The discursive figuration of U.S. supremacy in narratives sympathetic to undocumented immigrants.

• Author: Lawston, Jodie Michelle

THE REALITY TELEVISION PROGRAM, 30 DAYS WITH MORGAN SPURLOCK, RELATES A compelling narrative in its episode entitled "Immigration" by having Frank, an avowed Minuteman, live with the Gonzalez family--whose members are undocumented--in East Los Angeles. The episode begins with images of Frank patrolling the border, binoculars in hand and 9mm handgun at his side, while passionately arguing that the United States must enforce its immigration laws. He insists that immigrants who have crossed "illegally" must be policed and deported back to their country. The viewers are then introduced to the seven Gonzalez family members, who live in a 500-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment. Upon entering the Gonzalez's home, Frank adamantly argues that the family must be deported. Although his intransigent views slowly melt away due to the warmth and hardworking nature of this family, the critical turning point for Frank occurs when he goes to Mexico and witnesses firsthand the "squalor" and abject poverty from which the Gonzalez family fled. After this horrible experience, Frank explains that the Gonzalez family was merely trying to survive by entering the United States. "illegally." By the end of the episode, he tearfully embraces one of the daughters, and promises to sponsor her if she is deported.

This episode rehearses the antinomies present in the current debate over undocumented immigration in the United States. Frank embodies the law-and-order, anti-immigrant side, which argues that undocumented immigrants are "criminals" because they have violated the law. Similarly, the representation of the Gonzalez family typifies the liberal, pro-immigrant side, which argues that people should show compassion for others who are simply seeking a "better life" in the United States. (1) However, despite ostensibly showing "both sides of the story," the episode leans toward the pro-immigrant, liberal stance.

The liberal position of the narrative reveals itself in the way it elicits sympathy for the Gonzalez family, particularly for the daughter Armeda. She is a high school student whose lifelong dream is to attend Princeton or Santa Clara University. Besides her college aspirations, the narrative represents Armeda as a model of citizenship. In a scene in which she teaches Frank how to play golf, he sheepishly admits that he has never played the game before. This highlights Armeda's Americanness, since golf is a predominantly white sport and a symbol of social status. It thus communicates to the viewers her aptitude for upward social mobility. (2) The narrative thus suggests that if Armeda were not "illegal," she could climb up the social ladder of success.

Another telling scene that speaks to Armeda's extraordinary promise comes at a lunch in a restaurant where her white male high school teacher delivers a heartfelt toast praising her remarkable achievements as a student. His social status as white and male valorizes Armeda's abilities and legitimizes her existence in the United States. However, the scene unwittingly reproduces the hierarchal paradigm that situates the United States as superior to Mexico in the national imagination since the young immigrant Latina must be recognized by a white male. In a subsequent scene at the restaurant, the schoolteacher and Frank are involved in a heated debate. Frank vehemently laments that the nation's laws are not being enforced, to which the teacher exasperatingly responds, "They're already here!" The logical conclusion for the viewer is that if the United States were to decriminalize undocumented immigration, students such as Armeda would become outstanding citizens.

The hierarchal nature of the liberal stance toward immigration is compellingly revealed in the scene in which Frank visits the village where the Gonzalez family lived in Mexico. Frank is appalled that the Gonzalez family came from such "filth" and "poverty." In a blunt, ethnocentric remark, Frank states that there are "50 years of filth" in the house and that he just wanted to "get out of there." A shot of Frank throwing his shoe at cockroaches on the walls of the family's home underscores this sentiment.

The message that viewers take from this episode is that the United States is inherently superior to Mexico, and because of its abundant prosperity, U.S. citizens should reach out to help those "less fortunate." The episode's last scene shows Frank tearfully saying good-bye to the Gonzalez family, which suggests that the poverty is so overwhelming that it reduces a hardened, law-and-order, gun-toting Minuteman to tears. In a poignant afterword, the audience learns that although Santa Clara University accepted Armeda, she was unable to attend due to a lack of economic resources. Viewers are left with the feeling that financial assistance could easily remedy Armeda's dire situation. The news that Frank continued to be a Minuteman is perhaps the most truthful segment of the narrative: nothing had changed.

