Immigration has been and continues to be a key issue for Americans (Lorey, 1999; Wong, 1999; Jonas and Thomas, 1999). The first issue that needs to be addressed in the discussion of immigration is what is an immigrant? An immigrant is defined as, "one who immigrates," (Davies, 1985:352). Immigration can be explained as moving permanently into a foreign country (Davies, 1985:352). Therefore, any resident of the United States who does not fit the category of a Native American, is an immigrant, because their families immigrated to the U.S. at some point after the European conquest of the United States.

Latinos are one immigrant group that has gained increasing public prominence in the United States due to rapid increases in population (Lorey, 1999; Wilson & Gutierrez, 1995; Jonas & Thomas, 1999; Martinez, 1996). It is predicted that by the year 2020, Latinos will compose one quarter of the total U.S. population (Rodriguez, 1999). In 1995, the U.S. Census counted 26.9 million people of Hispanic origin in the United States, which is approximately 10 percent of the U.S. population (U.S. Census Bureau, 1995). This is a number that is rising annually. The fact that the Latino population is the largest growing immigrant group in the U.S. underscores the importance of understanding the Latino Immigrant experience.

Latinos are defined as any people having origins in any of the Latin American countries. "Latino" and "Latina" are words that have gained prominence as many members of the Spanish-speaking American community have chosen to reject the U.S. Census term, Hispanic. The word "Hispanic," in some people’s opinion, implies a direct descendent from Spain. Since many Latinos in the United States trace their heritage to the original Indigenous people of Latin American, they take offense at being called "Hispanic," because this label associates them with the conquerors of the original Indigenous people who inhabited North, Central and South America. Yet, in many parts of New Mexico, Mexican Americans prefer to be referred to as Hispanic because they are proud of their connection to spain.

In the southwestern United States, the issue of immigration has become a very heated topic for many border residents, in part because the sheer magnitude of Latino immigrants who travel through the southwestern border region. According the U.S. Census Bureau, 60 percent of all U.S. Hispanics were found in the four U.S./Mexico Border States (Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California) and Colorado (Lorey, 1999). In the state of California alone, between 1900 and 1990, the Mexican-origin population grew 750 times. Similarly, in Texas, the population of Mexican origin increased 153 times (U.S. Mexico Border Statistics, 1990; Lorey, 1999). Between 1900 and 1990, the overall U.S. Mexican population grew about 131 times (U.S. Mexico Border Statistics, 1990).

While the reality of immigration numbers and statistics are important, the public perception of such issues is equally important. Public perception is often what drives U.S. governmental policies related to immigration. The American media significantly influences the general public's perception of immigration in the United States (Wilson & Gutierrez, 1995). Especially in the southwest, Latinos are often the subjects of news stories on immigration. This paper explores the portrayal of Latino immigrants in three different southwestern newspapers. It is hypothesized that a panethnic approach is used to identify and discuss Latino immigrants in the media. Additionally, it is hypothesized that Latino immigrants receive a negative as opposed to positive portrayal in the media.

A brief discussion of immigration in the Southwest provides the contextual background for current images and portrayals of immigrants in the media. In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo established the current U.S./Mexico border (Martinez, 1996). Between 1848 and 1929, Mexican immigrants freely immigrated across this newly established border. In fact, between 1900 and 1930, it has been estimated that close to 10 percent of Mexico’s population (about 1.5 million people) immigrated to the United States (Reisler, 1996).

The perceived "problem" of Latino immigration did not become a major issue in the United States until 1929. In 1929, it officially became a crime to enter the United States from Mexico without proper documentation (Lorey, 1999). While this law did not stem the flow of Mexican immigrants into the United States, it did affect how many immigrants followed the strict legal procedure to enter the United States.

Mexican immigrant historian Mark Reisler (1996) points out that the general public did not begin to become concerned about Mexican immigrants until they became more highly visible, dispersed geographically, and began showing up in cities. According to one ex-Chair of the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization in 1926, "When it (immigration) gets into the cities and gets in a mess then we begin to hear of it" (House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, 1926: 240).

Early Mexican immigrants were perceived in a negative way by much of American society. Mexican immigrants were described as being, "docile, lazy, unskilled" and as unable to make decisions for themselves (Reisler 1996). In the early part of the twentieth century an ingrained immigrant bias existed for immigrants from countries with lighter skinned people as opposed to darker skinned people (Reisler, 1996). One Berkeley zoologist described the fear of Mexican Immigrant reproduction in the United States: "You cannot let a foreign group into a country without its having the effect of keeping a great many thousand, perhaps millions, of our native population from being born. Are you going to sacrifice our children for the sake of assimilating the Mexican?" (Holmes, 1926).

