Thread: NAHJ Urges News Media to Stop Using Dehumanizing Terms When

The terminology is correct so why should we quit using it? GET OVER IT.
If they want people to stop using the term illegal alien, then maybe they should stop calling the American citizens racists and xenophobes simply because we want our laws enforced.

First and foremost who cares about being PC toward people who think that american laws don't exist for them. Yesterday during a townhall meeting with Tom Davis, a individual stated that we should give anyone who has been for 5 years amnesty. Boy did he catch it. Tom kept using the term a large fence with a big gate and that people need to come through the gate. Anyhow, Tom was using the term illegal aliens which is what they are. Deport everyone and fall Canada example of sending the anchor babies with them.

Illegal Aliens are not undocumented immigrants.

They are for the most part criminals with stolen documents.

What great personal pride they have to use anothers identity and then
talk about Americans lack of heritage.

ICE handcuffs and locks up Illegal Aliens because they are illegal aliens
not because there "strange or hostile."

This is the USA where we have freedom of the press and may use any
terms we want.

NAHJ you can KMA

Oh Plleeease! Sorry for calling it like it is! Next they'll want to be referred to as " the poor helpless goodhearted hardworking want to be Americans" Make me barf!

OK, I dug up George Orwell quotes and found a couple that fit here:

"In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible."

"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink."

"Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

added to homepage

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=N ... e&sid=1931

I looked up alien in the dictionary and it has many meanings. When it comes to immigration it states: "a foreigner, esp. one who is not a naturalized citizen of the country where he or she is living." Then there are other definitions of the word where it is used on the negative sense such as "army discipline was alien to he." They are manipulating the word meaning just as some manipulate what is in the bible in their favor.

http://kpearson.faculty.tcnj.edu/Dictionary/wetback.htm
Kim Pearson

� 2003-4. All Rights Reserved



WETBACK

Etymology

The word "wetback" is a relatively new disparaging term for "an illegal Mexican immigrant or worker who crosses the Rio Grande into the United States, sometimes swimming to get across" (Hendrickson, 1997). There is some debate as to when the word was first recorded. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first recorded use of the word was in 1929 when Foreign Affairs used it to refer to a peon that walks or swims across and is welcomed by countrymen as a �wetback�. However, according to the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, the first recorded use was in 1948 when the number of illegal Mexicans swarming the United States increased by a significantly large percentage.



Semantics

The word "wetback" became widely used when the United States became involved in a military operation known as Operation Wetback. Post World War II, millions of Mexicans swarmed to the United States as the demand for cheap agricultural laborers increased. Between 1944 and 1954, known as "the decade of the wetback," "the number of illegal Mexican alien workers swimming across the Rio Grande to the United States increased by 6,000 percent" (Operation Wetback, 1997).

As a result, in 1954 Operation Wetback got under way as a national reaction against illegal immigration. Commissioner of INS, Joseph Swing oversaw the Border patrol, and organized state and local officials along with the police. The purpose of border enforcement was "illegal aliens," but Operation Wetback became strictly focused on Mexicans in general. Officials swarmed Mexican American neighborhoods in southeastern states. Some Mexicans, "fearful of the potential violence of this militarization, fled back south across the border" (Operation Wetback, 1997). In 1954, the agents discovered over one million illegal immigrants. Many of the illegal immigrants were deported to Mexico by trucks, buses, trains, and even ships. In some cases, "illegal immigrants were deported along with their American-born children, who were by law U.S. citizens" (Operation Wetback, 1997). The agents used a broad criterion for determining who were potential aliens. They began racial profiling of Mexicans on the street. This practice incited and angered many U.S. citizens who were of Mexican American descent. "Opponents in both the United States and Mexico complained of "police-state" methods, and Operation Wetback was abandoned" (Operation Wetback, 1997).



