Latino Ethnicity and Other Influences on the Immigrant's Rights Movement in the United States

Abstract

This paper describes the social movement for immigrants' rights, which organized massive street demonstrations on May 1 of 2006 and 2007. The protest movement, which demands the rights of undocumented migrants in the United States, could be portrayed as an ethnic movement for the civil rights of Latinos. However, quotations taken from the protestors show that on the day of the protest they did not see themselves as demanding freedom from discrimination as members of an ethnic or racial group. Rather, they argued that as persons living in the territory governed by the U.S. government, they submit to its laws and proclaim their loyalty to the U.S. polity, and hence feel it is their right to remain in the U.S.

The widespread opposition to political proposals for the legalization of "illegal immigrants" is based on the popular notion that they cannot or will not assimilate to American social and cultural norms. However, this nativist nationalist discourse is shown to be false by the case of the so-called "green card soldiers." The non-citizen soldiers who serve in the U.S. military illustrate non-citizens' deep affirmation of commitment and loyalty to the U.S. polity. Like the May 1 protestors, the immigrants in the military seek to affirm their commitment to the U.S.A., in spite of their cultural and class differences that bar their entry into the American mainstream.