SOCI 127
Final Prompt
Nativism, in its Modern Form
Intro:
With the alleged increasing influx of immigrants, the intensification of racism and nativism has taken a new shape and seeped into the media, as well as local, state, and federal policy. Particularly, the escalation of nativism is concentrated at Latinos, and has thus, created an issue of illegality. In addition, nativism, an adverse outlook of foreign individuals, has remained molded by dynamics that shift with historical occurrences and has influenced anti-immigrant sentiments (Higham, 2002, 3). Societal reception has a great influence on the assimilation of immigrants. The issue of illegality shapes an immigrants incorporation in the U.S. in a positive, as well …show more content…
These actions are characterized in an in class viewed video of Border Wars (2010). This show calculatedly exploits the Mexican-American border as a spectacle to reinforce this idea of the illegality of Mexican immigrants. Furthermore, Border Wars attempts to illustrate a need for the further militarization of the Mexican-American border, as it evidently identifies the differentiation in manpower as opposed to the “excessive” influx of immigrants. Moreover, the dramatization and staging of these images depict these Mexican migrants as frightening criminals, rendering them as this “distinctive other”. According to sociologist, Douglas Massey (2006), “the Mexican-American border is not and never has been out of control” (1). Douglas Massey (2006) illustrates how the media portray this massive upsurge of undocumented immigrants “flooding into” the United States. Massey (2006) argues that the change in location and “visibility of border crossings” has been the changing dynamic that “has given the public undue fears about waves of Mexican workers trying to flood into America” (1). It has been stated, that due to this great flood of undocumented immigrants across the Mexican-American border, that it was and is essential to America to enforce the further militarization and expansion of border enforcement of the Mexican-American border (Varsanyi, 2010, 9). However, further research being commenced by Massey (2006) indicates otherwise. This only further illuminates the manipulation of power by the media as it continuously tries to frame the Mexican migrant as an illegal. Moreover, this framing of the illegality of an immigrant shapes a migrant’s incorporation in