The Changing Face of Racial Discrimination: Hispanics as the Dominant Minority in the United
States—A New Application of Power-Threat Theory
John Markert
Critical Sociology, forthcoming
ABSTRACT
According to Hubert Blalock's (1967) power-threat theory, the
larger the minority group's size, the greater the threat to the majority
group, who will respond to the perceived threat by instituting legal
controls and other measures to protect their dominant status. Most of
Blalock's examples, and much of the subsequent empirical
investigation into the power-threat thesis, focus on Anglo and African
American relations. Changing demographics will likely alter existing
majority-minority relations as Hispanics displace African Americans
as the largest minority. This will change the face of racial
discrimination in the country. Indeed, this paper suggests that the
animosity toward Latinos by both the majority white and minority
black populations may be more intense than those shaping
contemporary white-black relations. This is because of two key
lifestyle features that have not contaminated black-white relations but
may be exacerbating hostility toward Hispanics: 1) their perceived
illegal status in the country, and 2) the perception that Hispanics resist
learning English. The role of the media in perpetuating these
stereotypes and inflaming hostility toward Latinos is also discussed.
Hubert Blalock's (1967) famous power-threat thesis suggests that the larger the
minority group's size, the greater the threat to the majority group, who will respond to the
perceived threat by instituting legal controls and other measures to protect their dominant
status. Blalock identifies two primary types of perceived threats that motivate the majority
group to discriminate against a minority: competition over economic resources and competition
for political power. He also recognizes that it might be difficult to distinguish between the two
since they operate in tandem with one another. The difficulty in distinguishing between
economic and political motivating factors is one of the reason Blalock proposes that while a
positive curvilinear distinction may occur, both are basically positive and linear and can be
treated as such: the larger the minority the more of a threat it poses to the majority. This
central tenet of his power-threat thesis has generally been maintained both intuitively and
empirically (see Sheley, 1995; Hawkins and Hardy, 1990; O’Brien, 1991).
Of course, size in itself is a problematic explanatory variable. Blalock anticipates
this problem. He merely suggests that size is a factor that is correlated with discrimination
and interrelated to a host of other variables in complex ways. But size, in itself, does not
explain the intensity of hostility. The argument advanced in this paper is that the intensity
of the hostility toward Hispanics/Latinos,1while correlated with size, goes beyond size.
Accordingly, I suggest that the more distinct the minority is from the majority’s lifestyles,
2
the more pronounced the threat appears; the more pronounced the threat, the more intense
the hostility toward the minority. This paper will explore two key lifestyle features that
have not contaminated black-white relations but may exacerbate hostility toward Latinos by
both Anglo and African Americans: 1) their perceived illegal status in the country, and 2)
the perception that Hispanics resist learning English. The role of the media in influencing
perception and inflaming hostility is first addressed.
Mediating Reality
The media has always played a role in drawing attention toward (or away from) an
issue by the time and/or space devoted to the subject and the way the issue is framed. The
media has become much more pronounced in the half-century since Blalock examined racial
relations, largely owing to the ubiquity of television today (see Gorman and McLean, 2003:
135-150; Cummins and Gordon, 2006). The news, in particular, has generated considerable
attention because its rapid-fire method of delivery of “real world” events tends to mask the
slant of the story and prevents the viewer from recognizing how the story was framed (see
Barkin, 2003; Kerbel, 2000). Television’s dominance has forced the print media to compete
by being more visual and in reporting the news to mimic television’s descriptive, often
negative rhetoric (Hunter, 2006, 1991; Goldberg, 2002; see also Prichard, 1987). Of course,
pictures have always been used to tell a story, and negative rhetoric is hardly new; however,
it is generally considered to be more pronounced today.
The impact of the media is represented in Weimann’s (2000) hourglass model:
reality is filtered through a mediating variable, “constructed reality,” and this affects one’s
perception of the world. Weimann’s model is a visual depiction of what W. I. Thomas
(1928: 572) so aptly pointed out nearly a century ago: “If men [sic] define situations as real,
they are real in their consequences.”
Weimann acknowledges that the amount of reliance on mass media sources can be
affected by personal experience; nevertheless, the media in his model plays a predominant
role in constructing one’s view of what is happening in the world. Blalock’s original model
more formally acknowledges some of the personal factors (education, occupation, economic
competition) that can influence hostility toward the group, but does not take into account the
increasingly pivotal role of the media. Weimann’s model is here wedded to Blalock’s more
complex model by adding the media as an intervening variable that affects the visibility of
minorities and perceived competition
3
Figure 1
Class variables
Education
Actual
competition
Occupation
Income
Personality
traits
Media
Media
Visibility
of
minorities
Perceived
competition
Prejudice and discrimination
Source: Blalock, 1967:102
*Dotted areas added to Blalock's original model; the rationale for modifying Blalock's model
is explained in the body of the paper.
The role of the media in framing an issue is addressed by Lee (1998) who studied
coverage in the New York Times toward immigration between 1965 and 1995. Prior to
1975, Lee found legal immigration received substantially more attention than illegal
immigration. By 1975, illegal immigration began to receive more media coverage and
surpassed legal immigration coverage and would continue to do so for almost every year
thereafter, even though, Lee points out, the number of legal immigrants entering the country
is often higher than the number of illegal immigrants. Lee did not specifically address what
group the Times depicted, though the majority of his examples suggest they were
predominately Hispanic. Updating Lee’s study to encompass articles in the Times after
1995 (1996-2005), I found the number of articles that dealt with illegal immigrants to have
exponentially increased: Lee’s illegal/legal ratio was never more than 6:1 in any given year,
but the decade between 1996 and 2005 showed this ratio to be nearly 30:1. It is also worth
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noting that the majority of articles addressing the problem of illegal aliens focused on
Latinos by a margin of 5:1.
