Mexicans Are Criminals and Incompetent: How Racialization Differs by Location

• In Event: 1284 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 24. Latinx Racial/Ethnic Identity

Abstract

The current US president recently referred to Mexicans as criminals. Moreover, Mexicans and other Latina groups have been negatively affected through #45’s and his administration’s policies and rhetoric. Even before #45’s rise to the presidency and recent overt displays of white supremacy, Mexicans and other Latinas have been subject to much racialization, discrimination, and inequalities. However, existing research on racialization and the smaller body of scholarship on the Latina racialization have not differentiated the varying sources and or manifestations of this process. Using interviews with 60 Mexican-origin people, including undocumented, 1.5-generation, and US-born individuals, this paper demonstrates how this group experienced racialization in the US northeast before #45 took office. Interviews took place between 2014 and 2016 before the presidential elections. More specifically, this paper illuminates the extent to which local populations and context influence the sources and manifestations of racialization. In southeastern Pennsylvania, respondents grew up and went to school in majority white and middleclass communities where they were racialized as foreign and inferior in relation to white middleclass students. Here, racialization occurred mainly through interpersonal interactions with students and school officials. In New York City, respondents grew up and went to school in majority working-class immigrant, Black, and Dominican neighborhoods where they were racialized as criminals and “illegals.” Here, racialization occurred mainly through discourses in the media, in politics, in their schools, and to a lesser extent through interactions at work with white employers and customers. Yet, simultaneously, Mexicans in both locations are racialized as moochers—those who take advantage of government resources and who take “Americans’ jobs—as well as academically incompetent.

Author

• Jorge Ballinas, Community College of Philadelphia