the United States has become an access that is being questioned because as the statement above validates, both Latinos both born in the United States and abroad who are citizens and non-citizens, are essentially blended into a homogeneous category where they all pose a potential threat to the American way of life. This narrative has created a concern that has racialized a population because of the perceived resistance among Latinos and their acceptance of American national identity. Author Douglass S. Massey in The Racialization of Latinos in the US argues that the racialization of Latinos have been increasingly marked them as non-white, therefore and alien community that has restricted them from opportunities. (Massey 21) Authors like Leo R. Chavez have argued that after September 11, 2001 the United States has created symbols that have projected fear and insecurity among the American people. We have also read that the Mexico-United States border and Mexican immigrants, which in reality encompass all immigrants form Latin America, have become a scapegoat and the primary symbols that have aided in the construction of the Latino threat narrative and a threatening alien population. The conflation of legal and non-legal Latinos as well as the subsumption of Latinidad has created an intensification of border control and has increased the persecution of legal and no-legal Latinos and has created an environment just like the one in 1930s that lead to the massive repatriation of thousands of Mexicans. The concept of otherness is a construction that has caused much unrest especially in the most recent decades. Authors like Fredrik Barth have analyzed this concept and elaborated that otherness is the set of people who are seen as different because of their cultural, economic, political, racial and/or religious beliefs. The group constituting otherness, in this case Latinos of legal and non-legal status, is seen as dangerous because their differences represent a possibility of breaking the institutions and the social control. This otherness among documented and undocumented Latinos is what generates and fuels the Latino threat narrative. In the United States, otherness is the unknown and a possible loss of control of American national identity. National rhetoric has created a discourse that claims that the presence or contact with groups considered as outsiders, in this case both legal and non-legal Latinos, constitute a threat to the normal development of the social life of the American people. Latinos are considered a threat to the extent that can break the cultural continuity of American society. It is clear that dichotomies have an important role that have helped create distinctions for Latinos, because through them we can compare and therefore create the differences and boundaries that constitute this alien population. Latinos in the United States both with and without citizenship constitute a population that has been constructed as barbarian, uncivilized, impure, and unwilling to assimilate. From these dualities, Mexicans and subsequently all Latin Americans living in the United States take the place of otherness. The racialization of both immigrants and citizens has become a process of social construction because it is in constant change as new discourses are created. The concept of otherness therefore become a foundation for the creation of an imagined community as Barth calls it, an alien population that has gone through the delimitation of political, social, and economic services as well as have endured the creation of harsh laws that encourage and justify the exclusion and othering of the Latino population living in the United States. Garcia Bedolla, Newton, and Chavez have all written about the Latino population, legal and immigrant, and the discourses that have been built over the Mexican and Latin American otherness in the United States.
The illegality that is tied to this population is also related to the physical border that separated the United States and Mexico. It has become a symbol of a growing high risk. The presence of Latin American communities is now more then ever visible within the United States, especially in cities like Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York City. Some of the largest communities are those of Cubans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans. Given this demographic phenomenon, conservative groups in the United States have expressed concern, saying that these new migrants who are subsequently combined into a category that encompasses legal and non-legal Latinos are occupying jobs, using public services without paying taxes and collaborating to the rising crime. The authors have all elaborated in their works that the American historical conception has created Mexicans and Latin American migration as one related to invasion and one of violation which has in turn helped in the creation of institutionalized laws and programs that prohibited this invasion. The rhetoric about Latino immigration took hold when President Ronald Reagan framed the immigration issue within the national security issue by stating that the US had lost control of the border. The terrorist attacks of September 11,2001 confirmed the alleged connection between migration, terrorism and national security. Thus the Mexican border has become the new battleground in the fight against terrorism. Leo R. Chavez put this all in perspective in Chapter Six of The Latino Threat as he analyzes the Minutemen and their agenda of protecting the US – Mexico border from foreign invasion.The Latino threat narrative in conjunction with the Mexican border has been regarded as a social arena where violence reigns,
therefore it should be controlled and extreme defensive measures and militarization are the proper ways to do it. Warlike metaphors have become the daily bread of the media that refer to the growing Latino population as an invasion of illegal aliens who are directly affecting the American way of life. Racist rhetoric like that of presidential candidate Donald Trump has helped fueling the problem of intolerance and discrimination that is currently dividing the country. Donald Trump has proposed the expulsion of eleven million people living illegally in the United States in conjunction with the construction of a border wall that should be funded by the Mexican government. The presence of so many Latinos combined with the growing trend of temporary workers and the entry of Mexican and Latin American immigrants has positioned the migrant community in a situation of extreme vulnerability. The situation is complicated by other factors, such as a widespread anti-immigrant hysteria, the animosity of many media outlets and the increasing