Those Damned Immigrants: America’s Hysteria over Undocumented Immigration PDF
Preview Those Damned Immigrants: America’s Hysteria over Undocumented Immigration
Those Damned Immigrants CITIZENSHIP AND MIGRATION IN THE AMERICAS General Editor: Ediberto Román Tierra y Libertad: Land, Liberty, and Latino Housing Steven W. Bender No Undocumented Child Left Behind: Plyler v. Doe and the Education of Undocumented Schoolchildren Michael A. Olivas Marginal Workers: How Legal Fault Lines Divide Workers and Leave Them without Protection Ruben J. Garcia Run for the Border: Vice and Virtue in U.S.-Mexico Border Crossings Steven W. Bender Those Damned Immigrants: America’s Hysteria over Undocumented Immigration Ediberto Román Those Damned Immigrants America’s Hysteria over Undocumented Immigration Ediberto Román With a foreword by Michael A. Olivas a NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London www.nyupress.org © 2013 by New York University All rights reserved References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Román, Ediberto. Those damned immigrants: America’s hysteria over undocumented immigration / Ediberto Román; with a foreword by Michael A. Olivas. pages cm. — (Citizenship and migration in the Americas) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8147-7657-5 (hardback) 1. United States—Emigration and immigration—Government policy. 2. Immigrants—United States. 3. Citizenship—United States. I. Title. JV6483.R66 2013 364.1'370973—dc23 2013015229 New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books. Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Isabella (a.k.a Bella) Soleil Román Your wondrous eyes and four-tooth smile light up my world and melt me & Felipe Sousa Matos, Juan Jaime Rodriguez, Carlos Alberto Roa Jr., and Maria Gabriela “Gaby” Pacheco, a.k.a. the DREAM Walkers Your tireless struggle for justice has inspired these efforts & Professor Derrick A. Bell Jr. Your iconic work “The Space Traders” ensured I would become a social justice scholar This page intentionally left blank Contents Foreword ix Michael A. Olivas Acknowledgments xiii 1. Introduction 1 2. Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric 17 3. Empirical Data on Immigration 43 4. Immigration’s Effects on State and Local Economies 85 5. The Conflicted United States–Mexico Relationship: 111 Invitation and Exclusion 6. Sociological and Psychological Insights on 125 Anti-Immigrant Bias 7. A Pragmatic Proposal for Immigration Reform 133 Notes 153 Index 181 About the Author 185 >> vii This page intentionally left blank Foreword Ediberto Román’s Those Damned Immigrants is a classic in the grow- ing literature on the vast right-wing conspiracy, including the many exploitative features of capitalism in the postmodern age that attract and depend upon contingent and undocumented immigrant labor, largely from third world nations, especially the proximate Mexico, with liminal workers so desperate that they will risk life and ruin to come to el norte, even knowing the illegality and structural economic violence they will encounter for scandalous wages (and all too often the criminal violence they will encounter in routine hate crimes). Then, instead of rewarding them with gratitude for doing the work we do not want to do and allow- ing our economy to restructure at their expense, we turn around and despise them and often harm them because they are not us. And in the cruel discourse that marginalizes them as bearing “anchor babies,” being “illegals,” and possessing other undesirable traits—or worse, coveting our daughters—we demonize and scapegoat them. Watching these sto- ries in the public discourse can be a sobering and largely horrific train wreck, but one that happens with much more frequency. Even the New York Times, largely sympathetic to immigrants, contributes to this mar- ginalizing discursive habit by requiring its reporters to employ the term “illegal immigrant,” its New York Times Manual of Style and Usage ensur- ing that the terminology is widely repeated and giving veiled support to nativists and restrictionists. Because there is so much anti-Mexican animus evident in the quotid- ian public polity, especially with the escalating drug violence along the border and interior, fuelled by this country’s prodigious drug appetite, it >> ix
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