The media’s focus on the illegal issue, Lee postulates, serves as a good indicator of
what issues the public will likely perceive to be important and, hence, what will reach the
policy agenda. The focus on the New York Times is justified by Lee because it is “the
newspaper of record in America” (p. 61) and helps set the national agenda and influences
the coverage of local media. A content analysis undertaken for this study of 400 randomly
selected articles in regional newspapers (N=6,134) between 1980 and 2001 would suggest
the Times does serve to reflect regional media attention toward the problem of (Hispanics)
illegals.
Lee postulates that the reason for the focus on the illegal issue is that illegal
immigration is ipso facto illegal, so it is more newsworthy. The problem is that these
stories, which he found to be fairly constant, give a false impression that most people—
specifically Latinos—come into the country illegally and fails to report the nearly 1,500
immigrants who legally enter the United States every day. Lee also is critical of the way the
stories are framed, with flag adjectives giving the reader a misperception of the extent of the
problem.
A recent story in the Tennessean, a Gannett newspaper published in middleTennessee further illustrates this point.2 The above-the-fold lead story captures the reader’s
attention with the large type lead, “Hispanic Population Surges in Tennessee.” In itself, this
is not particularly negative. Two bold type stories follow. One is entitled, “States, Cities
React to Influx with a Wave of New Laws”; another “In Midstate Counties, Shift is
Explosive” [my italics]. Below the story is a map of the 95 counties that comprise
Tennessee. The map on the left (1990) shows only one county having any significant Latino
population, the one in the middle (2000) shows many counties have grown 1-3 percent, the
one on the right (2006) shows Hispanics inhabiting nearly every county, with some darkershaded counties witnessing growth in the 5-10 percent and over 10 percent range. The
image of Latinos sweeping across Tennessee is reinforced by the bold headlines and the
textual rhetoric: “Rapidly growing numbers…”; “The number of Hispanics has soared since
2000…”; “the Hispanic population in Pennsylvania’s Luzerne County nearly tripled since
2000….” This is the reason “immigration [has been put] on the front burner,” and why
“Forty-one states have enacted 171 laws aimed at illegal immigrants.” The reader is left
with the impression in these two short, nine paragraph stories that the Hispanic population
that is sweeping across the state reflects what is happening everywhere in the United States,
and while the word illegal is only used one time, the framing of the stories implies that most
Hispanics are in the country illegally. The rhetoric implies to the casual reader that “they”
are “taking over.”3 This type of framing is fairly common. It may to some degree reflect
the perception of non-Hispanics, but it also tends to shape—and inflame—these same
perceptions and must be considered a factor in the increased hostility of non-Hispanics
toward “the Hispanic problem.”4
The media is effective in framing an issue because it relies on simple, easy to
remember stereotypes that are often already embedded within the social mindset (see Lester,
1996). Latino/a scholars have been particularly critical of the prominent panethnic
association found in the media (see Tienda and Mitchell, 2006; de Casanova, 2003; Rowe
and Schelling, 1991). Latino immigrants are lumped together as one “racial” group under
the umbrella term Hispanic/Latino,5 probably because, as Suzanne Oboler (2002: 81)
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observed, Anglo and African Americans are ignorant of geography and know little about
Latin American and Caribbean history and/or culture and this makes the ethnic distinctions
that Latinos recognize a moot point among Anglo/African Americans. This panethnic
association could be mitigated by personal experience: interaction with various ethnic
groups, such as Guatemalans or Bolivians, could result in a greater awareness of distinctive
character traits among non-Hispanics. But Anglo/African American interaction with
Hispanics outside their usual geographical overrepresentation is fairly limited.6
In one of the few studies to address this specific issue, Jackson (1995; see also
Jackson et al., 1996) found that Anglos had relative limited overall contact with Latinos.
Few had close Hispanic friends (median number 0) and the number of Latino acquaintances
was limited (median number of 5). Not surprisingly, this limited contact tended to produce
an overwhelming number of negative stereotypical associations: uneducated, poor,
rebellious, physically violent, dirty/smelly, noisy, and criminally inclined. Despite the
limited interaction with Hispanics and the pronounced negative stereotypes, Jackson found
there was no pronounced negative emotion associated with Latinos by Anglos. I replicated
part of Jackson’s study in 2007 among a similar group of respondents and surveyed 136
Anglo/African American college students. Findings were very similar: few identified
Hispanics as close friends (median number of 1) and the number of Latino acquaintances
was limited (median number of 5). Students were also asked their overall attitude toward
the group. The response was not noticeably different either. I found 50° on the 100°
evaluation thermometer in comparison to the slightly more “cooler” 44° found by Jackson.7
When the study was repeated among a similar group of respondents (N=112) with the media
added as a mediating variable, those who showed the strongest animosity (60°>) toward
Hispanics (n=34) were twice has likely to have read stories or viewed television shows
and/or news reports that depicted Latinos in a negative light.