A history of Mexican immigration into the U.S. suggests that when it was convenient for the U.S. government to have cheap labor, strict immigration controls were relaxed without officially changing immigration law. An example of this occurred during World War II in the 1940s, when many U.S. farmers sought Mexican labor to aid in their crop production and did so under the federal funded Bracero Program (Lorey, 1999; Gutierrez, 1996). Between the years 1942 and 1965, the Bracero Program encouraged Mexican immigrants to come and work seasonally in the United States. This program was in put in place primarily due to the efforts of the California farm growers and the powerful American Farm Bureau Federation (Wells, 1996: 57). Close to five million Mexican immigrants were brought into the U.S. under the Bracero Program (Briggs, Fogel & Schmidt, 1977; Galarza, 1964).

The Bracero Program provided cheap labor to U.S. growers without the concerns of worker benefits or unions. After 1965, when the Bracero Program officially ended, many undocumented immigrants stayed in the U.S. to work as farm hands in the agricultural industry. Based upon her extensive research on Latino farm workers in California and other farm worker researchers, Miriam J. Wells estimates that 80 percent of California’s farm workers were "noncitizen immigrants" between 1965 and 1985 (Wells, 1996: 64). From an economic standpoint, relying upon illegal immigrant workers helped farm owners to increase profit rates by increasing labor exploitation (Castles & Kosack, 1985; Portes & Walton, 1981).

Prior to 1965, it was common knowledge among the Mexican immigrants that they could become permanent U.S. citizens with an established U.S. work record, regardless of U.S. immigration laws (Lorey, 1999). However, at the end of the Bracero program, previously relaxed immigration laws, once again became rigid. In 1965 amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act eliminated the quota system for immigrants by nationality. Many of these modifications of the laws "converted the status of a large portion of the long established Mexican migrant flow from legal to illegal" (Lorey, 1999: 163).

While the media has always been a powerful and influential force within the United States, the increasing development of technology has even further expanded the media’s influence on public opinion. Specifically, Internet access provides quick, global access to current information and news. While the media claims to portray reality, in effect, the language, issues and actual news stories that are presented influence the public’s perception of reality.

Noted American media scholar, Harold Lasswell (1971) described the three basic functions of the media: 1) Surveillance of the environment; 2) Correlation of the different parts of society in responding to the environment and 3) Transmission of social heritage from one generation to the next. In their book, Wilson and Guiterrez (1995) provide a further translation of these three functions. Surveillance was described as the media’s "responsibility of looking across society in order to define and describe the different groups within it" (1995: 35). Lasswell’s second function of the media, Correlation, focuses on the media’s role in assessing different groups that exist in society and determining where and how they fit into the society (Wilson & Gutierrez, 1995). Finally, Transmission is described as both defining and transmitting the social and cultural heritage of the society (Wilson & Gutierrez, 1995). Wilson and Gutierrez (1995) decided to add two more categories to Lasswell’s three functions of the media. The first category that they added is entitled Entertainment. They describe entertainment as media material that is designed to elicit an emotional response from the audience, in an entertaining format (Wilson & Gutierrez, 1995). The additional category that they added onto Lasswell’s three functions, is entitled Economic Service. This function can be described as making and economic profit for the company sponsoring the advertisements that support the media.

Laswell’s three functions of the media can be summed up by the term cultural hegemony. Cultural hegemony is defined in a sociological sense as occurring when the ideas and values of the dominant members of society are imposed on the less power members of society (Neubeck & Glasberg, 1996). It appears that Lasswell’s three functions of the media are severely affected by cultural hegemony. In American society, the dominant culture and ethnic group is not Latino. Therefore, according to the cultural hegemony argument, all perceptions of Latinos are filtered through the dominant culture’s lens. This is especially true when it comes to the portrayal of Latino immigrants.

In their book Minorities and the Media, Wilson and Gutierrez (1985;1995) explore some of the powerful relationships between the media and general pubic perceptions. The authors specifically point out that in the highly accessible information age, the media teaches some members of our society about other members of society, whom we do not necessarily have a chance to interact with (Wilson & Gutierrez, 1985; 1995). Images are often created and perpetuated by the media, which are not accurate, or severely stereotype diverse reality that actually exists (Subveri-Velez, 1999).

