Chapter 10 Pictures of Resistance: Recasting Labor and Immigration in the Global City

Abstract

With the growing Immigrant Civil Rights Movement and the public demonstrations of immigrant rights groups, it is no surprise that politicians and pundits have been offering their own opinion on the immigrant labor force. For example, in an interview with conservative website, Newsmax, Iowa Representative Steve King claimed that for every valedictorian DREAMer, “there’s another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert” (Beamon and Bachman). King, who previously compared immigrants to dogs,’ reinforces a binary distinction between immigrants, stating that until individuals “can define the difference between the innocent ones who have deep ties with America and those who have been … undermining our culture and civilization and profiting from criminal acts … they should not advocate to grant amnesty for both good and evil” (Beamon and Bachman). While some may label King’s view of Latin@ immigrants as extreme, it is very much indicative of the popular image of racialized immigrant bodies as undesirable. King is merely crudely stating the message often disseminated more subtly in popular media.