Cultural Adoption

After Operation Wetback, the term became very popular among American culture as a way of defining Mexicans. Eventually, the term began to be used to refer to all Hispanics in general. To a Hispanic, the word "wetback" is just as derogatory as the word "******" to an African American. In fact, in 1997, Mary Ann Vigil took her employer to court after she claimed that while "working as a department clerk typist at the Las Cruces International Airport, her supervisor "frequently" referred to Hispanics as "wetbacks," and, in response to complaints that Hispanic customers were overcharged, stated, "I didn't know that Mexicans had rights."" (Mary Ann Vigil v. City of Las Cruces, 1997). Judges ruled against Vigil in this case because they felt that a couple of isolated comments did not truly constitute racial discrimination or bigotry. However, the case is worthy of mention because it shows the anger that a term like "wetback" arises among the Hispanic community.

In certain parts of the United States, the word appears to be more prominent than in other places. For instance, according to Dan Marlowe, a Sante Fe attorney from Oakland, "he didn�t know what racism was until he came to New Mexico and noticed how often New Mexicans referred to Mexicans as "mojados," or wetbacks" (Not Much of a Joke, 1999, pg. 3).

Similarly, during an Assembly Ways and Means Committee hearing in Nevada, politician John Marvel "averred as to how �wetback� laborers might be hired to do repair work because they were good at working with adobe" (Not Much of a Joke, 1999). The assemblyman tried to explain that he was just trying to "make a joke." However, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, as an educated man and politician, John Marvel surely knew that "referring to immigrants as "wetbacks" is offensive to Hispanics and non-Hispanics alike" (Not Much of a Joke, 1999).

Unfortunately, many Hispanics grow up in communities where they are constantly haunted by the use of the term "wetback". For instance, Rafael Espinoza is Salvadoran, born in El Salvador. He came to the United States on his own at the age of 15. He is now a 30-year-old union leader, the father of the three children, and married to a Caucasian woman. He explained in an interview that the first word he learned when arriving in this country was "wetback." (Steinberg, 199. Similar to Rafael, many Hispanics, even Hispanic-Americans, are exposed to this term daily. Regardless of nationality, if a person does not look Caucasian and speaks perfect Spanish, chances are they will be called a "wetback" at some point.

Discrimination among Hispanics is very prominent in the United States. For this reason, many Hispanics have band together to bring awareness to the problem. For instance, one Latin music band, Los Nortenos de Ojinaga, wrote a song called "La Discriminacion" which translates to "The Discrimination". The lyrics say: "We will always be the same, even if you become a citizen, even if some carry permits and others are already arranged, in the gringo�s eyes, we will always be wetbacks" (Lyrics Reflect Social Issues in Mexico, 2002, pg. .

As a result, the term "wetback" is a racial slur that is very offensive to the Hispanic community. It is almost as offensive as calling a Hispanic a "****". Although the word has gained popularity in the United States, it is a word that has a negative connotation for many Hispanics.

Works Cited

Lyrics reflect social issues in Mexico. (2002, February 27). Los Angeles Times:

Wednesday Home Edition; Part 5, pg. 8. Lexis-Nexis. 27 Feb. 2002.




Steinberg, Gale. (199. If the shoe doesn�t fit. Retrieved February 26, 2002 from the

World Wide Web: http://www.pactadopt.org/press/articles/shoe.html



Hendrickson, Robert. (1997). The facts on file: Encyclopedia of word and phrase origins:

Revised and expanded edition. New York: Facts on File.



Operation wetback. (1997). The handbook of Texas online. Retrieved February 26,

2002 from the World Wide Web:

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/onl ... pquo1.html



Vigil v. city of Las Cruces. (1997, July 24). United States Court of Appeals: Tenth

Circuit. No. 96-2059. Retrieved February 26, 2002 from the World Wide Web:

http://www.law.emory.edu/10circuit/text ... 59.wpd.txt

compiled by Patricia Montane

February 28, 2002

Rhetoric of Race Dictionary Project home

Rhetoric of Race Home

Originally Posted by sippy

The terminology is correct so why should we quit using it? GET OVER IT.
If they want people to stop using the term illegal alien, then maybe they should stop calling the American citizens racists and xenophobes simply because we want our laws enforced.

Or Sippy, if they want us to stop using the term illegl alien, they could simply come in to our country legally. I do believe that would solve the problem!!!

The hell with that undocumented immigrant crap. They are criminals and nothing more. I could care less what the nahj thinks. I and millions of other Americans will continue to call them what they are- ILLEGAL ALIENS. Enough said.