by Marvin J. Ramirez
Marvin Ramirez
It happens in many aspects of our lives.
Sometimes people, due to a sense of superiority, disrespectfully call people names – maybe purposely to offend or disgrace. It could be said to a person who is overweight. And without respect or consideration, someone might call him or her, fat. Or it might be to a person with a physical disability, being called cripple. And the same works for a person who is undocumented in the country.
Out of respect, and this is to remind everyone reading this article, who uses pejorative terms when referring to people as ‘illegal’, being undocumented is not a crime. In common law, for something to be crime, there would have to be an injured party. Common Law is still used in this country by million of people. (On later articles, I will talk about it).
People migrate because of wars or economic hardship in their countries, where most of the time they are proprietors.
So, they have to seek ways to support their families in foreign lands, and most of the time, there is no way one can wait until there is a visa available.
Name calling becomes more part of the culture when our own media uses pejorative terms in their headlines to label a certain class of people. This incites those who harbor hate and dislike against immigrants.
With this respect, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ), concerned with pejorative terms to describe a part of our community – approximately 11 million undocumented people – has called on the national media to stop using the term “illegals” as a noun, “short hand for illegal aliens.”
According to Juan Fidel Larrañaga, an education advocate in New Mexico, the NAHJ is particularly troubled with the growing trend of the news media to use the word “illegals” as a noun, shorthand for “illegal aliens,” he says. Using the word in this way is grammatically incorrect and crosses the line by criminalizing the person, not the action they are purported to have committed.
Shortening the term in this way also stereotypes undocumented people who are in the United States as having committed a crime. Under current U.S. immigration law, being an undocumented immigrant is not a crime, it is a civil violation. Furthermore, an estimated 40 percent of all undocumented people living in the U.S. are visa overstayers, meaning they did not illegally cross the U.S. border, Larrañaga says.
“In addition, the association has always denounced the use of the degrading terms “alien” and “illegal alien” to describe undocumented immigrants because it casts them as adverse, strange beings, inhuman outsiders who come to the U.S. with questionable motivations. “Aliens” is a bureaucratic term that should be avoided unless used in a quote.
Next time, please members of the public and the media, use undocumented, not illegal.