anti-immigrant legislation, both on the federal, state, and local levels, which seeks to limit certain rights to those who are seen as a potential threat. The Latino threat narrative and the levels of Latino inequality, I argue, are in contribution with the continual low socioeconomic and educational levels of the majority of Latinos. Individuals like Samuel Huntington, would suggest that the school failure among young Latinos and the low socio-economic progress of the members of this community are linked to reasons that are virtually unchangeable. That is, because according to his argument, his essence of failure is a cultural thing, especially among Mexicans. For him, beyond the educational and welfare policies, the structure of economic opportunities, the labor racism, the factors behind this problem are the essential cultural differences between Hispanics and Americans, particularly affecting negative attitudes toward work and teaching. Huntington believes, indeed, that this attitude is part of their culture, and that the solution is that Latinos adopt the Anglo-Protestant culture, especially individualism and work ethic. Massey argues that the principal object of racial formation and the main target of racialization over time have been persons of Mexican origin. (Massey 24) This racialization of the Mexican population has therefore helped in the homogenization of the entire Latin American population both citizens and non-citizens and categorized them as what Leo R. Chavez calls a community of alarmist. “Mexican migration in particular has been rendered synonymous with the US nation-state’s purported ‘‘loss of control’’ of its borders, and has supplied the pre-eminent pretext for what has in fact been a continuous intensification of increasingly militarized control” (De Genova 178) this is one of the main reasons why Latinos from other Latin American countries have been subsumed into the Mexican category. This racial stratification has contributed to the high levels for political and economic inequality that is found among legal and non-legal Latinos. For Latinos who do have privilege of citizenship, they have to endure the segregation of social programs that are a reflection of civic status. (Soss 57) Finally, racialization in collaboration with what Leo R. Chaves as the Latino threat narrative has not only put into question Latinos level of belongingness, but has also hyper-sexualized Latinas and even puts into question our deservingness of health related services.
is a process that goes hand in hand with the Latino threat narrative that, in recent years, has become a popular rhetoric that has been constructed through political and social avenues. It is very evident that there are many benefits to being a citizen of the United States but for Latinos is very questionable. Citizenship among the Latino population born in the United States has become an access that is being questioned because as the statement above validates, both Latinos both born in the United States and abroad who are citizens and non-citizens, are essentially blended into a homogeneous category where they all pose a potential threat to the American way of life. This narrative has created a concern that has racialized a population because of the perceived resistance among Latinos and their acceptance of American national identity. Author Douglass S. Massey in The Racialization of Latinos in the US argues that the racialization of Latinos have been increasingly marked them as non-white, therefore and alien community that has restricted them from opportunities. (Massey 21) Authors like Leo R. Chavez have argued that after September 11, 2001 the United States has created symbols that have projected fear and insecurity among the American people. We have also read that the Mexico-United States border and Mexican immigrants, which in reality encompass all immigrants form Latin America, have become a scapegoat and the primary symbols that have aided in the construction of the Latino threat narrative and a threatening alien population. The conflation of legal and non-legal Latinos as well as the subsumption of Latinidad has created an intensification of border control and has increased the persecution of legal and no-legal Latinos and has created an environment just like the one in 1930s that lead to the massive repatriation of thousands of Mexicans. The concept of otherness is a construction that has caused much unrest especially in the most recent decades. Authors like Fredrik Barth have analyzed this concept and elaborated that otherness is the set of people who are seen as different because of their cultural, economic, political, racial and/or religious beliefs. The group constituting otherness, in this case Latinos of legal and non-legal status, is seen as dangerous because their differences represent a possibility of breaking the institutions and the social control. This otherness among documented and undocumented Latinos is what generates and fuels the Latino threat narrative. In the United States, otherness is the unknown and a possible loss of control of American national identity. National rhetoric has created a discourse that claims that the presence or contact with groups considered as outsiders, in this case both legal and non-legal Latinos, constitute a threat to the normal development of the social life of the American people. Latinos are considered a threat to the extent that can break the cultural continuity of American society. It is clear that dichotomies have an important role that have helped create distinctions for Latinos, because through them we can compare and therefore create the differences and boundaries that constitute this alien population. Latinos in the United States both with and without citizenship constitute a population that has been constructed as barbarian, uncivilized, impure, and unwilling to assimilate. From these dualities, Mexicans and subsequently all Latin Americans living in the United States take the place of otherness. The racialization of both immigrants and citizens has become a process of social construction because it is in constant change as new discourses are created. The concept of otherness therefore become a foundation for the creation of an imagined community as Barth calls it, an alien population that has gone through the delimitation of political, social, and economic services as well as have endured the creation of harsh laws that encourage and justify the exclusion and othering of the Latino population living in the United States. Garcia Bedolla, Newton, and Chavez have all written about the Latino population, legal and immigrant, and the discourses that have been built over the Mexican and Latin American otherness in the United States.
