Over the past few years the United States has experienced a troubling crisis of anti-Latino sentiment. Xenophobia towards Latinos is likely the product of white anxiety over the growing economic, social, and cultural power of the Latino community and the threat this poses to white hegemony. As a result of these misplaced anxieties several states such as Arizona have enacted racially motivated and ineffective laws to curve immigration and intimidate Latinos. A new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center recently found that Alabama's passage of law HB 56 is having an especially damaging effect on the Latino community. Amongst other troubling implications HB 56 requires police officers to check for immigration papers at the most routine of stops, it prohibits undocumented immigrants from receiving any public benefits, and undocumented children must be ejected from their schools.
Besides the direct legal consequences of the law, the SPLC notes that it creates an intense atmosphere of xenophobia and functions as a de facto endorsement of racist acts. The report goes on to explain that people have been refused treatment at hospitals, payment for work, and even running water in their homes.
http://www.splcenter.org/alabamas-shame-hb56-and-the-war-on-immigrants
I will like to cite the ending part of the article:
ReplyDelete“Hateful people are hateful no matter what, but with this law they feel more empowered,” Enrique Corral, a U.S. citizen in Alabama, said of the new attitude adopted by some residents. “If I used to just spit on you, now I’m going to spit on you and kick you when you’re down.”
Hatred is an emotion which I find very challenging to describe in that it turns the people possessed by it into different characters. Hatred for the "other" stirs up the language of dislike and oppression.
Oppression from this article is expressed towards the Latino community through the severe hardship that they are made to go through because of their ethnicity.