Constructing a Central American Threat (CAT) Narrative in U.S. News Media Between 1980-1989

• In Event: Latina/o/x Criminology Panel #2

Abstract

U.S. media has a history of constructing threat narratives about Latine people, impacting public opinion on immigration, crime, and foreign policy. This paper focuses on understanding the ways that Central Americans are constructed as threats in three major U.S. newspapers. Salvadoran political organizations were designated as terrorist organizations in the 1980s, legally constructing Salvadorans as always potential terrorists. The subsequent dissemination in media of stereotypes and false information, created a moral panic against Central Americans that constructed a threat narrative rooted in the unique historical relationship between the U.S. and Central America. Focusing on Salvadorans as a case study, I disentangle and construct what I call a Central American Threat narrative that has framed Central Americans as always potential terrorists through a relational racial threat construction with the Middle East. The data includes one hundred newspaper articles published between 1980-1989, from three major U.S. publications. I find that during the 1980s, U.S. media and politicians created imagined lines of connection between violence in Central America and the Middle East in media that heightens the effects of anti-Indigenous, anti-Black, and anti-communist policies that continues to persist.

Author

• Nalya Rodriguez, California State University, Northridge