Abstract
The topic of immigration reform has been at the forefront of the political debate for many years. The debate has been especially intense in Arizona, a border state where sentiments over immigration are strong and which has, in the last decade, approved a series of measures directed to curtail the presence of unauthorized immigrants. Using the critical race theory notions of majoritarian storytelling and counter-storytelling as well as interest-convergence theory, the present study examined the types of arguments provided by the editorials of two newspapers in Arizona, The Arizona Republic and La Prensa Hispana, on the topic of immigration reform in the period between 2007 and 2011. Results show that the English-language publication justified the need for reform in the interests of American businesses, whereas the Spanish-language newspaper cited the well-being of the immigrant community.
Introduction
Immigration reform has been a topic of discussion in the political arena for several decades. There is agreement among political leaders about the need for an overhaul of the immigration system to adapt it to the needs and reality of the 21st century. However, there is no consensus regarding how the reform should be carried out, and efforts to pass comprehensive legislation at the federal level have stalled. On the other hand, a number of states have decided to legislate in matters of immigration. Among these states, Arizona has had a prominent place implementing a policy known as attrition by enforcement. The idea behind this policy is that enforcing measures against the undocumented population would compel unauthorized immigrants to leave the state and, at the same time, serve as a deterrent for new ones to arrive. Amid this political environment, the media in Arizona has played a key role in informing the public and in influencing public opinion. A well-established body of research points to the idea that views of society about ethnic and linguistic minority groups are shaped to a great extent by how these groups are portrayed in the press (see, for example, van Dijk, 1987, 1988, 2005).
This study compares the approach taken by two newspapers in the state of Arizona in regard to the topic of immigration reform. One, The Arizona Republic, is published in English. The other, La Prensa Hispana, is published in Spanish. Both appeal to different readerships, although there may be some overlap. In the case of The Arizona Republic, the target audience is mainstream, English-speaking readers. La Prensa Hispana, on the other hand, seeks the Spanish-speaking community, much of which is composed of immigrants. Both newspapers displayed favorable opinions about immigration reform. However, a content analysis of the editorial pieces of the publications over the time period 2007-2011 (N = 77) revealed that The Arizona Republic and La Prensa Hispana differed in the type of arguments provided to support immigration reform. The English-speaking newspaper justified the policies of the state of Arizona on the basis of the legislative inaction at the federal level. Immigration reform was perceived as a necessity for the business community, and the interests of employers were at the foreground of the arguments. La Prensa Hispana, however, took the point of view of the immigrant community and justified the need for reform with arguments related to human rights, resorting to civic appeals that bring the lives of immigrants to the forefront of the discussion.
Background: The Radicalization of Politics in Arizona
The last decade has witnessed a radicalization of the politics of immigration in the United States. Arguably, the most vocal state in the nation in this regard has been Arizona. Since 2004, the public in Arizona has had the opportunity to express their views on immigration on several occasions. Each time, voters agreed on curtailing the rights of undocumented immigrants. Proposition 200, passed in 2004, denied public benefits to unauthorized residents. Proposition 300, in 2006, mandated that students who could not prove legal residency status pay out-of-state tuition fees in public universities and colleges. In the same year, Proposition 100 made it impossible for unauthorized residents to apply for bail and be awarded payments in civil court. In addition, English was made the official language of the state (Proposition 103). All these measures were overwhelmingly approved by voters.
Concurrently, the state’s legislature took an active role passing bills targeting undocumented immigrants. This trend saw a manifest escalation after 2009, when Governor Janet Napolitano was replaced by Secretary of State Jan Brewer. In 2010, Arizona Senate Bill (SB) 1070 was passed, formalizing the strategy known as attrition by enforcement. SB 1070 (1) made it a misdemeanor for an immigrant to fail to carry registration documents at all times, (2) made it mandatory for state law enforcement officers to try to determine the status of any individual when there is reasonable suspicion that the individual is undocumented, and (3) imposed sanctions on those sheltering, transporting, or hiring undocumented individuals.
