The discussion today focused on the media representation of Latinos and Hispanics in the overall media coverage. After looking at the pictures, what type of news story do you think these people will be a part of? Will they even get a chance to have a story told? Or, would you be more inclined to automatically think 'illegal immigrant' as soon as you see them on the news?(Not that you think they are actually illegal immigrants, but because it has been pushed to the world through the media by reporting mainly on illegal immigrants?)
I searched for positive media coverage of Latinos and Hispanics on the popular search engines, and most of the stories I found were specifically for the Latin and Hispanic community. On top of that, most of the stories were print. So, I refined my search to seek out television broadcasts about Latinos and Hispanics, and then most of the packages that presented them in a positive light were from states closer to the south. The other stories did in fact discuss and reveal the negative images and stories that feed the stereotypes. But, then again, isn't that what most news is, local news at least, all the bad stuff in the community. I'll admit, due to time constraints maybe I didn't have ample time to search and dig for the stories, but wouldn't it be a utopia type of world if when I searched news packages about Latinos or Hispanics, then I would get as many stories as I would if I searched news packages about White people.
For fun, I decided to search for news packages on black people, and the results were about the same. The first ones to pop up were the crime stories. And although there are more positive black news packages than Latinos and Hispanics, the issues that the two races have are similar. Which brings me to the title of this post; a classmate said today that the Latinos, Hispanics, or those who just work for cheap are like the new slaves. For the most part, the ones that perform cheap labor are mainly illegal immigrants trying to make a living in this better place, according to them. Now, to me, that does sound familiar. Not being wanted, but being used, and getting taken advantage of. The debate was that those who are illegal shouldn't be here anyway, and that there are few stories about them because most of them don't speak English, and refuse to learn it. Actually, there is an official language in many states, and there is a fight right now for Oklahoma to become an English-only state. In addition, the bill has a private discourse specifically for the illegal immigration situation. The bill boils down to all government documents shall be in English. American Indians are really fighting it, but guess who isn't in the forefront of the issue, and who it seems to affect the most. Sure, there are free classes for people to learn English, but if I am illegal according to the country, which in some cases those people can't be faulted due to the lengthy process of becoming a citizen, will I really immerse myself into the community?
Here's what I think: If the media had a more diverse newsroom, someone to represent every ethnicity, who knows the culture, issues and obstacles of that race, then the world would be able to make a better judgment about the people in this nation. To take it a step further, if the media made a big deal about legalizing immigrants, rather than making a bigger deal about keeping them out, and reporting on ways to help the situation, then maybe there would be a better outlook and outcome for those people.
I could not agree more with your last statement. If the focus was more on the positive, how can we legalize these immigrants, I think it would reflect better on the hispanic culture. We are used to seeing negative images of people crossing the border and taking away our tax dollars but we have to understand that they probably want citiziship just as much as anyone. They aren't crossing the border to create chaos and take over the U.S. they are simply trying to seek out a better life for themselves or their family. The first step is awareness and they next step might be to diversify the newsroom...easier said than done.
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