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Immigrant Narratives and Popular Culture in the United States: Border Spectacle, Unmotivated Sympathies, and Individualized Responsibilities

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 77; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10570314.2012.693648

1745-1027

Stacey K. Sowards, Richard D. Pineda,

Music History and Culture

Abstract Issues related to immigration have long been present in U.S. television and print news cycles. In recent years, those issues have become more prevalent in U.S. popular culture, especially in television and popular music. In this essay, we analyze three representative and diverse examples from U.S. popular media to better understand the representation of immigrant narratives: ABC's Ugly Betty, the Chicano band, Los Lobos's 2006 album, The Town and the City, and CNN Presents “Immigrant Nation.” From our analysis, we advance three interconnected arguments: First, personalized narratives of the immigrant experience reify stereotypes through accumulation and repetition that contributes to the construction of border spectacle. Second, audiences interpret individualized accounts through ambivalent readings that function to entrench audience beliefs and attitudes about immigrants and immigration which create unmotivated sympathies. Finally, individual accounts humanize issues related to immigration, but they also individualize responsibility and absolve collective responsibilities by emphasizing immigrants’ hard work and pursuit of the U.S. American Dream. Keywords: Immigrant NarrativesLos LobosPolyvalenceScapegoating Ugly Betty U.S. American Dream Acknowledgments We would like to thank Bill Eadie and two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments and helpful feedback on this manuscript. Notes Throughout this essay, we use accents on names only when those individuals use accents themselves. For example, Chavez's name is not accented in his book or other public material. Additional informationNotes on contributorsStacey K. Sowards Stacey K. Sowards (PhD, University of Kansas) and Richard D. Pineda (PhD, Wayne State University) are both Associate Professors in the Department of Communication and research fellows in the Sam Donaldson Center for Communication Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso. Richard Pineda is also the associate director of the Sam Donaldson Center for Communication Studies at UTEP.