Public-elected officials contributed to the anti-immigrant sentiment in the state, from law enforcement officials (most notably in Maricopa County) to the state’s superintendent of public instruction, who supported the ban of bilingual education programs. The charged atmosphere was such that a candidate for the post of Arizona Corporation Commissioner proposed that regulated utilities (water and electricity) be denied to customers unable to provide proof of legal residency status. This was proposed in the middle of Arizona’s summer, when temperatures stay consistently above 100° F.
Significance of the Media in the Representation of Social and Ethnic Relations
In the distribution of news among individuals, the media occupies a prevalent position. Aside from private communications among individuals, which are limited in scope, most new information is gained through access to the media. In fact, for the vast majority of the population the “media is the single most influential source of the public’s daily comprehension of the changing social climate” (Santa Ana, 2002, p. 49). Indeed, media discourse is the main source of attitudes and ideologies for ordinary citizens (Johnson, 2008; van Dijk, 1987, 2000).
Newspapers share two important traits with other forms of mass media. First, they have control in terms of access. Second, newspapers have the ability to control the shape of the news event. These news events are interpreted by the newspapers in distinct and precise ways, which in turn may influence how the public perceives them (Santa Ana, 2002). These two traits have the potential of producing an advocacy imbalance, as certain groups are given an outlet to express their views while others are rejected the opportunity to express theirs (Crawford, 2004). When this happens, the result is a journalistic bias that may sway public opinion toward a certain state of mind on particular issues. Newspapers, far from being neutral in their transmission of news to the public, play an active role in the reproduction of certain ideologies (van Dijk, 1988).
Previous research has studied the issue of how ethnic minorities are represented in newspapers. These studies have looked into issues such as the dehumanizing portrait that newspapers give of immigrants (Santa Ana, 1999, 2002), the xenophobic elements included in news reporting (Igartua et al., 2004), and the use of specific messages geared to influence public opinion (Johnson, 2005; Santa Ana, 1999; Wiley & Wright, 2004; Wright, 2005). Also, Kerevel (2011) analyzed the influence of Spanish-language media among Latinos, concluding that Spanish-language media and English-language media have different goals. The use of Spanish-language media fosters a sense of group consciousness among Latinos. The same study found that Spanish-language media portrays more liberal attitudes toward immigration. Similarly, a study conducted by Branton and Dunaway (2008) found that Spanish-speaking news outlets include a larger and more positive coverage of issues related to immigration than the English-speaking news outlets. In consequence, newspapers play a key role in the representation of ethnic minorities. In the case of mainstream media, the coverage of immigrants is often put in a negative light, usually to report criminal activity. However, the positive contributions of immigrants to the cultural, social, or economic life of the country are seldom portrayed.
Theoretical Framework
Newspapers have the potential to contribute to the inequalities among different ethnic groups in society. In consequence, this study was situated within the parameters of critical race theory (CRT) and used the analytical constructs of interest convergence and majoritarian as well as counter-storytelling narratives to explain the arguments provided by two newspapers to justify the need for immigration reform. CRT studies the relationship among race, racism, and power. In doing so, scholars ascribing to this theoretical frame support the following tenets: First, racism is a common occurrence in the United States; second, liberalism prevents parity between the races; third, the interest-convergence theory posits that people of color can achieve only limited success; and fourth, the law is not clear and neutral and, consequently, there is a need for a different perspective based on the lived experiences of the historically oppressed minorities (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012).
Focusing on the third principle above, the interest-convergence theory holds that “the rights of oppressed groups are recognized and legitimated only when they further the interests of the dominant class and of society’s governing institutions” (Donnor, 2006, p. 158). This concept, with origins in the Marxist theory of class conflict (Taylor, 2009), was originally laid out by Bell (1980) to explain the social, economic, and political advances of African Americans since the U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education. In the present study, the construct of interest convergence provided a conceptual space for the analysis of the findings.