The media attention to the “surge” of illegal Hispanics entering the country, as well
as the attention toward immigrants who ostensibly refuse to lean English appears to be
correlated with more negative attitudes toward Latinos. This premise is substantiated by the
hostility toward Latinos that is noticed when the media is added to Jackson’s model. The
media’s depiction of Hispanics can be gleaned from the representative headlines from my
study of regional newspapers that dot this paper, and which purport to convey the public’s
(meaning non-Hispanic’s) attitude toward Latinos.
Methodology
Lee’s (1998) study of the New York Times between 1965 and 1995 was updated by
examining stories that were reported in the Times between 1996 and 2005. The same search
words (legal/illegal immigrants) were used to cull stories from the Times index. Ten percent
of these stories (n=143) were further dissected to ascertain the specific immigrant group that
was the focus of the story. Lee also postulates that the New York Times serves as a
barometer for local news reporting. A study of regional newspapers was conducted to
determine the accuracy of this statement by examining how the stories reported on
immigration. The articles were selected from a newspaper data bank on InfoTrac OneFile
that dealt with the topic of “legal/illegal immigrants.” Four hundred (N=6,134) randomly
sampled newspapers articles (1980-2005) were content analyzed. The findings as reported
in the body of this paper tend to support Lee’s contention, though the rhetoric in some of the
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regional papers—notably the letters to the editor—tend to be more inflammatory than those
found in the Times.
The Jackson (1995) study that has already been critiqued was also updated by
adding the media to determine how the media might play a role in heightening antagonism
toward Latinos. It is recognized that the sample group for both my study and Jackson’s is
limited. Jackson’s survey consisted of 265 Anglo college students at a large Midwestern
university who were in an introductory psychology course; the present study, conducted in
2007, included 136 Anglo and African American college students at a small Southern
university who were in an introductory sociology course. No significant difference was
found between the two studies. A second study was then conducted using a similar group of
respondents (N=112) with the media added as a mediating variable, which cast light on the
role of the media in framing hostility toward Latinos. The small regional population bias
aside, the study allows for the same variables to be measured at two distinct periods, and
that by adding the media marked differences in attitude are discerned. Subsequent studies
might address more diverse groups spread across the United States now that a “media
baseline” has been established.
Changing Racial Demographics:
The New Dominant Minority
Media attention toward Latinos increased after Census 2000 when the Hispanic
population was officially recognized as rivaling African American’s in size: 12.6 percent
vs. 12.7 (Statistical Abstract, 2000: 12). Census 2005 data clearly reveals (legal) Latinos
surpassing the African Americans population: 14.4 percent vs. 12.8 (Statistical Abstract,
2007: 15). The growth of the Latino population may spurn even more concern because of
Census projections, which forecast that Hispanics will constitute 16.6 percent of the
population in 2015 (African Americans: 13.3 percent) and will reach 24.4 percent of the
population by 2050 (Statistical Abstract, 2007: 18).
The Census bureau acknowledges that these projections are based on present
immigration and fertility patterns. But immigration trends have decreased significantly
since their peak in 2000 when the annual legal and illegal inflow was 35 percent higher
(Passel and Suro, 2007), and patterns of fertility typically decline with acculturation:
second- and third-generation Latinos become “Americanized” and take on the values of the
wider society; in other words, the larger three-children families of Hispanic immigrants
(Statistical Abstract, 2000: 65-67) have been found to become smaller and more in line
with replacement levels that currently exist among Anglo/African American families (see
Tienda and Mitchell, 2006; Morales, 2002; Lepinski et al.,1997). In short, the projections
by the Census Bureau should be interpreted with caution (see Markert, 2005). It is these
projections, however, that have garnered media attention. It is quite common for the media
to remark on how much more growth is going to take place and how the face of America
will be transformed into a Hispanic enclave by 2050 with such headlines as “The Changing
Face of L. A.: Latinos, Asians May be 80% Majority by 2050” (Sheppard, 2007; see also
Garcia, 2007; “Hispanics to Blame…”, 2007), or “‘Frightening’ Surge Brings U. S. to
300M People: 400M Expected by 2050” (Elsworth, 2006). The consequence of this,
according to the Daily Progress (Virginia) is that “if Republicans are not positioned to get
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a minimum of 45 percent of the Hispanic vote by 2050, they will never hold the White
House again” (Kessler, 2006).
The tremendous number of recent Hispanic immigrants has increased the size, and
hence the visibility, of Latinos, and has exacerbated hostility toward the group by the nonHispanic citizens of the United States, who often assume that the majority of Hispanics in
the country are here illegally, to a large degree because of media reports that focus on
Hispanic illegals who refuse to learn English. These assumptions by non-Hispanic
residents tend to fuel hostility toward the group and deserve special attention.
Residency: Assumptions of Illegality
Slightly more than 42.7 million legal residents of the United States are of Latin
origin (Statistical Abstract, 2007). Thirty-nine percent (16.6 million) of these residents are
foreign born, 42 percent of whom are naturalized citizens of the United States (Statistical
Abstract, 2007: 46; see also Therrien and Ramirez, 2001). Only a fraction of those in the
country are here illegally or without documentation. It is estimated that there are 11.5 to
12 million undocumented aliens in the country, of which 8.7 million are of Hispanic
origin, most of whom (7.2 million) are of Mexican descent (Passel, 2006). This means, if
the glass is turned over, that it is not only half-full, it is brimming: 85 percent of all
Hispanics are legal residents of the United States, most of whom were born in this
country. One would assume from the polemics against Hispanic illegals that is fostered
in the media that this legal-illegal ratio is reversed.