Latino immigrants are not usually portrayed positively in the media. In fact, a myriad of terms with negative connotations are commonly used to refer to immigrants. The most common term used to refer to undocumented immigrants is "illegal aliens"(Wilson & Gutierrez, 1995). The term "illegal alien" is usually used to refer to immigrants coming across the border from Mexico. These undocumented immigrants may or may not be of Mexican descent. Additionally, the term illegal immigrant attributes a certain "non-human" quality and serves to desensitize the American public to the fact that the immigrants are people.

Studies have shown that when Latinos are discussed in the media, they are often portrayed as being social deviants and/or criminals (Rodriguez, 1999; Rodriguez, 1998). Another major focus of the media’s portrayal of Latinos is as "illegal" immigrants (Rodriguez, 1999). Latino journalist, Rodgriguez (1999) sums up the portrayal in the following quote: "The preoccupation with immigration has contributed to the misperception that most-or at least many-Latinos are unauthorized immigrants" (1999:16). In fact, the irony of this portrayal is that undocumented immigrants make up less than ten percent of the total Latino population (Rodriguez, 1999).

Latino journalists recognize the trend in the media and put their best effort forward to try and combat the narrowly defined Latino image. These journalists comprise a subculture within the broader media scope. According to Rodriguez (1999), Latino journalists are "supportive of U.S. society’s structures and norms, yet are also apart from it, preserving a distinct Latino identity" (1999: 16).

Research has shown that Latinos are not necessarily in key media decision-making positions (Subveri-Velez, 1999). As a result of the lack of power over media portrayals, Latinos are often stereotyped. This stereotyping is panethnic in approach because it does not seek to differentiate between the multitudes of different nationalities of immigrants, but rather chooses to lump them all together under the main heading of "illegal immigrant."

One specific Latino publication, which serves as a media watchdog for this community, is a publication called the Hispanic Link. The Hispanic Link is a weekly publication that highlights Latino accomplishments and newsworthy items. Additionally, this publication points out biased and stereotypical portrayals of Latinos that appear in other forms of media, such as radio, television, movies and print media. Additionally, the Hispanic Link serves an important function of connecting Latinos to other Latinos and various career opportunities.

The United States is composed of a very large diverse Latino immigrant population. Immigrants come from many different countries, with sometimes similar, but oftentimes different cultures, attitudes and norms. It has been observed in the U.S. media that the diversity of the Latino people is conglomerated into one general term, Hispanic. Hispanic is a term that is used by the U.S. Census bureau to define a person’s racial background (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1995). Latino appears to be a term that encompasses and acknowledges the existence of culture as well Jones-Correa & Leal, 1996).

Panethnicity is defined as occurring when groups who have had previously distinct ethnic or national identities are "consolidated into a single racial or in the case of Latinos, ethnic, category" (Omi, 1999: 29). While the concept of panethnicity is not specific to one particular ethnic group, Latinos as a group have increasingly experienced both the positive and negative aspects of it. One advantage of panethnicity is that it can create a larger sense of community. There are times when ethnic groups may desire to mobilize along ethnic lines (Omi, 1999; Calderon, 1992). However, the major disadvantage and danger of panethnicity is that it can lead to overgeneralizations and stereotyping. For example, people in New Mexico often refer to it as the "land of manana" due to the slow pace of life that is found there. Many people directly relate this slow pace to the influence of Mexico. My own personal observation of living and working in New Mexico suggested that it is usually Anglos who refer to New Mexico as the "Land of Manana" in a somewhat negative manner to describe the slow and "very Mexican" pace of life that occurs along the U.S./Mexico order region.

The importance of panethnicity is illustrated through examining the terms Latino, Spanish and Hispanic. As mentioned earlier, debate exists on exactly when it is appropriate to use the labels Hispanic or Latino. More recently, the term Hispano has also become an acceptable substitution for Hispanic. Jorge del Pinal, once the chief of ethnic and Hispanic studies at the Bureau of the Census, described the problem with the initial U.S. Census term "Spanish" being that not everyone referred to as a Hispanic spoke Spanish (Jones-Correa & Leal, 1996). That issue prompted the evolution of the term Hispanic. However, many Hispanic have rejected this term because it is a government-imposed term as opposed to self-chosen and self-identified term. In the remote part of Southwestern New Mexico where I lived for 3 years, Mexican-American people never referred to themselves as "Latino." Instead, a preference existed for the term "Hispanic" which sets them apart from the "Mexicans" who lived just 80 miles across the border in Mexico. My experience living in the southwest taught me about the important regional variations that occur in ethnic terminology.