This study also used two specific constructs tied to CRT. Majoritarian storytelling was used to illustrate how events taking place in connection to immigration reform were described by members of the dominant or majority groups. These groups used their own values and beliefs to justify the actions they took to ensure their dominant position. On the other hand, this article also shows how counter-storytelling was used to transmit a narrative connected to immigration reform that challenged the stories of those in power (Love, 2004). Expanding on these two notions, the study argues that majoritarian stories are generated from tenets associated with racial privilege, and that these stories involve assumptions generated by persons in positions of racialized privilege. These stories, in sum, give privilege to those in power (Solorzano & Yosso, 2002a, 2002b). Concurrently, this article also shows how counter-storytelling can be used to expose and challenge majoritarian stories based on racial privilege (Merriweather, Guy, & Manglitz, 2006; Yosso, Villalpando, Bernal, & Solórzano, 2001).
Method
The object of this study was to ascertain the types of arguments provided by the newspapers The Arizona Republic and La Prensa Hispana to support immigration reform and to draw a comparison between both publications on this basis. The Arizona Republic was, as of March 2013, the 20th most circulated newspaper in the United States and the first most circulated in Arizona (Lulofs, 2013). It is published in Phoenix, Arizona, by the Gannet Company, the largest newspaper publisher in the nation. La Prensa Hispana, also published in Phoenix, is a free weekly Spanish-language newspaper distributed widely among the Hispanic community in Arizona.
The study used content analysis as the method for text analysis and followed the procedural guidelines outlined by Titscher, Meyer, Wodak, and Vetter (2000). The purpose of selecting this research technique was to allow for the possibility of making replicable and valid inferences from texts to the contexts of their use (Krippendorff, 2004). Sampling was performed selecting all the material relevant to the study for the time period investigated (2007-2011). The units of analysis—defined as “the smallest components of texts in which the occurrence and the characterization of variables (properties, categories) are examined” (Titscher et al., 2000, p. 58)—were characterized at the semantic level in the form of meanings of words, sentences, and paragraphs (Krippendorff, 2004; Titscher et al., 2000). Each unit of analysis was coded and allocated to one or more categories. The categories were the result of operational definitions of variables. The explicit definitions of these variables, which remained stable throughout the coding, assured intra-coder reliability. Other standard attributes were also coded, such as the name of the newspaper, date, theme, and journalistic genre (van Dijk, 1991). Finally, a subjective summary of the article was recorded. The “Results” section of this article provides textual examples of every category. The categories were established before the coding process began and were regarded in terms of a nominal scale: The units of analysis either belonged or did not belong to each of the categories.
The units of analysis were generated from the editorials of the two selected newspapers. Articles from The Arizona Republic were accessed online through the newspaper’s archives. The term used for the search was immigration reform and was limited to editorial pieces. Once an article was located, a copy was made in the form of a pdf file. This file was then uploaded into Atlas.ti, a qualitative analysis software package. Editorials from La Prensa Hispana were also accessed online through their digital archives. Each edition of the newspaper is available as a pdf file. As the newspaper does not have a query system, each file had to be read to determine whether any of the editorial pieces met the criteria for inclusion in the study. When an editorial was selected, it was uploaded into Atlas.ti.
Editorials from The Arizona Republic were authored by the newspaper’s editorial board and explicitly represented the opinions of the newspaper. In the case of La Prensa Hispana, the editorial pieces were on some occasions signed by a contributor, while in other instances they were not signed. The editorials were read in English in The Arizona Republic and in Spanish in La Prensa Hispana and coded by the author, a bilingual speaker of English and Spanish accustomed to reading newspapers in both languages.
The period 2007-2011 was selected for the study. In 2007, a significant immigration law was passed by the Arizona legislature: The Legal Arizona Workers Act constituted the first major legislative effort to curtail the rights of undocumented immigrants and marked the beginning of a series of laws targeting this population. The 4-year interval selected was one in which the political tensions between the state of Arizona and the federal government became evident, and the issue of immigration reform came to the foreground of the political debate.
