Fear and Threat in Illegal America: Latinas/os, Immigration, and Progressive Representation in Colorblind Times.

Abstract

“Fear and Threat in Illegal America” is a cultural studies critical discourse analysis of how Latinas/os are interpellated as “illegal aliens” as a mode of U.S. neoliberal social regulation by progressive public policy, immigration history, corporate policies, and media representations. My dissertation’s central organizing question is: how are ideologies of personal responsibly and colorblindness at times unwittingly espoused through the policies and practices of self-identified progressive media, corporate, and legislative initiatives? Through analyzing progressive sources, my research suggests that ideologies of colorblindness are now common sense, interpellated by individuals and institutions of a myriad of political leanings. In order to begin to deconstruct such pervasive ideologies, I assert that we must recognize how insidious notions of colorblindness and personal responsibility are in the ways that even the most progressive, affluent, and well-educated among us live, work, consume, and understand the world. Specifically, this dissertation examines how progressive institutions, businesses, and federal policy each perpetuate a covert class- and race-based neoliberal brands of social regulation that work to racialize undocumented Latinas/os as darker-skinned and as politically, criminally, sexually, and linguistically threatening. The thesis of my dissertation is that the post-1965 racial construction of Latinas/os continues a longstanding tradition of stereotyping Latinas/os as perpetual foreigners. “Fear and Threat in Illegal America” highlights a new contemporary “colorblind” racial configuration of Latinas/os, and the ways in which racism can continue in subtle forms under the rubric of colorblindness.