The anti-Hispanic rhetoric is propagated by what Jorgensen (1996) has called the
“chorus of complaints” by politicians who see America as being infested with illegal
Hispanics (see also Andreas, 1994; Mehan, 1997). By contrast, concern about
undocumented Canadians in the popular press—the fourth largest group of illegal aliens in
the United States after Mexicans, El Salvadorians, and Guatemalans—is practically
nonexistent. The content analysis of regional newspapers conducted for this study found
Hispanic illegal immigrants mentioned predominately, and often exclusively, as the
problem in 87 percent of the articles; in another nine percent, they shared equal space with
at least one other immigrant group; the remaining four percent mentioned non-Hispanic
minorities, and only four of these reports mentioned Canadians. In fact, the few articles
about Canadian illegal immigrants that were found dealt with the unforeseen application of
the 1996 immigration law to those on our northern border. Wilhelm (1997) quotes
Congressman Jack Metcalf, who voted for the bill, saying, “it wasn't supposed to touch
Canadians.” A related article in Time International ("Good-Neighbor Gridlock," 1997)
reports that neither of the bills sponsors (Congressman Smith of Texas and Senator
Simpson of Wyoming) meant for the legislation to apply to Canadians, “who have been
exempted for years from restrictions that apply to, say, Mexican citizens. It's just that no
one remembered to put an exemption for Canadians into the sweeping law.”
This concern about undocumented Hispanics in the country was a driving force
behind the passing of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986, which,
Magaña (2003: 38) argues, was not so much to encourage legalization for undocumented
immigrants in the country, but rather border control: “After almost a decade of debate,
they [politicians] turned to the traditional strategy—a strategy intended to reduce the
economic lure of illegal immigration. IRCA was to substantially reduce illegal
8
immigration by denying jobs to illegal immigrants.” A recurring motif behind the gettough stances of both the IRCA and Illegal Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act
(IRIRA) of 1996 was the economic power-threat that undocumented workers, especially
low-paid Mexicans, posed to the American economy (see McChesney, 2001).
Media critics charge the United States press with raising the specter of a massive
influx of undocumented Mexicans because of economic problems in Mexico (Bustamante,
1997). An analysis of the mass media by Edstrom (1993) finds that American public
opinion is shaped by media reports to regard immigrants as a dangerous influence (see also
Daniels, 2004: 234-236). A separate analysis of major newspapers in the United States by
Coutin and Chock (1995) found Hispanic immigrants to be negatively portrayed with little
attention given to the causes of illegal immigration. The sample of popular newspapers
that was conducted for this article confirms these earlier findings, with Mexican
immigration more often than not the focus of the illegal debate. Indeed, the economic woes
of Central America that have been driving illegal immigration from El Salvador and
Guatemala are rarely (<4%) mentioned.
Media commentators (and politicians posturing before the media for exposure) may
be reflecting Americans’ attitudes toward illegal immigrants as much as shaping their views,
though the repetitiveness and consistency of the antagonism must be viewed, at the very
least, as reinforcing and promoting negative assumptions about the illegality of Hispanics in
the United States. As Hood and Morris (1997) point out, the causal relationship between
intervening variables, such as politicians/media pundits, and the public’s attitude may
remain unclear (see also Jacoby, 2002); nevertheless, the attitude of Americans toward
immigrants is straightforward and definitive. Public opinion polls over the past 50-plus
years show that immigrants today are viewed with considerably more suspicion and distrust
than in the past (Simon, 1993). This is confirmed by Lepinski et al. (1997) in a comparison
of longitudinal attitude polls. Among their findings: 1) 61 percent of the respondents in
1993 felt that immigration should be curtailed compared to 38 percent in 1964; 2) 68
percent of the American public felt that most people who have recently entered this country
have done so illegally, compared to 49 percent who felt this way twelve years earlier; 3) 66
percent of the respondents in 1994 felt that new immigrants drive down wages; and 4) 64
percent felt immigrants take jobs away from American workers.
Public opinions are shaped, at least in part, by what people hear and see in the media
(see Daniels, 204: 234). In turn, public opinion moves the political debate on the issue up a
notch or two. The political posturing surrounding the “hot button” immigration issue was
evident in the 2008 presidential elections, beginning with the Iowa primaries. Ninety-three
percent of Iowa’s three million residents are white, but the “rapid” growth of Iowa’s Latino
population, which had increased “nearly four-fold…since 1990” to 112,986 in 2006 (<4%)
resulted in the candidates “attempt[ing] to distinguish themselves from each other” by
pandering the public’s “concerns that illegal [Latino] immigration is a drain on social
programs [and] the U. S. economy…” (Theobald, 2007; see also Baldwin, 2007; DeBose,
2007).
Economic concerns have historically fueled the fear of immigration (see Magaña,
2003; Abrams, 1985). This fear blurs the status of the immigrant group. Anglo and African
Americans tend to perceive Hispanics, particularly Mexicans, as the problem because there
are so many of them in this country, a point the media tends to belabor. The fact that most
of them are in the country legally gets lost in the rhetoric of fear.
