During the American midterm elections, a video was posted online of Republican candidate Sharron Angle taking questions from a Hispanic students’ group at Rancho High School in Las Vegas, Nevada. Angle was running with backing from the conservative Tea Party movement, with a platform based largely around tax cuts, gun control and immigration. During the race, Angle’s campaign ran two ads focused around incumbent Harry Reid’s alleged support of social security and preferred tuition benefits for illegal immigrants. In these ads, we see Latino men portrayed as dangerous gang members who “stream across [American] borders” in the middle of the night in order to join “violent gangs” and reap social security benefits. They are repeatedly referred to in the ads as “illegal aliens” or even simply “illegals”; this frames the Latino migrants as a dangerous “other” who is bent on disrupting the way of life of “everyday Americans”. In the second ad, there are repeated shots of “white” Americans who are perceived to be at threat from Harry Reid’s alleged support of the Other. Innocent schoolchildren are shown in class raises their hands while the voice-over implies that they will be taught Spanish. In the video released on Youtube, Angle is questioned by a student about her use of Latinos in her campaign material as an ominous illegal immigrant threat. Her response is interesting as it exposes many of the issues raised by Hartigan in chapter 6. First, Angle’s ads are playing on the “foreignness” of Latinos. They are shown with bandanas and other items of clothing that would be “shocking” to white middle class sensibilities. When confronted with this characterization, Angle says that for all she knows, some of the students could be Asian. Louie Gong, an American of Chinese ancestry who is quoted in the linked New York Times article, states that these statements were “a strong reflection of (Angle’s) sense of entitlement to identify them as she wants, not as they want.” Here we see the “white” person designating a minority status for others. She decides that some of the students fit her description of “Asian,” then follows this up by saying that she herself has been called “the first Asian legislator” (referring to an incident in which a reporter “thought she looked Asian” rather than any actual ethnic ties).She is granting these students “model minority” status while assuring them that she can also be put into the same category.
Those who are from “outside the fence” are more foreign, and because of this they are more threatening. What is the point at which these Latinos can be brought into the category of less offensive minority? According to Hartigan, the marginalization of minorities is rationalized when said minorities are not in control of the use of their labour. The “Illegal aliens” of the campaign ads are largely poor migrant workers who are used as a cheap labour force in the United States. In contrast, the students of Rancho High are American citizens with certain rights and privileges. Their labour cannot be easily exploited, therefore they must be considered more “white” than the immigrant population. They can be seen as “integrated” Others, so they are more similar to whites. Like Asian Americans, they are the desirable kind of minority rather than the shadowy, threatening kind of minority who skulks around fences wearing bandanas and tank tops. Ironically, it is this very status that allows the students of Rancho high to exercise a great deal of agency in order to combat how they are portrayed in Angle’s advertisements.
The timing of this event is also important, because it was close to the time that Arizona passed a law allowing police to demand to see the immigration papers of suspected illegal immigrants. This was raising a public outcry, with many in the national media arguing that this would lead to increased racial profiling. Police were able to stop anyone who fit their personal definition of an “illegal” on the street and demand to see their papers. Certain politicians – Sharron Angle included – lauded this law as being “tough on illegals” and reproached those who condemned the act, including President Obama. This legislation was another example of those who are privileged being given the ability to frame others in the racial categories that they see fit. Not only was a certain group being given dominance over a minority, every single member of that group was being given the privilege to discern who did or did not deserve to be in the United States.
Matt Bullock