Results
A total of 77 editorials were selected for the study. Of these, 48 were published by The Arizona Republic and 29 by La Prensa Hispana. Within these editorials, 107 quotes or segments of relevant text were identified, 68 from The Arizona Republic and 39 from La Prensa Hispana. Five arguments in favor of immigration reform were identified in these texts. Table 1 shows the frequency of the five arguments for each of the newspapers and their description.
Frequency of the Categories.
Note. LPH = La Prensa Hispana; AZR = The Arizona Republic.
La Prensa Hispana
Among these five categories, the one termed civic appeals was the most widely found among the editorials from La Prensa Hispana. Almost half of the arguments used in favor of immigration reform (47.5%) were formulated on the basis of an appeal to the readership to take political action. Reform was portrayed as the last hope for the immigrant community, and thus the need for taking an active role. However, these appeals were tempered with skepticism and discouragement. This was the tone of an editorial piece in which the newspaper stated that some of the arguments used against immigration reform were nothing but myths. Among these myths were the non-taxation of immigrants, their lack of willingness to learn the English language, loss of jobs for Americans, increased criminality, and immigrant’s undue access to public benefits (La Prensa Hispana, January 20, 2010).
The second most cited argument in favor of immigration reform in La Prensa Hispana was that of the economic benefits that the reform would bring. One in five arguments centered on the idea that immigrants are an asset for the economy. First, the Hispanic newspaper gave assurances that the legalization of undocumented immigrants would bring an important source of income for the government through the imposition of fines. Also, the editorial assured that immigrants do not take the jobs of Americans. They instead take jobs unwanted by Americans, those most difficult to perform and with the lowest wages:
Ningún argumento es válido para no reconocer a los 12 millones de indocumentados que realizan los trabajos más difíciles y duros que otros norteamericanos no desean ni están dispuestos a desempeñar. (La Prensa Hispana, July 1, 2009)
Also with the same numerical importance in regard to frequency, a third category of arguments used by the Hispanic newspaper centered on humanitarian reasons to justify immigration reform. La Prensa Hispana cited the desperation of immigrant workers, who risk their lives in a quest for survival trying to escape hunger and death. According to the newspaper, immigrants travel to the United States, where they work long days in miserable conditions for low wages. This should be received with gratitude by the American public:
. . . solo a un loco se le ocurriría arriesgar su vida en el desierto, llegar a un país con idioma y cultura extraños, exponerse a malos tratos y ganar sueldos de miseria. Pero el gringo, aún con sentido común, no sabe lo que es vivir con pura tortilla de sal, a ver a los hijos morir por enfermedades curables tan simples como la diarrea porque los servicios médicos no llegan al pueblo. (La Prensa Hispana, April 25, 2007)
This dramatic albeit powerful illustration of the lives of immigrants was further supported with mentions of the dangers of illegal crossings and the vulnerability attached to living in the margins of society. Deaths caused by the extreme heat in the Sonoran desert were mentioned to convey the need for an urgent reform that would put an end to the illegal crossings on the Mexican American border. All this could be avoided, the editorials affirmed, with a comprehensive, humane, and fair immigration reform, a reform that would allow families to escape living in the shadows of society.
A fourth argument dealt with homeland security (7.5% of occurrences). For La Prensa Hispana, opponents of immigration reform mention the safety of the United States to defend that any reform should focus first on securing the border. La Prensa Hispana acknowledged that arguments connecting drug and gun trafficking to immigration as well as the idea that human smugglers control the Mexican American border are routinely used to oppose immigration reform. This, in turn, triggers sentiments of fear among the population who are then inclined to vote for public office in favor of individuals opposing immigration. The public prioritizes the sense of security over the potential economic advantages of immigration. To oppose this narrative, La Prensa Hispana offered its own counter-narrative, one that affirms that the legalization of the immigrant population would allow for the identification of foreign nationals and an increased control over the flux of individuals across the border.
