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November 22, 2011 | 4:07 PM | By

Highlights from today’s AirTalk: Illegal, undocumented, or unauthorized?

Photo by Leslie Berestein Rojas/KPCC

A student activist's t-shirt, December 2010

Today’s AirTalk with Larry Mantle on KPCC took on the debate (here’s the audio) over what to call immigrants who live and work in the United States without permission. I provided some background while Larry fielded calls from listeners with their take on whether the correct term should be “illegal,” “undocumented,” or “unauthorized.”

It’s a debate that has existed in newsrooms for years, but has heated up recently. The Associated Press continues to use “illegal immigrant,” clarifying earlier this month in its updated stylebook that while the AP doesn’t condone the use of “illegal aliens,” “illegals” or “an illegal,” neither does it sanction the use of ”undocumented.”

The AP Stylebook is used as a guide by most mainstream media. But professional organizations like the Society of Professional Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists have taken a position on the terms, eschewing “illegal” in favor of “undocumented.” And the social-justice advocacy magazine ColorLines, which last year launched a “Drop the I-Word” campaign aimed at media, recently urged readers to contact the AP and suggest that “illegal immigrant” be dropped for the 2012 edition of the stylebook.

The AirTalk segment drew quite a few calls from listeners, including some who sided with the thinking that calling a person “illegal” is demeaning and who considered “undocumented” more appropriate. Others said they preferred what’s deemed a more politically neutral alternative, “unauthorized.” Others still said they don’t see a problem with “illegal” if being in the U.S. without permission is against the law.

In the hours since the segment aired, more than 150 comments have been posted on the AirTalk segment page on KPCC’s website. Here are just a few:

Ali Alexander wrote:

Illegal aliens are not “undocumented”.  Unfortunately, many of them HAVE documents–just not their own, but ones stolen or counterfeited.  Moreover, as advocates for illegal aliens like to point out, illegal immigration is a CIVIL matter with no guilt or innocence involved.  It is in fact up to the alien to prove that he has a right to be here, not up to the government to show he doesn’t.
Art wrote:
simply:  not  having a piece of paper does not make anyone an illegal…were I to chose not to get an I.D. it would not make me an illegal human…just simply undocumented one.
FILED UNDER: Culture/Identity, Politics/Justice, AP Stylebook, Associated Press, ColorLines, Illegal vs. undocumented, NAHJ, SPJ
November 10, 2011 | 7:58 AM | By

Encore: ‘The New American Reality’ (Video)

I’ve been attending the Latinos in Social Media (#LATISM) conference in Chicago, where during a panel this morning, I saw once more the moving Univision video titled “The New American Reality.” I posted the video several months ago, after first seeing it during the National Association of Hispanic Journalists convention in Orlando.

It’s just as good now as it was then, with simple lines and graphics that not only bring to life the census data on the growing Latino population in the U.S., but which describe the dual identity lived by children of immigrants a way that is spot-on. So here’s an encore.

One of my favorite lines: “I live at the intersection of my two cultures. I take from each what I choose.”

FILED UNDER: Culture/Identity, Economy, #LATISM, NAHJ, The New American Reality, Univision
June 20, 2011 | 10:21 AM | By

Dropping the ‘Americanized’ nickname

Photo by broken thoughts/Flickr (Creative Commons)

I’ve been catching up on my reading after a few busy days in Florida spent at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists convention, and among the great items I’ve sifted through is an interesting post on WAMU’s DCentric blog about ‘Americanized’ nicknames.

These are the first names that some immigrants and children of immigrants adopt, at least temporarily, to help them navigate mainstream America, the Henrys that take the place of Enrique, the Marys that replace Maria, the Western first names that replace Asian ones.

As adults, some people drop these and reclaim their given names – and DCentric blogger Elahe Izadi is among those who has done it.

In the post, she mentions the story of Fawaz Ismail, a Palestinian American recently featured in a Washington Post series on American Muslims enduring the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Growing up in Texas, Ismail was known to his friends as Tony. But in the wake of the anti-Muslim backlash that followed the attacks, he went back to Fawaz.

Izadi, an Iranian American, began life as Elahe. Growing in up in Maryland, though, it became easier to go with a more American-sounding nickname. She wrote:

Many immigrants and second-generation Americans go by nicknames rather than their legal names for a number of reasons. I’m one such example. I grew up up in a small, rural and mostly-white Maryland town, and my parents decided I should go by the nickname Ele rather than my real, very Persian name: Elahe, the Arabic word for goddess (pronounced Eh-la-heh). They went by “Americanized” names themselves in an effort to make life easier, to assimilate as quickly as possible in a foreign land. And for 21 years, I was Ele (pronounced Elie). It wasn’t until after college  that I decided to make the switch to my real name, both in my personal and professional worlds.

My decision was like Ismail’s; why must I accommodate or change my identity to convenience others or make them feel more comfortable?

Even in L.A., where no one seemingly bats an eye at foreign-sounding names, I recall how some of my childhood classmates’ Spanish names were Americanized. Later on in life, like Izadi, some friends went back to the names they were given.

