In this blog we are analyzing political cartoons about undocumented workers and immigration. We wanted to find the facts vs. myths, or, truth vs. ‘truthiness’ of the portrayals of this social issue through editorial cartoons. We have a team combined of descendants from early european immigrants, a first generation immigrant from the Dominican Republic, a second generation immigrant from El Salvador, and even some Native American blood. So who better to debunk these myths than a team with such diversity... a Dream Team.
Our Findings
The most interesting thing we have found is that these cartoons go after government policies. Most of them were published in the United States, but tend to favor undocumented workers over our own government. Also, the international ones are in no way different.
While viewing these cartoons you will see that most, if not all, of them frame the policies on immigration in a negative light, and frame undocumented workers/immigrants in a positive light. With all of the politics involved, we have separated our cartoons into sections of Liberal and Conservative views. Each one we analyzed had a slant to it. We also have three other cartoons we have placed in a ‘Racial Profiling’ category to show how that is still an issue in the United States.
Overall, regarding government policies, the tone of the cartoons is negative. Regarding Immigrants themselves, the tone is positive.
A Little Background
We researched all aspects of this topic that may be seen as myths. We took on questions and ideas Americans have such as, do immigrants take American jobs?, racial profiling in the border states, are we giving them amnesty?, is congress ignoring the issue?, etc.
We did a lot of fact checking and can conclude that there is ‘truthiness’ to most of these ideas that have been cultivated. We have found that there is no direct correlation between immigrants and unemployment. We also know that the new plans being proposed by congress are not providing complete amnesty to illegal immigrants, however they do propose “paths to citizenship” for them (factcheck.org). Congress is not ignoring the issue, but bipartisanship is our biggest struggle.