The illegality that is tied to this population is also related to the physical border that separated the United States and Mexico. It has become a symbol of a growing high risk. The presence of Latin American communities is now more then ever visible within the United States, especially in cities like Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York City. Some of the largest communities are those of Cubans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans. Given this demographic phenomenon, conservative groups in the United States have expressed concern, saying that these new migrants who are subsequently combined into a category that encompasses legal and non-legal Latinos are occupying jobs, using public services without paying taxes and collaborating to the rising crime. The authors have all elaborated in their works that the American historical conception has created Mexicans and Latin American migration as one related to invasion and one of violation which has in turn helped in the creation of institutionalized laws and programs that prohibited this invasion. The rhetoric about Latino immigration took hold when President Ronald Reagan framed the immigration issue within the national security issue by stating that the US had lost control of the border. The terrorist attacks of September 11,2001 confirmed the alleged connection between migration, terrorism and national security. Thus the Mexican border has become the new battleground in the fight against terrorism. Leo R. Chavez put this all in perspective in Chapter Six of The Latino Threat as he analyzes the Minutemen and their agenda of protecting the US – Mexico border from foreign invasion.The Latino threat narrative in conjunction with the Mexican border has been regarded as a social arena where violence reigns,
therefore it should be controlled and extreme defensive measures and militarization are the proper ways to do it. Warlike metaphors have become the daily bread of the media that refer to the growing Latino population as an invasion of illegal aliens who are directly affecting the American way of life. Racist rhetoric like that of presidential candidate Donald Trump has helped fueling the problem of intolerance and discrimination that is currently dividing the country. Donald Trump has proposed the expulsion of eleven million people living illegally in the United States in conjunction with the construction of a border wall that should be funded by the Mexican government. The presence of so many Latinos combined with the growing trend of temporary workers and the entry of Mexican and Latin American immigrants has positioned the migrant community in a situation of extreme vulnerability. The situation is complicated by other factors, such as a widespread anti-immigrant hysteria, the animosity of many media outlets and the increasing anti-immigrant legislation, both on the federal, state, and local levels, which seeks to limit certain rights to those who are seen as a potential threat. The Latino threat narrative and the levels of Latino inequality, I argue, are in contribution with the continual low socioeconomic and educational levels of the majority of Latinos. Individuals like Samuel Huntington, would suggest that the school failure among young Latinos and the low socio-economic progress of the members of this community are linked to reasons that are virtually unchangeable. That is, because according to his argument, his essence of failure is a cultural thing, especially among Mexicans. For him, beyond the educational and welfare policies, the structure of economic opportunities, the labor racism, the factors behind this problem are the essential cultural differences between Hispanics and Americans, particularly affecting negative attitudes toward work and teaching. Huntington believes, indeed, that this attitude is part of their culture, and that the solution is that Latinos adopt the Anglo-Protestant culture, especially individualism and work ethic. Massey argues that the principal object of racial formation and the main target of racialization over time have been persons of Mexican origin. (Massey 24) This racialization of the Mexican population has therefore helped in the homogenization of the entire Latin American population both citizens and non-citizens and categorized them as what Leo R. Chavez calls a community of alarmist. “Mexican migration in particular has been rendered synonymous with the US nation-state’s purported ‘‘loss of control’’ of its borders, and has supplied the pre-eminent pretext for what has in fact been a continuous intensification of increasingly militarized control” (De Genova 178) this is one of the main reasons why Latinos from other Latin American countries have been subsumed into the Mexican category. This racial stratification has contributed to the high levels for political and economic inequality that is found among legal and non-legal Latinos. For Latinos who do have privilege of citizenship, they have to endure the segregation of social programs that are a reflection of civic status. (Soss 57) Finally, racialization in collaboration with what Leo R. Chaves as the Latino threat narrative has not only put into question Latinos level of belongingness, but has also hyper-sexualized Latinas and even puts into question our deservingness of health related services.