The connection between panethnicity and immigration arises when the media presents stories on the "illegal" or "undocumented" immigrants. Such stories never bother to identify whether the person is from Central or South America. Instead, the immigrants are sometimes simply described as "Mexicans." Use of such a broad labels to refer to all Central and South American immigrants serves to further de-humanize the plight of these immigrants because they are not presented as having a country of origin. For politicians who are opposed to immigration and who favor stricter immigration policies and laws, the media’s use of such panethnic language furthers "the cause" to fight against the "illegal aliens." The panethnic language creates the image that there are many "illegal" people who are trying to infiltrate into the United States. The term "illegal" implies that these people have committed a crime. Use of the term "alien" implies that these people are not from the planet earth and further serves to distance the American public from the plight of the Central and South American immigrants.

The Thomas Theorem, developed by W.I Thomas & Dorothy Swaine Thomas (1928) focuses on the important connection between perception and outcome. In other words, the Thomas Theorem is the following: "If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences" (Tenner, 1998: 27). The theorem implies that a person’s individual perception and definition of a situation directly affects the outcome of that situation. The beauty of the Thomas Theorem lies in its wide-ranging applicability to the study of almost any social phenomena. If the U.S. media tends to define immigrants as being "illegal," "undocumented" and without a country of origin, the emotional concern that U.S. residents feel towards this population will decrease.

Issues of immigration are commonly discussed and featured in southwestern newspapers, in part due to the close proximity of the Southwest to Mexico. The articles on the topic of southwestern immigration were collected from three newspapers. The researcher collected the data from the following three southwestern papers: Silver-City Daily Press (small town local paper) Silver City-Sun News (regional paper); and the Albuquerque Journal (an urban statewide paper). This information was collected between August 1999 and January 2000, during which time the researcher was living in Silver City, New Mexico. Silver City, New Mexico is located in the southwestern corner of the state of New Mexico and is approximately 80 miles from the international border with Mexico.

In total, 20 articles on Latino immigration were gathered from three newspapers. The newspaper articles were then divided into two categories: those articles that viewed Latino immigration as a problem (Negative Category) and those articles that viewed it as a positive force in American society (Positive Category). In total, 18 articles fell into the negative category and 2 articles were classified in the positive category. The categorical distinction was based upon an assessment of the content of the articles. Articles that referred to immigrants a negative manner usually referred to some sort of deviant behavior that involved crime. Positive articles expanded out from a focus on crime to include contributions made by Latino immigrants to society.

Of the total 20 articles, 9 articles focused on the Border Patrol, 4 on Crime and Undocumented Latino Immigrants, 3 on Car Crashes Involving Undocumented Latino Immigrants, 3 on Domestic Concerns over Undocumented Latino Immigrants and one article focused on the monetary power of Latino immigrants.

Two of the twenty articles researched for this paper contained positive information about Latino immigrants. One of the articles categorized as "positive" fell under the Domestic Concerns over Undocumented Latino Immigrants category. The other "positive" article focused on the monetary power of Latino Immigrants. While both articles focused on different topics, they presented a positive, empowering portrayal of Latino immigrants. The first positive article was entitled, "Immigrants are flexing their monetary muscle" and appeared in the Silver City Daily Press on January 15, 2000. This article focused upon businesses in Santa Fe New Mexico run by Latinos that cater to Central and South American immigrants. Much of the article focuses upon successful Mexican-Immigrants who now market and sell products that specifically cater to the Mexican-Immigrant community. For example, one man opened a Tortilleria (tortilla factory) that sells more than 700 pounds of corn tortillas a day. Additionally, the positive article focuses upon immigrant owned taquerias (places that sell tacos), carnicerias (butchers) and panaderias (bakeries) (Associated Press 2000: 8). This article could be viewed as a success story of entrepreneurial Latino immigrants.