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Even if the argument is confined to illegal immigrants, the economic power-threat
they pose may be more perceptual than factual. Indeed, there is a considerable body of
material that suggests illegal immigrants promote the economic well-being of the United
States by taking jobs mainstream Americans do not want (Papademetriou, 1998; Schuck,
1995; Abrams, 1985).8 These are jobs Demetrios Papademetriou (1997/1998) characterizes
as the “three K’s”: kiten, kitsui, and kitamai—dangerous, difficult, and dirty. Politicians,
journalists, and much of the public—prompted at least in part by the media’s spin on the
issue and reinforced through the largely negative stereotypes of Latinos in the general
population—perceive the illegal problem to be real and often do not differentiate between
legal and illegal Hispanics. This is fostered by the media which tends to perceive
Hispanics as a homogenous mass who are predominantly in the country illegally, creating
economic havoc and social problems for taxpaying (non-Hispanic) “Americans” (see
Khoury, 1999; Schuck, 1995).
The increased antagonism by the white majority toward illegal Hispanics (with its
spillover effect on all Hispanics), may well lead to even more trenchant forms of hostility
by African Americans toward Latinos. This gives rise to a potentially unique development
to Blalock’s majority-minority thesis: a minority as a power-threat to a rival-sized minority.
African Americans have benefited from the economic expansion of the eighties, and
even more so during the economically vibrant nineties (Cherry and Rodgers, 2000: xv-xvi;
see also Sakamoto et al., 2000): African American unemployment rates went from 19.5
percent in 1983 to 11.4 percent by 1989, with the boom nineties reducing this to an all time
low of 7.9 percent (Freedman and Rodgers, 2000: 53).9 During these economically robust
twenty years, African American’s education levels have increased and blacks have been
entering management and the professions in greater number (Reimers, 2000:8).
Nevertheless, 24 percent of the black population still has less than a high school education
(Statistical Abstract, 2000: 158).10 Those with less education are more likely to be employed
in marginal jobs, jobs that are among those most at risk during economic slowdowns (Flynn
and Manley, 1999; Thomas, 1999). African Americans seeking to hold on to their marginal
jobs or find low-skilled positions in a weak economy are likely to be competing more
intensely with Hispanics for these jobs. As Blalock (1989: 46-47, 210-211) points out, when
resources such as jobs are scarce, their attainment by one party reduces the probability of
their being achieved by the other, intensifying the competition between the two groups. The
animosity by unskilled African Americans toward Hispanics for taking “their” jobs is a real
economic threat, given the findings by Kirschenman and Neckerman (1991) that employers
favor Hispanics over African American workers in the low-wage labor sector (see also
Reimers, 2000). This makes Latinos a threat not only to the white majority but also to a rival
minority, who are likely to inflamed by learning that
…nationally, African Americans were 2.31 times as likely to be turned
down for a conventional mortgage as white applicants, and Latinos were
rejected 1.53 times more often than whites. Cincinnati Post (Oct 1, 2002)
…half of all African Americans and more than one-third of Latinos who
applied for conventional mortgages nationwide were rejected in 2000.
Sacramento Bee (Oct 4, 2001)
10
Overall, 37 percent of blacks said they've been unfairly stopped by police
because they were black, including 52 percent of black men and 25
percent of black women. Blacks aren't the only Americans who say
they've been the targets of racial or ethnic profiling by law enforcement.
One in five [20%] Latino and Asian men reported being victims of racially
motivated police stops. Albany Times Union (June 22, 2001)
In California much more than Texas…the [Hispanic] population is so
widely dispersed throughout the state, and the state is sufficiently divided,
that Latinos are winning in non-Latino districts with Anglo voters….There
are signs that the California dynamic will soon be at work in Florida, where
the Hispanic population grew by about 63 percent to 2.7 million people
between 1990 and 2000. Austin American-Statesman (April 1, 2001)
The threat to African Americans has not garnered a lot of attention. But it has
attracted some (see De Alva et al., 1998; Vaca, 2003; Cruz, 2000). Tucker (2007) notes
this in her editorial in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Talk about strange bedfellows. The anti-illegal immigration campaign has
brought together a curious mix of activists, joining white conservatives with
a handful of black civil rights crusaders.
Minuteman project co-founder Jim Gilchrist…was among the first to seek
black support by expressing a deep concern for the economic prospects of
black men…That message hasn’t attracted many black supporters, but it has
energized a few. In recent testimony before Congress, T. Willard Fair,
president of the Urban League of Greater Miami, railed against so-called
amnesty [for illegal immigrants because it would effect the job prospects of
inner-city black teenagers].