This phenomenon is not so much the norm any more with Latinos, the majority-minority, but it remains relatively commonplace with other groups.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture/Identity, Americanized nicknames, DCentric, NAHJ
June 16, 2011 | 2:42 PM | By

‘The New American Reality’ (Video)

One of the visual highlights today at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists convention in Orlando, Florida was a video produced by Univision, shown during a lunchtime panel on Spanish-language media and intended to drive home its importance as a way of reaching the vast and growing Latino market.

But the video’s simple lines describing life lived between two cultures spoke to many in the room, who soon began tweeting about it, in a personal way.

A few of the lines that resonated:

I live at the intersection of my two cultures. I take from each what I choose.

I move easily between two worlds because I speak Spanish and I speak English. Y a veces I speak both.

My duality is my reality.

Substitute the Spanish for Korean, Vietnamese, Farsi, Armenian or any other first language retained by the American children of immigrants, and the lines apply universally.

One attendee, @bcrodriguez, tweeted afterward “This video presentation about Latinos in America just gave me goosebumps.”

FILED UNDER: Culture/Identity, Economy, NAHJ, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Univision
June 15, 2011 | 2:59 PM | By

Greetings from the Sunshine State

Photo by Calsidyrose/Fickr (Creative Commons)

I’ve just arrived in Orlando, Florida, where I’ll be spending the next couple of days participating in this year’s National Association of Hispanic Journalists convention. I’ll be speaking on two panels related to immigration, so if any Multi-American readers are in town, stop by and say hello.

Thursday morning I’ll be joining Al Jazeera journalist Dima Khatib to discuss the coverage of Islamic communities in the United States during what has been a difficult and extraordinary period for Middle Eastern immigrants and their descendants. The panel starts at 10:30 a.m.

At 9 a.m. Friday I’ll be on an immigration reporting panel with two journalism professors and an immigration attorney. We’ll talk about how the news media has reported stories like that of Arizona’s controversial SB 1070 anti-illegal immigration law, and how to improve coverage of immigration issues.

The convention schedule can be downloaded here. I’ll also be staffing the NPR booth on Thursday afternoon, so please come on by.

FILED UNDER: Florida, NAHJ, SB 1070
November 22, 2010 | 2:40 PM | By

Illegal, undocumented, unauthorized? More debate over immigrants and AP style

Photo by stay sick/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Graffiti in Munich, Germany, Feb. 2008

Last month I wrote about the discussion provoked by a campaign organized by ColorLines, an online magazine covering issues related to racial justice, to discourage media use of “illegals” in reference to immigrants who arrived in this country illegally or overstayed visas.

Most mainstream media outlets follow Associated Press style, I pointed out then. And while “illegals” isn’t deemed appropriate in the AP Stylebook, “illegal immigrant” is.

Last week, Marisa Treviño of Latina Lista took the next step: questioning the AP’s judgment on its style, and that of outlets that go along with it. After being offended by the use of “illegal immigrant” used to describe CSU Fresno’s accomplished student body president in a headline when his status was disclosed recently, she posted last Thursday:

…the AP, always looked upon as the guardian and ultimate authority on newspaper writing style, refuses to acknowledge that maybe a group other than itself can deem a particular term inappropriate for news usage — especially a group that is offended by that term.

It wouldn’t be so bad if only the AP used the term but because many in the industry follow its lead like sheep in a pack, they also use the term when referring to undocumented immigrants. In speaking with a few editors at different newspapers about their usage of the term, they have replied that they use it because it is “sanctioned” by the AP.

She also quoted from an e-mail response to her query from an AP representative, which defended the news organization’s use of “illegal immigrant” as “accurate and neutral for news stories.”

Today in a second post, Treviño pointed out that the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the nation’s largest association of Latino media professionals, disagrees with the use of “illegal immigrant.” (NAHJ has also expressly condemned use of “illegals” and “illegal alien,” and urges the use of “undocumented” over “illegal” when referring to immigrants.)

Treviño lauded the Miami Herald for using NAHJ guidelines. She also wrote:

We also feel that those newspapers who continue to use the term, over their readers’ objections, are exhibiting a blatant disregard for their readers, especially Latino readers.

This blog adheres to the NAHJ guidelines, more or less. However, “undocumented” is a term that raises objections also, including from some who also criticize the use of “illegal.”

While discussing election-year immigration rhetoric with me recently, UCLA Chicano Studies professor and author Otto Santa Ana surprised me by objecting to both terms.

“Undocumented is a partisan term, and so is illegal,” Santa Ana said. “These two adjectives should be struck from journalism.”

He explained: ”When you say ‘illegal immigrant,’ you are labeling the individual as inherently bad. You do not call a pedestrian who jaywalks an illegal pedestrian. The kid who plays hooky is not an illegal student. On the other hand, to call someone ‘undocumented’ softpedals the serious issue of crossing the border without documents. It is a euphemism…It is perfectly appropriate for partisans to take on a position or another, but not for the media to characterize immigrants as illegal or undocumented.”

Media outlets, he said, should opt for “unauthorized,” which he deemed the most neutral.

Any feedback, readers?

FILED UNDER: Culture/Identity, Politics/Justice, CSU Fresno, NAHJ, UCLA