The second article was entitled, "Going back to where we came from" and appeared in the Albuquerque Journal on January 22, 2000. This article written by Patrisia Gonzales and Roberto Rodriguez falls under the newspaper heading "Column of the Americas". It is a regular feature in the Albuquerque Journal where these two Latino Journalists provide their opinions on various issues related to Latinos. In this article the two reporters are responding to the two years of hate mail that they have received for providing their views on immigration. Oftentimes in these letters, Gonzales and Rodriguez were instructed to "go home." In this particular article they took it upon themselves to trace where "home" actually would be for them if they were to try to go back to it. They raise the point that really any Central American person who lives in the United States is already home, if you consider the ancient homeland of indigenous people called, Aztlan, which according to all ancient accounts is located somewhere in the American Southwest. The journalists also point out the fact that recently, a U.S. Mexico Coalition of immigrant rights groups claimed that migration into what is now the United States, is actually the immigrants’ ancestral right, considering the position of Aztlan.

These two authors raise a very good point in their article, "Brazen anti-immigrant billboards and ads litter the country, particularly in Iowa, in attempts to poison the upcoming presidential elections. It’s hard to fathom seeing similar ads that target Whites, African-Americans or Jews." (Gonzales & Rodriguez, 1999: B5). This article was categorized as "positive" because while it addressed the issue of racism it also promoted Latino pride and unity. The article calls for United States citizens to in effect wake-up and realize that Latinos have more of a right to reside in the United States than many Anglos who don’t have an ancestral connection to the Southwest.

Another interesting point is that both "positive" articles refrained from referring to undocumented Latino immigrants as "illegal aliens;" a derogatory term which is commonly used to refer to immigrants by many southwestern newspapers. Additionally, both of these articles actually identified the immigrants as coming from some host country. In both the articles mentioned above, Mexico was identified as a point of origin for the individuals being discussed in the article.

Of the total 20 immigration articles, 18 focused on the negative aspects Latino immigration.

The most prevalent category of negative articles fell under the Border Patrol heading. In total there were 9 articles that discussed illegal immigration and the Border Patrol. Of the nine articles, 3 articles referred to the immigrants as "illegal immigrants" or "illegal aliens," and only one article referred to the immigrants as "undocumented immigrants." Three of the nine articles did not refer to the immigrants in any fashion and one article used the term, OTM (other than Mexican) to explain an immigration case that involved a Russian woman and her child. In the article about the Russian immigrant woman and her child, the immigrant woman described her entrance into the United States in the following way, "(we) just walked past the checkpoints and across the border" (Thompson, 1999). When a Border Patrol agent was questioned as to why these people were not stopped, he replied, "It could be because they just look like Americans" (Thompson, 1999: B1).

Four of the eighteen articles classified as negative focused upon Crime and Undocumented Latino immigrants. Two of those four articles referred to Latino immigrants as "illegal immigrants." The other two articles did not mention the word immigrant at all. One of these articles that used this term, focused upon the cost of states having illegal immigrant inmates and the costs to other state agencies for other public services. For example, in Deming, a town close to Silver City, the hospital was unable to collect $380,000 in charges for Mexican citizens, which worked out to more than one in five patients (Jassen, 1999, C:2). The other article that used the term "illegal immigrant" focused upon the record pace of U.S. Border Arrests at the beginning of the year (January 8, 2000). The two articles, which did not use the term "illegal immigrant", focused upon issues of Transportation and Crime across the border.

Three of the eighteen negative articles focused upon highway accidents that had involved undocumented Latino immigrants. Of the three articles, one referred to the immigrants as "illegal aliens," another article referred to the immigrants as "undocumented immigrants," and the third article referred to the crash victims as "Mexican Nationals." Two of the crash articles were centered on the same incident, where a van load of Mexican immigrants crashed on Interstate 40 in New Mexico, killing 13 people (Archibeque, Roybal and Contrearas, 1999). Interestingly, in the earlier article, dated, Dec. 5, 1999, the victims of the crash were referred to as "undocumented immigrants" by the Albuquerque Journal. Two days later in an article on Dec. 7, 1999 in the same paper, the "undocumented immigrants" were now referred to as Mexican Nationals.