The media plays a critical role in how Hispanics are viewed, both by the majority
and by other minorities. This is the reason the media is added as a mediating variable to
Blalock's original model. Blalock holds (1967:102) that perceived competition is caused by
actual competition, along with such other factors as visibility of the minority group. It is
suggested here that competition (and visibility) is often filtered through the media. Media
reports include both the space devoted to Hispanics and how they are depicted. Modest
changes when filtered through the media may seem particularly ominous. This may be
especially germane as Latinos begin to migrate to other areas of the country where they have
historically been underrepresented. Relatively modest changes in size are often accentuated
by the media. The Tennessean story and some of the headlines and stories cited throughout
this paper illustrate this point (see also Donohue, 2007; Dart, 2007). Small changes of a
few percent may seem particularly threatening when framed with such hyperbolic prose as,
“Hispanic Population Surges…,” and relatively modest changes of a few thousand in large
urban areas may intensify the ire of non-Hispanics when such growth is prefaced by
headlines that shout, “Hispanic Population Doubles…,” or ”Latino Population Grows 250
percent….” A page one story in USA Today (Wright, 2005) is yet another illustration of this
point. The headline reads, “Report: Hispanic Population Booming in the South” and goes
on to indicate that the Hispanic population in six Southern states (Alabama, Arkansas,
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Georgia, Tennessee, and North and South Carolina) grew by 22 percent between 2000 and
2003 and that North Carolina “experienced the highest Hispanic growth in the 1990s—400
percent to 378,963….” Nowhere in the article does it indicate that this growth is relatively
modest: Latinos in these six states are grossly underrepresented and account for only 4.4
percent of the overall population, and Georgia has more Hispanics (7.1 percent) than North
Carolina (6.3 percent); inexplicably the article concludes with an implicit suggestion that
Latinos are on the dole: “The poverty rate in all six states dropped during the 1990s, but
more than 25 percent of Hispanics in those states lived below the poverty line, compared
with about 15 percent of the total population….”
The Linguistic Divide: Speaking Spanish in the Good Ol’ USA
The language of the majority group tends to be ideologically saturated and is used
to legitimate the group’s beliefs. The connection between language and racism (and
sexism) has been well-established (Myers, 2005; Schnake and Ruscher, 1998; Wetherell
and Potter, 1992). Language not only perpetuates the majority group’s core values but
encapsulates the group’s hatreds (Green, 1998; Burgen, 1997). Mal mots are commonly
used by majority group members to stereotype minority groups, such as Asians (Mieder,
1996), Hispanics (Hill, 1998), or African Americans (Janofsky, 1999). Indeed, Schnake
and Ruscher (1998) found that those who score high on racist attitudes often betray how
they actually thought about people by their word choices. The mal mot “wetback” serves
as an excellent illustration. It is often used to characterize Hispanics who illegally cross the
Rio Grande into the United States; however, the use of the term tends to stereotypically
lump all Hispanics into the illegal category. Even if one doesn't “buy into” this perception,
the word itself conjures up this negative association. Negative attitudes can also be found
among majority group members toward minority groups who do not speak the dominant
language and who thus appear to refuse to participate in the dominant culture (see Myers,
2005; Schildkraut, 2005).
The language issue has been a dividing line between Hispanics and other racial
groups. Most white and black residents of the United States speak only English. Of the
two large immigrant minorities, 59 percent of Asian residents speak English while only 45
percent of Hispanics do (Statistical Yearbook, 2000: 56). And non-English speaking
Hispanics are more evident than non-English speaking Asians, largely because there are
three times as many Hispanics, making Spanish more of a linguistic threat to Englishspeaking Americans than other languages.
The “threat” to the English language heritage has been fought over the hotly
debated issue of bilingual education in the United States (Rothstein, 1998; Baker, 1999).
There is considerable public confusion as to exactly what bilingual education entails;6
however, a study by Huddy and Sears (1990: 121) found that the overwhelming majority of
respondents who were against bilingual education believed it meant teaching foreign
students in their own language. The authors concluded that support for bilingual education
would erode if Anglo Americans perceived it to be based on the assumption that it allows
students to avoid learning English at all. Their findings aptly foresaw the antagonism
toward bilingual education in the 1990s that culminated in Proposition 227 in California,
which required all students in the public school system to be taught in English (see
Zentella, 1997a).
12
The negative reaction to bilingual education is also reflected in the “English-only”
movement. Prior to 1980 only 4 states had English-only laws; today there are 29 states: 13
were added in the 1980s, another 7 in the 1990s, and 5 more between 2000 and 2007 (“29
States…,” 2007). English-only laws or constitutional amendments are being actively debated
in 16 other states (see “29 States…;” 2007; Schildkraut, 2005: 15). The issue is also
beginning to percolate in Washington. After the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission initiated a lawsuit over the Salvation Army’s requirement that their workers
learn English within a year and speak English-only after that point, Representative Tom Price
of George introduced the “Common Sense English Act” [2007] that would allow offices and
workplaces around the country to require English under any circumstances they prefer. The
bill gained 31 co-sponsors within hours of being drafted; a variation of Congressman Price’s
House legislation had earlier that year passed the Senate (Desjardins, 2007). In this case, the
media has not been particularly evident in framing the debate. Stories on illegal immigrants
tend to dominate the news; however, this coverage often implies that because they
(Hispanics) come from another country (Mexico), they do not speak English and thus do not
want to assimilate. When stories such as the Salvation Army one are covered, letters to the
editor pour in. A few of these letters address the linguistic misperception (see Staff Editorial,
2007); more representative of the antagonism are the following excerpts:
Hispanics who don’t speak English should be deported. They’re
taking jobs from Americans. Their children are burdening our schools.
They should all get back on their boats and go back to wherever they
came from. Those are not the words of Jan P. Hall, the fifth-grade
Sedler Elementary schoolteacher accused of belittling Puerto Ricans,
Mexicans, Haitians, Middle Easterners and others in a letter to
members of Congress. The comments come from Central Florida
residents who have bombarded the Sentinel with several hundred calls,
e-mails, letters and online postings since the Orange County School
Board suspended Hall last week. Orlando Sentinel, August 29, 2005
The door at my local Blockbuster video store is labeled “entrance.”