The fifth and last category of arguments was related to the idea of reform as a right (5%). The newspaper expressed resentment affirming that immigrants have traditionally earned low wages for their hard labor at the same time that mistreatment has been common. Immigration reform would be a compensation for that suffering. In consequence, reform was considered a right that immigrant workers have gained:
La reforma migratoria no es un regalo ni un favor del gobierno al inmigrante, es un derecho que se han ganado desde el momento que tuvieron el valor de desprenderse de sus familias, pasar hambres, peligros y humillaciones con el único propósito de mandar unos centavos a sus seres queridos. (La Prensa Hispana, April 25, 2007)
The Arizona Republic
In clear contrast to La Prensa Hispana, the most cited argument found in the editorials of The Arizona Republic referred to the economic benefits of immigration reform. Whereas only 20% of the editorials mentioned this argument in the Hispanic newspaper, 51% alluded to financial considerations in the English-speaking publication. Moreover, there was a clear difference in how the argument was used. For The Arizona Republic, immigration reform must be based on a guest-worker program. The premise is that there is a shortage of labor in the United States, and that immigrants could fulfill that shortage. The newspaper proposed the wide implementation of a program labeled E-Verify, an online-based system that allows employers to determine the eligibility of their employees to work in the United States. Immigration reform, for The Arizona Republic, has to be based on providing U.S. employers with a stable and reliable workforce. A guest-worker program, it was argued, would create this pipeline from which businesses would collect the workers they need. This type of initiative, coupled with an identification system and the imposition of sanctions on employers who contravene the system, would halt access to jobs by undocumented immigrants, which in turn would enhance border security. The Arizona Republic, then, was explicit in defining illegal immigration as an economic phenomenon. In fact, the newspaper did not see massive deportation of 12 million undocumented immigrants as a viable option because of the job vacancies that would be created by such a measure:
. . . the 12 million [immigrants] are part of our economy. If they left, they would create job vacancies. We need their labor. We also need to gain control or our borders. (The Arizona Republic, November 7, 2007)
The second argument most frequently used by The Arizona Republic referred to homeland security (22.8% of occurrences). This argument came attached to the argument of the economic benefits for American businesses in 18 of the 21 occurrences identified in the editorials (85.7%). Reform, the editorials assured, will revert to benefits for all workers at the same time that it will increase security in the communities. The idea behind this reasoning was that eliminating the demand of jobs for undocumented workers would have the effect of securing the border, stopping drug smugglers, putting an end to cartel violence, and even preventing terrorist activities.
Civic appeals, the most prominent type of argument used by La Prensa Hispana, occupied a third place in The Arizona Republic (19.6% of the total occurrences). There were calls for action to both President Obama and Congress, and the blame was placed on the federal government for the lack of progress in passing a comprehensive immigration reform. In fact, The Arizona Republic affirmed that it is the inaction at the federal level that gives states an opportunity to legislate on immigration policies, which runs counter to the needs of the nation. However, at the same time the newspaper strongly criticized the series of laws passed by the Arizona legislature, qualifying them as “out-of touch with Arizona’s heritage” (The Arizona Republic, December 18, 2010). This heritage, although not stated, referred to the Hispanic legacy, including its history, culture, and language, elements that are shared to a great extent by the undocumented and the Mexican American communities in the state. The Arizona Republic (December 12, 2010) did not hesitate to describe current immigration policies as “clunky and unrealistic.”
The last of the arguments cited by The Arizona Republic was centered on humanitarian reasons (6.5% of the occurrences). Treating all workers with human dignity warranted appeals for comprehensive reform made to both President Obama and Congress. There needs to be, the newspaper affirmed, a humane resolution to the issue of undocumented immigration. A contrast with Utah was made in several editorials, highlighting the “humane, rational and business-friendly approach” taken by this state in immigration issues (The Arizona Republic, March 23, 2011). For The Arizona Republic, such an approach respects the principles of family, work ethic, and the fact that undocumented immigrants tend to perform jobs that Americans are not willing to take.