In this article, we argue that the bifurcated logic that underwrites and dominates today's immigration debate reproduces a hierarchical paradigm that posits the United States as superior to formerly colonized countries. Similar to the way in which the immigration debate unfolds in 30 Days, many liberal arguments, sympathetic to undocumented immigrants, respond to and critique anti-immigrant platforms. They appeal to an American sense of fairness and charity, putting a human face on immigration and evoking sympathy for undocumented immigrants. This type of discourse often circumvents historical, social, imperialist, and global capitalist considerations. We will critique these liberal discourses insofar as they assume that the abundant prosperity and incorruptible protection of human and civil rights make the United States irresistibly desirable to impoverished victims of corrupt and repressive governments. Such discourses ignore a history of U.S. interventionism in formerly colonized countries (Kahn, 1996; Newton, 2008; Rodriguez, 2008) and fail to acknowledge that the United States has had a direct hand in creating and maintaining the political and economic conditions that have driven migration northward. Hence, the arc of our discussion will focus on causality concerning the dynamics of immigration, interventionism, and disrupted social structures resulting from global capital.

Our analysis examines how the immigration debate takes shape in four narrative types--a docu-film, a reality TV show, a nonfiction account, and a fictional short story--to illustrate several forms of mainstream, liberal popular discourse. We analyze the acclaimed 2008 film Under the Same Moon and the 2006 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Enrique's Journey. We also periodically return to the 30 Days episode. Each presents a narrative sympathetic to the plight of undocumented immigrants. We show that these narratives are a reaction to anti-immigrant, law-and-order strategies that define and label crossing a national boundary as "criminal." To contrast mainstream liberal discourses with a more resistance-based approach to understanding migration, we examine Helena Viramontes' Cariboo Cafe, a story that critiques U.S. immigration policy and enforcement by evincing U.S.-sponsored violence and repression in Central America.

Law-and-Order Strategies, Boundaries, and Criminality

Initiatives such as the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA), and California's Proposition 187 were intended to contain, regulate, and punish immigrants, especially those who are nonwhite (Hernandez, 2009; Cacho, 2008). IRCA set out to deter undocumented immigration through employer sanctions for hiring immigrants unauthorized to work legally in the United States. Its amnesty provision categorized immigrants into those who are "deserving" and those who are "undeserving" of citizenship (Hondagneu-Sotelo and Salas, 2008; Cacho, 2008). IIRAIRA turned petty crimes such as shoplifting and drunk driving into aggravated felonies, curtailing the rights of undocumented and legal permanent residents. Proposition 187, which was ultimately declared unconstitutional, "sought to control and diminish undocumented immigrants by denying public education and health services to undocumented immigrants and their children" (Hondagneu-Sotelo and Salas, 2008: 212). These "get tough on immigration" laws--combined with the mainstream media's tendency to cast migrants as "predatory villains," "drug dealers," and "terrorists" (Welch, 2002)--have resulted in a criminalized class of people who constitute the "most rapidly expanding appendage of the American prison industrial complex" (Rodriguez, 2008: 7).

With over 400 private and public detention centers operating across the United States, the criminalization and subsequent detention of undocumented immigrants are integral to the processes of prison expansion. Poor communities of color are disproportionately targeted by the police and criminal justice apparatus for incapacitation in prisons. Of the 2.3 million people incarcerated, 50% are African American and 20% are Latino/a (Pew Center on the States, 2008; Cole, 2009; Gilmore, 2007; Mauer and King, 2007; James, 2005; Davis, 2003). Similarly, nonwhite immigrants are disproportionately detained and incarcerated. The detention of Filipino immigrants is increasing (Rodriguez, 2008), but Latinos "represent the largest group of foreign-born, documented and undocumented migrants, border apprehensions and removals, [and] Criminal alien detainees ..." (Hernandez, 2009: 44). In 2005, Latinos represented seven of the top 10 foreign-born groups in detention, with Mexicans comprising half of all immigrant detainees...