Chinese Maternity Tourists in the Anchor Baby Debate: Disdain and Racialized Conditional Acceptance of Non-citizen Reproduction

• In Event: 474 - Section on Race, Gender and Class Paper Session. Representations of Race, Class, and Gender in Popular Culture and Media

Abstract

Conservative political pundits and anti-immigrant organizations have long demonized the reproduction of undocumented immigrant Latinas, and have most recently fueled alarmist discourses about their so-called “anchor babies.” In 2011, however, online news sources began reporting on Chinese maternity tourists visiting the U.S. for the sole purpose of birthing their children on U.S. soil. In this paper, I analyze New York Times online comments in response to the reporting of Chinese maternity tourism. Using a content analysis method, I ask: how do online commentators make sense of debates concerning birthright citizenship and “anchor babies” in response to the media coverage on Chinese maternity tourism? I find that online commentators overwhelmingly make sense of and demonize Chinese Maternity tourism by including this practice into broader debates about “anchor babies” and the reforming of birthright citizenship. Some commentators, however, use race-specific tropes and malleable claims about class to construct the children of Chinese maternity tourists as a paradoxical asset or threat to the country, often comparing them to the children of undocumented mothers that are explicitly marked as Latina or Mexican. Using neoliberal logics and Asian-specific stereotypes about model minority status, some commentators offer what I term a racialized conditional acceptance of non-citizen reproduction, revealing that citizenship, while highly policed among the citizenry, can be precariously expanded, but in ways that remain deeply problematic.

Author

• Cassaundra Rodriguez, University of Massachusetts-Amherst