Right below, for Latinos who might be puzzled, appears the word
“entrada.” Over at the local Home Depot, the word “electrico”
appears…This is insane….The chain stores…[are] putting up the
[Spanish-language] signs because they are bending their knees to the
radical immigration lobby. These folks want to dump English as the
national language…. Chicago Tribune, August 27, 2007
The people who immigrated to this country at the turn of the 20th
century had to earn their citizenship, swear their allegiance to the
Untied States of America and learn English. I cannot fathom that our
“government” is contemplating the use of bilingual signs…While I am
a Democrat, I am darn proud that M. Jodi Rell is our governor [Rell
vetoed the bill for bilingual signs]. Connecticut Post, July 9, 2007
13
It is true that a substantial portion of Latinos continue to speak their native tongue:
91.5 percent speak Spanish (Census 2000). This might suggest that they do not know
English, but this is not the case: 58 percent of Hispanic residents are fluent in English
(Census 2000). In fact, 80-plus percent of Hispanics are against bilingual education if it
discourages them from learning English (Schecter and Bayley, 1998; Galindo, 1996) Even
Spanish-speaking parents who do not speak English want their children to learn English,
for the same reason that first-generation Ellis Island immigrants wanted their children to
learn English: to leave school literate and be able to function in the wider society both
occupationally and socially (Zentella, 1997b; see also Cooper and Fishman, 1997). A
study by Galindo (1996) shows the desire to speak English is particularly pronounced
among third-generation young Hispanics who wish to distance themselves from newly
arrived Hispanics (see also Galindo, 1995). Two examples from interviews by Galindo
illustrate this distancing. “I don't wanna use that language [Spanish] because people will
make fun of me and they're gonna go, ‘Well, you know Spanish, you're part of those
wetbacks that come over here…’;” “I don't know why I never liked it [Spanish]. I
understand it well, but I don't like to speak it. They tried to give it to me in school, but I
didn't want it.” On the other hand, some Hispanics may speak Spanish even though they
are fluent in English and prefer to use English. According to another young man in
Galindo's seminal study, “It's uncool to use Spanish with our friends, but then some of us
like to show off in front of White people or Blacks and start speaking Spanish. But then
when you're just among Mexicans, we think it’s uncool because you only speak to your
parents in Spanish” (my italics). By showing-off their Spanish they inadvertently
perpetuate the stereotype that people of Hispanic descent don't know, and don't want to
learn, English.
The persistent use of Spanish by Latinos, even when they know English, like the
young man in Galindo’s study, results in a form of discriminatory double jeopardy.
Prejudice can be transformed into discrimination only if a member of the minority group can
be identified. A white person who does not care for blacks cannot discriminate if the black
person “passes” for white. Linguistically, African American are less likely to be
discriminated against if they do not speak with an identifiable black dialect. Some support
for this contention comes from Lass et al. (2002a) who exposed English-speaking listeners to
recordings of Hispanic-, Asian-, and Arabic-accented English speakers. They found a
significant relationship (p <0.01) in hostility toward those with pronounced accents (see also
Lass et. al., 2002b; Chism and Lass, 2002; Williams, 1976; Galindo, 1996; Normal et al.,
2002). If this hostility is evident among those with an accent, then it is understandable why it
is even more intense toward those who do not speak English; conversely, African Americans
are primarily nativistic English-only speakers and thus are likely to be met with less hostility
than those who speak with a heavy foreign accent or who speak Spanish. Sight and sound
can generally identify a Hispanic, heightening both Anglo and African American antagonism
toward the linguistically threatening group.
The linguistic hostility by English speaking non-Hispanics toward Latinos intensifies
the animosity toward the group, despite the fact that many, indeed most, Hispanics are fluent
in English. This linguistic divide serves as a form of double jeopardy for Hispanics, which,
along with their Hispanic “race,” which in turn is erroneously associated with (illegal)
immigrant status, sets them apart from the majority and other minorities, and raises the ire of
14
English-language non-Hispanic Americans who feel that “they” do not wish to assimilate and
learn the language spoken by the plurality of United States citizens.
Conclusion
There is a substantial body of research that supports Blalock’s power-threat thesis.
Despite this, Blalock’s theory has not been widely applied to the new Hispanic-dominate
minority. The potential economic threat posed by Hispanics is insinuated throughout this
paper. It is justified insofar as the economy is a major issue to Americans (Hobbs, 1979).11
This focus on Hispanics as an economic threat does not preclude the threat they may pose
politically, a relationship that has been suggested at numerous points throughout this paper,
though often jointly with economic concerns—the various Propositions aimed at Hispanics
in California and the English-only movement, for example. The threat is not just to the
majority, either; minority-minority (African American/Hispanic) relations may grow more
hostile as Latinos compete more intensely with African Americans for unskilled jobs (see
Aubry, 2006; Uhlmann et al., 2002).
Blalock as well as Weimann recognize the impact of other factors besides the media
in shaping one’s hostility to the threatening group. Explicit in Blalock’s model are
education, occupation and income; other variables such as age can also be included.12 But
the media also plays an increasing role in shaping public attitudes, and the media’s
influence has grown substantially since Blalock formulated his power-threat thesis in 1967.
