The AP Stylebook
Concedes in the use of “illegal immigrant”
By: Patricio Gomez (Mexican American
Political Association)
The AP
Stylebook finally declared that it will cease using the term “illegal
immigrant.” It’s about time. According
to their corporate spokespersons, “The Stylebook no longer sanctions the term “illegal immigrant” or the use
of “illegal” to describe a person. Instead, it tells users that “illegal”
should describe only an action, such as living in or immigrating to a country
illegally.”
The specific
instruction in the stylebook now reads, “illegal immigration: Entering or residing in a country in
violation of civil or criminal law. Except in direct quotes essential to the
story, use illegal only to refer to an action, not a person: illegal
immigration, but not illegal immigrant. Acceptable variations
include living in or entering a country illegally or without
legal permission.”
AP has opted to better label behavior and not people, similar to
labeling a person “diagnosed
with schizophrenia” instead of schizophrenic,” for example. As this relates to an undocumented entry into
a country, it would be preferable to describe it as “someone in a country
without permission.” Ironically, AP had
previously excluded the use of the term “undocumented” as being an imprecise
description. Someone could have entered
a country without permission, yet still have different types of documents in
their possession, they observed.
This is
significant considering that newspapers throughout the country, and even
internationally, use the AP Stylebook as a reference for correct language usage
in their reporting. In fact, it is also
used as a refuge by editors and publishers when confronted about the continued
use of the derisive term “Illegal,” both print and electronic. They have argued that their point of
reference in language usage is the AP Stylebook as the rock solid code of
language not to be tampered with.
For years
the Los Angeles Times and other major metropolitan newspapers have been
challenged for their language usage. Lou
Dobbs was drubbed out of CNN for his persistent anti-immigrant tirades and
constant baiting use of “illegal.” Fox
News’ right-wing television pundits, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, KFI-Clear
Channel Communications’ shock jocks, John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou of the John
and Ken Show, and syndicated radio windbag, Rush Limbaugh, darling of the Tea
Party and oxycontin addict, have all been roundly slammed for their denigrating
use of the terms “illegal aliens” and “Illegal immigrants”
However,
even supposed left-of-center newspapers published by the Village Voice, which
has local editions in California, Arizona, and New York, all major immigrant
population centers, continue to use racist terminology in reference to immigrants. The most infamous example is the “Ask a
Mexican” column penned by Gustave “Gus” Arellano, editor of OCWEEKLY, which
includes a racist stereotypic graphic of a toothy mustachioed Mexican wearing a
big sombrero. The son of Mexican immigrants who legalized their status through
the 1986 IRCA immigration reform, Arellano doesn’t even speak Spanish fluently
and is flippant about his continued use of “illegal” as irreverent shtick and
hyperbole – all at the expense of immigrants.
A better explanation for his language and behavior is self-loathing.
What these
corporate media outlets have in common, whether from the political left or
right, is that they are corporately owned by whites with a predominantly white
audience. Probably never before in the
history of the country has the corporate media been so monopolized in cross
multiple mediums, and almost entirety in the hands of whites and Jews.
What’s
behind this use of language to label people in a denigrating manner as has
historically occurred in the U.S.? The corporate
media, part of the 1% as popularly known now-a-days, can control the narrative
about a people when they can define them by such labels. Labels, then, are used to define the identity,
role, and quality of groups of people.
The objective is to stigmatize them as a social group in society’s eyes
and thusly control them in the economy. Ultimately,
it’s about how they are used in the economy in the interest of those who
control the economy. If society’s
majority can bring itself to view another social group as inferior, less than
human, less than the norm, thus, dehumanized, than that social group can be
exploited, abused, and mistreated without a near whimper by the larger society.
It’s no
accident that people of color have predominantly been the object of derisive
name-calling, racist labels and stereotypes – blacks, Native Americans,
immigrants of working stock, Mexicans and Latinos generally, Asians, but even
women and gays. It’s all about keeping
working people divided by promoting fear of differentness, prejudice, and
homophobia. The beneficiaries are the
owners of the principal means of expressing ideas.
In the 1970s
the legendary labor and immigrant rights leader, Bert Corona, coined the
saying, “No Human Being is Illegal.” In
1986, Eliezer “Elie” Wiesel, a holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate, affirmed,
“You who are so-called illegal aliens must know that no human being is
‘illegal’. That is a contradiction in
terms. Human beings can be beautiful or
more beautiful, they can be fat or skinny, and they can be right or wrong, but
illegal? How can a human being be illegal?”
So the fight
between ideas and over labels continues unabated. The AP Stylebook thinking heads finally
conceded to the light. Chalk one up for
the immigrants.
Patricio.gomez93@yahoo.com
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(SinFronteras2013). 4/04/13
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Un nuevo volante sobre el tema de la inmigración.
