It’s all in the language
MySA.com: Foes of immigration forget that ‘illegal aliens’ are people, too
Undocumented workers, to some people, are not criminals.They are crimes. Hence the term “illegal aliens,” as if their very beings — not their acts — were against the law. The immigrants, if you take this attitude one step further, have no right to exist; like drugs and child pornography, they have been outlawed.
When viewed in this context, it is easy to see why people judge them so harshly. They are not individuals, after all. They are part of a nameless, faceless horde that takes our jobs, drains our economy and fills our politicians with blasts of hot air.
On this canvas, there are no shades of gray, no splashes of nuance. The landscape is black and white, and the message is bold and unmistakable: These people are illegal. Period.
This entire piece by Robert Seltzer is worth reading but I am only going to focus on the beginning. This is really the core of the immigration debate. One side sees human beings and the other sees nameless hordes.Some of us remember that we are a country built on immigrants and others have collective amnesia or better yet, see their ancestors immigration in a totally different light. They have dehumanized “illegal aliens” and see no resemblance between them and the immigrants of their own families. We seem to have forgotten that for the majority of our countries short life our borders have been open to all that come and the cost of citizenship was just showing up.
Which ever side of the debate you fall on take some time to look into the dangers of dehumanizing people and maybe think twice about your word choices in the future.
Technorati Tags: immigration, illegal aliens, dehumanizing,
Filed under: hispanic, illegals, immigrants, immigration, latino