It is for this reason that the media has been added as a mediating variable that affects the
intensity of the public’s hostility toward Hispanics, regardless of their size, because media
attention may make the group seem larger than they actually are, and thus more
threatening. Perception of a threat by the minority group is acknowledged by Blalock but
is more explicitly formulated in this paper in order to generate greater empirical attention to
the role of the media in shaping people’s perception of a Hispanic threat. The addition of
the media to Blalock’s original model simply recognizes the increased prominence of the
media in shaping attitudes and serves to strengthen an already vibrant theory.
The role of the media is particularly pronounced for the effect it can have on the
public’s perception of a social issue (see Martin, 2002; Stark, 1997; see also Kelly, 1997:
103-142). The present study suggests that the media plays a critical role in fostering
generally negative portraits of Latinos by focusing on two distinct (and inaccurate) Latino
characteristics: one is the assumption of illegality; the other is the presumption that because
the group is largely illegal, they do not speak English. The extent to which the media
perpetuates these two prevailing stereotypes can only intensify hostility toward the group
and deserves closes empirical scrutiny.
Notes
1. There is an intense and unresolved issue surrounding the ideological, panethnic terms
Hispanic and Latino (see Rodríguez, 2000; Rowe and Schelling, 1991; Moore and
Pachon, 1985; Monsivais, 2004). The terms Latino and Hispanic are used
interchangeably throughout this paper with some “lumpen” justification because the
nature of a mass media market tends to ignore, or at least minimize, ethnic distinctions.
2. This story was selected simply because it appeared in the local newspaper the week this
section was being written.
15
3. The number of counties is not given. One had to either count them or look the number
up and then count the number of counties with the various population groups (<1
percent, 1-3%, 3-5%, etcetera) to determine that the overwhelming number of counties
(n=71 for 84%) were not populated with Latinos (<3%).
4. The reflected-refracted aspects of the message are often hard to delineate because they
are blurred by the subtlety of the message (see Wright, 1975). This is because culture
and society are not clearly delineated, separate entities. Markert (2001, 2007,
forthcoming) suggests the culture-society connection is recursive: the cultural artifact,
the social context, and the message itself are interconnected and each interacts with and
influences the other.
5. Many Latino/a writers who insist that race does not exist among ethnic groups in
Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean, nevertheless recognize that
this “lumpen” racial classification is widespread in the United States and affects how
members of the group are treated and consequently begin to view themselves (see
Monsivais, 2004; Rodríguez, 2000; Oboler, 1995; Moore and Pachon, 1985).
6. Historically, concentration has been in five states: California, Texas, New York, New
Mexico, and Florida. The movement beyond these traditional enclaves is fairly recent
(see Tienda and Mitchell, 2006; “Half…”, 2006)
7. On Jackson’s scale, 0° was very unfavorable, 100° was very favorable. I used
Jackson’s scale in my study. However, in the body of the paper, I am using 100° to
represent greater animosity (hostility gets “hotter”) toward Latinos and have converted
Jackson’s original findings from 56° to 44°.
8. In January 2008 the Dallas Morning News recognized the illegal immigrant as the
2007 Texan of the Year in a feature story. The story atypically applauded the positive
aspects of Latinos: “He hustles to do hard work many Americans won’t….His strong
back and willing heart help form the cornerstone of our daily lives.” The story was
presented much differently when syndicated columnist Phil Valentine reported on it; he
failed to mention any of the positive attributes covered in the Dallas Morning News and
went on to say “It’s simply a matter of demagnetizing America. What that means is
cutting off the magnet that attracts illegal immigrants: jobs and government benefits.”
9. It should be noted that black unemployment, despite steadily decreasing during the last
two decades, was still higher than the white majority, which was 9.6 percent in 1983,
5.3 in 1989, and 4.3 percent in 1999.
10. In 1990, 33.8 percent of African Americans had less than a high school education, so
there has been considerable educational achievement among blacks. In comparison to
African Americans today, 45 percent of the Hispanic population has less than a high
school education, providing employers a tremendous pool of potential low-skilled
workers in an economic slump.
11. Hobbs found that in the tight labor market, 70 percent of the public are obsessed with
economic issues. Even in economically robust periods, the economy is a primary source
of anxiety among a substantial portion of Americans (see Espenshade, 1997). This
means that Hispanics will be considered an economic threat regardless of the state of
the economy. Nevertheless, the antagonism toward Hispanics should intensify during
economic downturns in the country, or in regions that are economically blighted
because locals may perceive their jobs have been taken by Latinos, to some degree
16
because the media persists in framing stories grabbing the reader’s and viewer’s
attention.
12. Research of white attitudes toward blacks has shown younger cohorts to be less
prejudiced than their elders. Wilson (1996) addresses this point and finds that in recent
years this trend has changed, and that young people today are more prejudice than older
individuals. He attributes this to a halting of the liberal climate in the United States.
This may be true, but it may also be because younger people are more susceptible to the
media’s influence. The media must also include prime time cinema and television, and
while outside the scope of this paper it is worth noting that African Americans are very
prominent and typically positively portrayed on prime time television, while Latinos
have historically been stereotyped in the visual media and are vastly underrepresented
on prime time television (see Markert, 2007).
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