Getting beyond the ‘symptom,’ acknowledging the ‘disease’: theorizing racist nativism

Abstract

An important tenet of Latina/o critical race theory (LatCrit) is to challenge dominant ideologies that mask racist beliefs and practices perpetrated against People of Color in the United States, particularly Latinas/os. In this article we utilize a LatCrit framework to theorize further the concept of racist nativism in the current sociopolitical moment, which is marked by significant anti‐immigrant sentiment. In doing so, we hope to understand better the contemporary experiences of People of Color and Latinas/os specifically. We show how many racial and ethnic groups throughout US history have experienced racist nativism, but argue that those targeted by it today tend to be Latinas/os in general, and Mexican immigrants in particular. In conceptually extending the notion of racist nativism we endeavor to go beyond the ‘symptoms’ of racism and toward naming the ‘disease’ that plagues US society – white supremacy. We argue that the legacy of white supremacy not only remains with us today, but profoundly informs our racialized perceptions of a white American identity, whereby white Americans are perceived as native to the US and all others as non‐native.

Keywords:

• Latina/o critical race theory
• racist nativism
• racism
• immigrants
• white supremacy

Notes

1. ‘Immigrants of Color’ is intentionally capitalized, rejecting the standard grammatical norm, to empower this group and to represent a grammatical move toward social and racial justice. This rule will also apply to ‘People of Color’ and ‘Communities of Color’ throughout this paper.

2. Called the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act, HR 4437 was introduced by Republican representatives James Sensenbrenner (R‐WI) and Peter King (R‐NY) in December 2005. HR 4437 proposed that any undocumented immigrant in the US would be charged with a felony and prevented from ever gaining legal status in the US. The proposed law also seeks to charge anyone, regardless of legal status, with a felony who assists an undocumented immigrant or conceals the ‘legal’ status of an undocumented immigrant from the US government. If implemented, this bill would not only affect undocumented immigrants, but their families, communities, and anyone that knows of their status and does not report them to authorities. HR 4437 would compromise the position of undocumented immigrants living in the US and is predicted to increase the separation of families and communities throughout the nation. Although it was voted down in the Senate in the spring of 2006, modified versions of HR 4437 are being proposed and debated that could prove detrimental to immigrants and their families. For more information on HR 4437 and the immigration debate, visit the National Council of La Raza's website at http://www.nclr.org/section//immigration_debate/

3. For the purpose of this paper we use the term ‘undocumented immigrant’ to identify individuals who reside in the US without proper documentation.

4. Our references to ‘symptoms’ and ‘diseases’ are borrowed from the words of US District Judge Robert L. Carter in his reflection on the Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education (1954). He stated:

 [T]he NAACP lawyers erred. The lawyers did not understand then how effective white power could be in preventing full implementation of the law; nor did it realize at the time that the basic barrier to full equality for blacks was not racial segregation, a symptom, but white supremacy, the disease. (Tushnet, 1988, p. 1094)

5. We use the term ‘Latina/o’ to be inclusive of the racist nativism experiences of various ethnic sub‐groups. However, we acknowledge that racist nativism is not experienced in the same ways by all groups of Latinas/os. Racist nativism is context‐specific. We must consider the political, historical, geographical, and phenotypical conditions of those who fall victim to racist nativism in order truly to understand their experiences.

6. It is important to mention that ethnicity is also a socially constructed category, used to demark differences of culture between groups of people. While not the focus here, it is important to note that the categorizations of race and ethnicity, and their overlapping dimensions, are important for understanding the complex mechanisms employed in categorizing groups, such as Latinas/os.

7. Sánchez uses the term ‘racial nativism’; however, we chose to use the term ‘racist nativism’ to position power within a racial hierarchy. Furthermore, it should be noted that we define racist nativism differently to Sánchez, as we root our definition of racist nativism within white supremacy. However, Sánchez's work on racial nativism has been especially helpful in conceptualizing racist nativism as we describe it in this article.

8. We reference white elites, northern Europeans, and Anglo‐Saxon Protestants as members of the same group and use these terms interchangeably throughout the article.

9. Madison Grant (1916), in his book Passing of the Great Race, explains how racial distinctions can be scientifically determined among Europeans with the ‘cephalic index,’ or measurements of the human skull (p. 16). According to Grant, eye, hair, and skin color can also be used to determine race. He states, ‘In general, the Nordic race in its purity has an absolutely fair skin, and is consequently the Homo albus, the white man par excellence’ (p. 23).

10. Higham (1955) describes the violence committed against white ethnics in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He provides stories and illustrations of two incidents in particular: one involving 11 Italian immigrants in New Orleans who were lynched in a public display among crowds of onlookers and another involving a Jewish factory worker in Atlanta who was executed while shackled to a crucifix.

11. Here, we borrow from the work of Derrick Bell (2004) on the processes of racial‐sacrifice and interest‐convergence covenants.

12. We define People of Color as non‐white racial groups that include, but are not limited to, Latinas/os, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans. We argue that all People of Color can experience racist nativism, but focus on the historical experiences of Asians and Mexicans, both immigrant and US‐born. The experiences of these groups in particular lend us accurate examples of how racist nativism, in the ways we have defined it, plays out in the lives of People of Color. We acknowledge that further theorizing is needed to understand how other People of Color experience racist nativism at different historical moments, such as African Americans, Native Americans, and, specific to a post‐9/11 era, Arab and Muslim Americans.

13. See Saito (1997), Johnson (1997), and Ngai (2004).

14. Although this legislation targeted all undocumented immigrants, we argue that such policies are largely anti‐Mexican, as the majority of the undocumented population in the US is from Mexico.

15. Shortly after Proposition 187 was passed, an injunction was issued that blocked the implementation of the law until the courts found Proposition 187 unconstitutional.