Race, Ethnicity and Immigration

In one of my favorite quotes from "Mal Tiempo, Buenas Caras,” my piece on Latino immigrants and Hurricane Katrina, Guadalupe Silva, an undocumented laborer from Peru, said, “I know that they are not all so, but I know there are racists—‘rednecks,’ as they say in Mississippi. They are very racist, and don’t want us. But there is no such thing as pure blood. Everything is mixed. More than anything, we came to support the country with our shoulders and work.”

Racism emerged as a common theme in my immigration coverage for the Jackson Free Press. My first real article on immigration, in fact, focused on the anti-immigration movement's association with racist organizations such as NumbersUSA. (See "Dealing Racism in the Immigration Game," July 3, 2007.)

Silva makes a brilliant, and often misunderstood point, though: If race is ambiguous, how can racial hatred logically exist? Shouldn't race not even enter the discussion? Of course, the logic of racism -- that one race is superior to another -- is inherently flawed, despite attempts to legitimize it by organizations like NumbersUSA and their predecessors (namely, the Pioneer Fund, which funds pseudo-scientific studies into the genetic superiority of whites, in addition to funding anti-immigration groups such as the Federation of American Immigration Reform, a partner of NumbersUSA).

As anti-Latino sentiment (often confused as an "anti-illegal immigrant" position) grows, fueled by race-baiting pundits like Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Reilly, it is worth noting that Latinos (categorized as "Hispanics" by the U.S. Census Bureau) present a conundrum for simple-minded bigots: they do not fit under any one racial category. In fact, the terms "Latino" and "Hispanic" (despite the racial connotation of European-descended "Hispanics" or "Spaniards") are ethnic, not racial terms. And necessarily so: Latin America has embraced a long tradition of "racial mixing," unlike the U.S., where in some states the practice was illegal for many years, and only recently society has accepted it -- and only arguably so. There are many reasons for this (the nature of slavery in the U.S. vs. the rest of the Americas, immigration patterns, and acceptable sexual mores), but one of the most interesting outcomes is the difference in racial perception. Here, in the U.S., we largely abide by the "one-drop" rule (in which, if a person has at least "one drop" of black blood, then he is black), while in countries like Cuba and Brazil, virtually everyone has both European and African (in addition to Asian and indigenous) ancestry, so race is defined in shades -- not by the absence or presence of color. (In fact, there are hundreds of "races" on the Brazilian Census, describing different shades of brown.)

Sadly, even in Brazil's "racial democracy," it stands that the darker one's skin, the poorer his lot in life. This reflects society's refusal to look beyond phenotype, or the outwards appearances of race, and historical attempts to shun people of a certain type of appearance.

By categorizing Latinos as a single race (or, more commonly, as having a single country of origin -- e.g. Mexico), we are again genetically categorizing that which we do not understand. In this same manner, all sub-Saharan African-descended slaves in the U.S. became a uniform “Negro” race.

Now, as Latinos have become the largest minority in the U.S., a new, unique form of ethnic bigotry serves to stir up fear and hatred -- a hallmark of a racism we thought we left behind. “Why don’t they learn English?” is a common refrain, one that reflects cultural insensitivity and xenophobia. It also reflects historical short-sightedness: all major groups of American immigrants struggled to learn English through one generation, then made sure that their children could succeed (and, indeed, survive) by learning the King’s English.

“Why don’t we send them all home?” is a complaint, though often couched in legal terms, that reflects broad strokes of racism. Sure, it is one thing to be “anti-illegal immigrant” and another to be anti-Latino. But often the two get confused, especially when we abide by the “one-drop” way of thinking. It is no surprise, then, that organizations like FAIR and NumbersUSA helped orchestrate a resounding rejection of “amnesty” for immigrants, when these same groups have historically supported research into eugenics. Quite simply, they focus on race to divide people.

It’s easy to say “send them home” when we can see, in racial terms, who “they” are. I doubt many readers have the social security numbers to prove otherwise that the “illegal aliens” they see are, in fact, illegal. Take, for example, Jo-D’s comment on the thread for “Amnesty for Gangbangers?,” the sidebar to “Mal Tiempo:”

“I look forward to your next story with real, illegal aliens - the 15 working at any local Mexican restaurant who will be gone and replaced with new faces in 6 months - to compliment this love story you wrote on behalf of poor Ms. Silva.”

It’s comments like these that frighten me—not because some (or all) of those workers may actually be undocumented, but because, to some observers, they are anyways.

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