Visualizing Everyday Racism: Critical Race Theory, Visual Microaggressions, and the Historical Image of Mexican Banditry

• In Event: Roundtable Session 49
  In Roundtable Session: Latino Social Justice Spaces

Abstract

Drawing from critical race and sociolinguistic discourse analysis, this article advances theorizing of racial microaggressions—the systemic, cumulative, everyday forms of racism experienced by People of Color—to articulate a type of racial microaggression, we call visual microaggressions. Visual microaggressions are systemic, everyday racist visual assaults that emerge in various mediums such as textbooks, children’s books, advertisements, film and television, and public signage. These microaggressions reinforce institutional racism and perpetuate ideologies of white supremacy. We explore how the “Mexican bandit” visual microaggression has been utilized as a multimodal text that (re)produces racist discourses that in turn, reinforce dominant power structures. These discourses have allowed the Mexican bandit image to pervade the public imagination of Latinas/os for over 100 years.

Authors

• Lindsay Perez Huber, California State University - Long Beach

• Daniel Gilbert Solorzano, University of California - Los Angeles

• Layla Huber-Verjan, UCLA Lab School