Immigrant Tropes

I attended a guest lecture about Immigrant Advocacy Tropes by Dr. Dulcinea Lara in which she discussed how immigrants often use phrases to describe values associated with a supportive idea of immigration. Specifically the tropes of: “they/we are not criminals”, “they/we do the jobs no American wants”, and “they/we are patriotic and love the U.S.” Dr. Lara discussed in depth on how these tropes that are meant to help out the pro-immigration agenda but in reality just fracture most of the movement. I agree with this idea for the most part but I also think the tropes used are at least a starting point to help make the immigration movement larger.

The trope of “they/we are not criminals” was discussed as not very effective because of the trope only working on an individual level and not on a collective level. Also it was argued that because the trope declares the negative and not the positive it’s ineffective. I disagree that the trope only acts on an individual level. As Dr. Lara later stated it helps challenge the notion of mass detention of the immigrants. I’d add that it makes the rest of the population think about why we deem them criminals. It makes the population take a view that compares illegal immigrants to murders, rapists, and other criminals making the population question why we see them as criminals in which they need to be put in prison. Obviously there will be the few radicals that argue that the illegals commit other crimes that make them criminals, but they point out only to a minority of illegal immigrants and not the population as a whole. In addition, many of the radicals that will point the finger on true criminals that are also illegal immigrants are often ignored or made fun of in mainstream society. The second argument that this trope looks at the negative and doesn’t look to a positive idea doesn’t say why focusing on the negative is a bad thing. Many times in argumentation the best way to argue is to look to the opponents arguments and discredit them. This makes the opposition look unreliable as a source. I agree that looking to protest and argue about the negative is bad when it is the only rhetoric that is used but in this case many other positive tropes are utilized.

The trope of “they/we do the jobs no American wants” was described as being ineffective because it only works in times of economic prosperity and causes the immigrants to become assets and tools of the community rather than part of the community. I think this is probably a correct assumption,