The last category of negative articles was described as Domestic Concerns over Immigration. In this category, Pat Buchanan’s concerns over immigration were addressed in one article. This article referred to immigrants merely as "new immigrants." In the Pat Buchanan article he expressed a concern over the increasing number of immigrants coming into the United States. Buchanan was quoted as saying; "If we want to assimilate new Americans-and we have no choice if we are going to remain one nation- we must slow down the pace of immigration" (Lindlaw, Jan. 19, 2000: A-3). The second article was entitled "Douglas mayor tries to ease plight of illegal aliens" and appeared in the Sun-News on October 17, 1999. This article focused on the efforts of Douglas, Arizona Mayor Ray Borane. Borane suggested that the federal government develop a guest work program that would allow Mexican laborers to come and to legally work in the United States. This article referred to the immigrants as "illegal aliens."

It should be noted that of the 18 negative articles that discussed immigration, five of the articles ever identified a country of origin (Mexico) for the immigrants under discussion in the article. Of these five articles that identified a country of origin, two dealt with a car crash that had occurred and involved the death of immigrants, one dealt with what illegal immigrant inmates cost the states, one dealt with a ban on Mexican trucks crossing the border, and the final article focused on Border Patrol rescue increases. Therefore, 13 of the 18 negative articles on immigration failed to identify a country of origin for the immigrants.

A summary of the language used in all of the analyzed articles suggests that 7 of the 20 articles used the term "illegal alien" or "illegal immigrant" to refer to undocumented Latino immigrants. In essence, 35 percent of the articles examined specifically viewed the Latino immigrant in a pejorative manner. Anytime the word "illegal" precedes a word, it implies deviance and breaking the law. This finding supports the hypothesis of paper, that Latino immigrants are portrayed in a negative fashion in the American media. According to media research experts Wilson and Gutierrez (1995), the term "illegal alien" "has been used to symbolize a person who enters the country illegally and is said to constitute a burden on public resources" (1995: 49). In a study conducted by Gutierrez (1978) he found that nearly one half of the randomly selected articles on undocumented immigrants in a California used the term "illegal Alien."

Another interesting observation occurred in the study of whether or not country of origin was identified for the immigrants. A country of origin for the immigrants was identified for both of the "positive" articles and for 5 of the 18 "negative" articles. When country of origin was identified for the immigrants it was always listed as "Mexico." Lumping the country of origin together as "Mexico" for all Latino immigrants continues the panethnic stereotyping and dehumanization of the immigrants and obliterates the diversity of Central and South American people. It may also serve to create negative feelings against "Mexicans" by residents who live in southwestern border regions.

Additionally, being labeled as "illegal" or "undocumented" suggests that these people do not have a country of origin. The Thomas Theorem is relevant to the discussion here. The dehumanized portrayal of the immigrant can only foster support for governmental policies and programs that serve to remove and eradicate the "illegals." By providing a panethnic, negative image of Central and South American immigrants the negative stereotype of the "dirty, hungry, ragged and dangerous Mexican" immigrant is further perpetuated. The political implications of such a media portrayal are quite powerful and dangerous. An assessment of the twenty articles studied here suggests that Latino immigrants are portrayed in a panethnic manner. Specifically, they are all portrayed as being Mexican.

In addition to the examining use of the term "illegal alien," this paper also examined the content of the articles to determine how the issue of immigration was being portrayed. Interestingly, most of the articles analyzed here (18 of the 20) or 90 percent of the articles, focused upon the negative aspects of immigration. Only two of the twenty, or 10 percent of the articles focused upon the positive aspects of immigration. What this suggests is that despite their large positive influence on the American economy Latino immigrants are still viewed in a negative manner (Zavala, 1999a; Zavala, 1999b). A study conducted in Los Angeles by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute found that approximately one-third of the Latin-owned businesses in Southern California are owned by immigrants. Additionally, a study conducted by the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies in conjunction with the University of California Santa Barbara found that undocumented Hispanic immigrants have become a significant economic force. According to Hispanic Link Journalists, Oswaldo Zavala, the UCLA study estimated that there are approximately 473,000 foreign-born undocumented Latino workers in Los Angeles County. In essence, undocumented Latino workers account for about 11 percent of the Los Angeles County’s labor force (Zavala, 1999a).

One of the articles that was reviewed focused on the illegal U.S. entrance of a Russian woman and her child at the Palomas, Mexico/Columbus NM border crossing. When asked about why this woman was not stopped when coming through the checkpoint, the Border Patrol Agent reported that she probably was not stopped because she "looked like an American." The shocking aspect about this statement is that it provides direct support for the racial discrimination argument on immigration. What this article illustrates is that there is a definite preferential practice to admit immigrants with white skin, versus immigrants with dark skin, into the United States.

