[cross posted]
Latinos in America See Anti-Immigration Debate As Personal Attack On Their Families, Bush Indifferent
In an important comment last night during her guest appearance on Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room, Maria Elenas Salinas of Univision said the following about how Latinos are reacting to the anti-immigration movement unerfoot in America:
"Whether this is a racial issue of not, I think, really when you start looking at the information, there are over half of Latinos in this country who do feel that this is a personal attack on their families, and we're talking about people who are American citizens and who are legal residents. They do believe this does affect them, even if they are not undocumented immigrants. And one of the things that we are seeing is definitely an increase in the amount of complaints about discrimination, about racial profiling and on hate crimes because of the tone of this issue that is a very emotional issue."
(read the entire transcript here)
President Bush, not surprisingly, did not use any words that speak to the fear and concern Salinas described.
Instead, Bush spoke in terms that pandered to the panic of corporate CEOs and industry employers, unlawful businesses who use migrant workers to skirt fair labor laws and increase their profits.
Kudos to Maria Elena Salinas for casting light on the ugly truth at the bottom of President Bush's speech--for reminding us that this anti-immigration debate has become yet another attack of fear and division by the Republican party on the American public.
In response to Maria Elena Salinas' remarks, I wondered which words--if any--might have been missing from President Bush's speech, last night. What keywords were not in his speech?
Heading over to the transcript of the President's speech made available by the White House, I used the 'Find' function to find words that Bush failed to used, last night. Interestingly, the missing words are the very words Salinas uses to describe how Lationos feel about the current political situation.
The Five Missing Words
Here are the five words that did not appear in President Bush's speech:
Latino: Amazingly, the word 'Latino' or 'Latina' or 'Latin' any variation was not mentioned by President Bush. I was astounded to find this. The President mention 'Mexico' three times, but never uses the word that most often defines the group of people in the United States who feel most implicated by the anti-immigration debate.
Wages: The idea of 'wages' was used once by the President via the term 'low-paying jobs,' but the word 'wages' or 'wage' was avoided altogether. Also not used were a host of related terms having to do with money, including: money, cash, dollars, pesos--as well as terms related to discussions of a legal paycheck, including: health care (nope) and 'benefits' (not used). Bush did, however, talk about penalties that needed to be payed by immigrants who broke the law, and about the importance of immigrants paying taxes.
Racism: This word is not mentioned once, even though there is widespread concern all over America that the anti-immigration or border debate has taken on overtly racist tones. Also not included are related words speaking to the concerns that Maria Elena Salinas mentioned, words such as: prejudice, bigotry, discrimination, and profiling. Instead, Bush dedicated an entire paragraph to assimilation--re-iterating the argument that if immigrants want to become citizens, they better learn to speak English and stop being so, different. The word 'diversity'--also not used by Bush.
Legal Resident: Frankly, I was dumbfounded when my search for 'legal resident' came back with nothing in Bush's speech. Bush used the phrase 'legal foreign worker' in his discussion of temporary worker permits, and 'legal process' when discussion crime. But the idea that our country is filled with 'legal residents' working and abiding by the law--completely missing. So, out of curiosity I did a second search for the word 'illegal.' President Bush used the word 'illegal' more than any other key term in his speech. In total, he repeated the word 'illegal' 27 times in 17 minutes.
A Speech That Struck Fear
With these keywords missing from President Bush's speech, is it any wonder that Latino citizens and legal residents in the United States would react to the current anti-immigration initiatives with shock and concern?
President Bush opened his speech by saying that immigrants live 'in the shadows' in America, but there is little doubt that this speech struck fear in the hearts of everyone who sees themselves as a new arrival to this country.
A nationally televised, prime-time speech that exacerbates the anxiety of the American public--just another average day in George W. Bush's America.
© 2006 Jeffrey Feldman