Discussion
Almost half of the editorials from La Prensa Hispana included a civic appeal to their readership to become politically active and demand immigration reform. Much of that readership is comprised of individuals who are either immigrants or have close ties with the immigrant community. La Prensa Hispana unequivocally empathized with immigrants and their circumstances. In its editorials, there was a feeling that reform is the last resort for immigrants, mixed with a sense of desperation. This was combined with skepticism about the willingness of policy makers to undertake comprehensive immigration reform. There was a sense of hopelessness in the thought that the ideals of democracy and humanism at the core of the United States may not be as weighty as the reality of the political environment of the country. But even in the midst of this feeling of hopelessness, there was confidence that the shared values of the immigrant and non-immigrant communities will be strong enough to push the reform forward. Offering a counter-narrative to the prevalent discourse that stresses the alleged points of conflict between American citizens and immigrants, La Prensa Hispana affirmed that the points of common interest outweigh the differences.
In order of numerical importance, the second argument cited by La Prensa Hispana centered on the economic benefits of immigration. Public discourse on immigration tends to focus on the burden that immigrants cause to the nation. This majoritarian storytelling perpetuates ideas and beliefs commonly held in society that are unchallenged in the public discourse, thus helping maintain the current status quo based on inequality. The Spanish-language newspaper opposed this discourse and offered its own counter-narrative: The legalization of undocumented immigrants would bring an important source of revenue for the government through the collection of fines. The counter-storytelling opposed and challenged the narratives offered by the mainstream media by proposing a different perspective, one based on the views of those who are systematically marginalized by the immigration policies.
Another element in the public discourse against the presence of immigrants—both documented and undocumented—was the idea that immigrants take the jobs of Americans. In this case, La Prensa Hispana counter argued that immigrants perform jobs that Americans will not do because of the nature of those jobs or their pay. The newspaper suggested that the potential financial market that immigrants would open with their full participation in the consumeristic economy would greatly boost the nation’s finances. La Prensa Hispana also asserted the positive economic impact of reform, citing a study conducted by an independent organization to reinforce the benefits of immigration. This served the purpose of providing readers with a sense that immigration reform is a financially sound initiative, thus departing from the majoritarian discourse that stresses the burden that immigration causes to taxpayers.
There was also an attempt by La Prensa Hispana to counter the prevailing discourse among the American people related to the physical dangers that immigrants bring to society. The counter-narrative offered by La Prensa Hispana opposed the idea that the border is controlled by drug and human smugglers. Instead, it proposed a reform that would make illegal border crossings unnecessary. This counter-storytelling challenged “the perceived wisdom of those at society’s center” (Solorzano & Yosso, 2002a, p. 156). La Prensa Hispana, moreover, advanced the notion of reform as a right for immigrants, a right born out of the idea that immigrant workers have contributed to the American society through their hard work. Core values of American life such as social justice, freedom, democracy, and progress should be applied, the newspaper affirmed, to the immigrant population.
Even though The Arizona Republic also supported immigration reform, there was a clear shift in the types of arguments provided for such support. Whereas La Prensa Hispana focused mostly on making civic appeals to the public, the English-speaking newspaper focused on economic and financial considerations. The editorials showed an approach based on the labor needs of American businesses. Reform, for this newspaper, will result in a stable and organized system through which employers are able to fulfill their needs for workers and carry out their operations. The problem resides in the existence of demand for labor. A guest-worker program would satisfy the demand and eliminate the need to hire undocumented workers. This, in turn, would result in the elimination of illegal border crossings, which would allow the United States to focus on drug trafficking along the border. The Arizona Republic, thus, tied immigration reform and the establishment of a guest-worker program to the topic of border security. In fact, the argument related to homeland security was usually attached to the argument based on the economic benefits of immigration reform, and it was extended beyond border security to include the topic of drug trafficking. The use of this narrative by The Arizona Republic indicates that the editorial board supported immigration reform only because it benefits the economic interests of corporations such as themselves. The notion of interest convergence, central to CRT, explains the preponderance of the economic appeals in the defense of immigration reform.