Another interesting observation that I noted is in the similarity of the 1926 comments made about immigrants by Berkeley zoologist Holmes concerning the assimilation of the Mexican, and a recent comment made by politician Pat Buchanan on the same topic. The 1926 comment was:

One of Buchanan’s comments echoed a sentiment similar to the Berkeley Zoologist’s 1926 comment. Buchanan said in January 2000, some 74 years after the Berkeley Zoologist,

An examination of the various newspaper articles examined here raise questions about why negative Latino immigrant stereotypes are perpetuated. In an earlier section of this paper it was mentioned that the goal of the media is to sell advertising and this desire has resulted in the globalization of news (Wilson and Gutierrez, 1995). In the discussion of the role of the media, Wilson and Gutierrez (1995) added two categories onto Lasswell’s (1948) initial three categories: 1) Surveillance 2) Correlation and 3) Transmission of social heritage. Wilson and Gutierrez (1995) added the categories of 4) Economic Service and 5) Entertainment.

It appears that the Economic Service functional category of the media plays a monumental role in affecting the presentation of news. As mentioned earlier, the news has become globalized in an effort to streamline the sale of the news. This globalization of news has resulted in the oversimplification f the Latino culture, stories and issues in an effort to appeal to a more global or "mass" public. In other words, the globalization of news has resulted in creating a giant panethnic view of Latino immigrants, both legal and illegal.

Latino immigrants are used as a political scapegoat because they are a disenfranchised group. The majority of major networks and newspapers do not have multiple Latino journalists as their CEO’s and key decision-makers. As a result, decisions about news portrayal and stories usually come from an Anglo as opposed to Latino perspective. It is my belief that the negative stereotyping and dehumanization of undocumented Latino immigrants occurs because they are perceived as threatening the dominant Anglo culture.

In the future, as more Latino journalists become a part of the decision-making hierarchy and structure, negative Latino immigrant stereotypes may somewhat diminish. It is my hope that in the future the media can be used in a positive manner to efficiently educate members of society about one another. The media’s reliance upon well-established stereotypes further differentiates Americans from one another. We, as Americans, have a great opportunity to demonstrate the strengths of diversity and independent thought. As freethinking individuals, we all have the choice to accept or reject panethnic negative labels perpetuated by the media. Language is a very powerful tool that can be used to manipulate or empower. According to Thomas and Thomas (1928) if you define a situation as real, then it is real in its consequences. Pointing out the negative and broad labels that exist in the media today is a giant step towards defining the situation/problem as real. By recognizing the negative aspects of panethnic labeling, we are already working towards improving the consequences.

Note: "*" indicates article is one of the 20 used in the analysis.

*Archibeque, Jennifer, Roybal, Rebecca & Contreras, Guillermo. (1999). "Van Hits Truck, 13 Killed." Albuquerque Journal. December 5, 1999. Page A:1 and A:13.

*Associated Press. (1999). "Resident criticized Border Patrol arrest." Sun News. Oct. 2, 1999. Pg. A-5.

*Associated Press. (1999). "Douglas mayor tries to ease plight of illegal aliens." Sun-News. Oct.. 17, 1999. Pg. A:5.

*Associated Press. (1999). "Border Patrol seeks help from civilians." Silver City Daily Press. Nov. 27, 1999. Pg. 1.

*Associated Press. (1999). "Residents to Train Agents." Albuquerque Journal. Nov. 27, 1999. Pg. E-1.

*Associated Press. (2000). "Border Patrol Can’t Reach Goal of Hiring 1,000." Albuquerque Journal. Jan. 5, 2000. Pg. B-1.

*Associated Press. (2000). "U.S. border arrests at record pace in first few days of year." Sun-News.Jan.8, 2000. Page A:4. Jan.8, 2000

*Associated Press. (2000). "U.S. continues ban on Mexican trucks wanting to cross border." SunNews. Jan. 9, 2000. Pg. A-10.

*Associated Press. (2000). "Immigrants are flexing their monetary muscle." Silver City Daily Press.Saturday, January 15, 2000.

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*Chrisman, Ben. (2000). "Police say crash victims were illegal aliens." Sun-News. January 23, 2000. Page A-1.

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*Gonzales, Patrisia and Roberto Rodriguez. (2000). "Going back to where we came from." Sun-News. Jan. 22, 2000. Page B-5.

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