The notion of interest convergence provides the conceptual space to understand that the interests of oppressed groups, in this case immigrants, are recognized and legitimized only because they further the interests of the dominant class (Donnor, 2006). Also, the majoritarian storytelling notion of CRT helps understand the discourse of The Arizona Republic, a discourse that prioritized the values and beliefs of the dominant and majority groups. La Prensa Hispana, on the other hand, provided a counter-storytelling narrative, building a community among those who are marginalized and providing “a context to understand and transform established belief systems” (Solorzano & Yosso, 2002a, p. 36). The counter-stories in La Prensa Hispana challenged the perceived wisdom of its mainstream counterpart, The Arizona Republic, opening new windows into reality (Delgado, 1989) by offering an alternative perspective in the discussion over the topic of immigration reform, challenging the majoritarian story (Solorzano & Yosso, 2001). This is in stark contrast with the majoritarian story of The Arizona Republic in which immigrants are only an accessory to the economic development of the state. Under this narrative, immigration reform must be carried out to benefit business people, employers, and executives, the vast majority of which are White. This point of view is adopted as the normative point of reference (Solorzano & Yosso, 2002b) for the discussion over the suitability of immigration reform. On the other hand, the analysis of the editorial pieces of La Prensa Hispana shows the narrative of “those people whose experiences are not often told” (Solorzano & Yosso, 2002b, p. 32). This was the case, for example, when the Spanish-language newspaper challenged the majoritarian narrative related to immigrants by affirming that immigrants pay taxes, are eager to learn English, do not cause Americans to lose their jobs, do not increase criminality, and do not squander public benefits. However, as Solorzano and Yosso (2002b) asserted, “Counter-stories need not be created only as a direct response to majoritarian stories” (p. 32). This is precisely what La Prensa Hispana did when it introduced the argument that immigration reform is the response to the curtailment of civic rights of undocumented immigrants in Arizona, such as the impossibility to obtain driver’s or marriage licenses, attend public English-language classes, and pay in-state tuition in public colleges and universities.
Both newspapers appeal to different readerships. In the case of La Prensa Hispana, the audience of this news outlet is likely to share a unique perspective in favor of immigration reform. The vast majority of readers of Spanish-language newspapers have ties to the immigrant community. La Prensa Hispana, consequently, portrayed news related to immigration in a favorable way. The Arizona Republic, on the other hand, tends to focus on English-speaking audience. Studies have shown the tendency of English-language news outlets to portray immigrants as outsiders and prone to violence and crime (Branton & Dunaway, 2008). The Arizona Republic reflected this view of immigration as a danger to the community. Catering to their respective audiences, we can conclude that newspapers play an important role in the reproduction of ideologies related to immigration. From this, it can be said that newspapers with a relatively small circulation, such as La Prensa Hispana, are limited in their capacity to spread their viewpoints. They occupy, in fact, a marginalized position among media outlets. The result is that although readers of La Prensa Hispana are likely to be aware of the immigration views supported by The Arizona Republic, the opposite is probably not the case. The imbalance of reach between The Arizona Republic and La Prensa Hispana produces an advocacy imbalance in which certain groups are allowed to express their views at the same time the others, with opposing views, are rejected (Crawford, 2004). The disparity explains the advantage of the former to transmit to the public messages aligning with the views of the dominant groups in society. This majoritarian narrative has the potential to produce and reproduce discriminatory messages, perpetuating the ideologies of those opposing immigration. This confirms the idea that the media plays a fundamental role in the construction of multi-ethnic spheres (Husband, 2000) and the public representation of social relations (Cottle, 2000).
The question that remains, then, is how to find a way to mitigate the detrimental effects of the majoritarian discourse on the prospects for a meaningful and humanitarian immigration reform. An answer to this problem would be to increase the presence of marginalized voices in mainstream English-language media, tempering the prevailing negative views on immigrants and immigration, and offering an alternative message to the public. This would allow the audience to enrich their own realities, dispelling the notion that their way of seeing the world is the only alternative (Delgado, 1989). The effect would be a healthy debate over immigration reform in which all voices are heard.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.