Tag Archives: immigrants

Invasions and Infestations: Words and Metaphors Do Matter

Hello! I feel obliged to write a post today concerning the recent statements in the news that “Words Matter.”  Following the two horrific mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, many people blamed President Trump for inciting the shooter in Texas since his screed published online shortly before the attacks used language quite similar to Trump’s recent rhetoric about a so-called invasion of Mexicans into the United States.  Trump also recently argued that Baltimore, Maryland was a “rodent-infested” city, and seemed to target Elijah Cummings, an African-American Congressman who lives in Baltimore.  Moreover, he also told four female minority members of Congress to “go back where you came from,” a well-known racist trope.  Trump’s apologists claim that the El Paso shooter was mentally ill and acted alone. 

As a linguist, I must remain neutral in these political arguments.  I will leave the assignation of blame to pundits and politicians.  Today I would like to talk about how and why these metaphors are so powerful in shaping the beliefs and actions of certain Americans.  Linguists have been talking for decades about the importance of language in influencing people’s beliefs.  I have discussed this many times in the past few years in this blog space.  Back in 2013 I wrote a post called “Do Metaphors Matter?” examining this very topic.  I would like to revisit the topic with an expanded analysis including three increasingly large social circles of 1) the body, 2) the family, and 3) the home.  I will argue that defending these three areas of our lives can be traced back to our early Homo sapiens ancestors, and can explain the power of many of our current political metaphors. 

Readers of this blog are well aware that my approach to understanding metaphors has been inspired by the ground-breaking work of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson.  They were the first to describe how metaphors usage is part of our everyday thinking.  Johnson’s book The Body in the Mind describes how many of our metaphors are derived from our experiences of using our own bodies.  In my research, I discovered more than 100 separate metaphors based on our body position, using our heads, arms, legs, hands and feet.  Thus, we have examples such as facing the problem, standing up for one’s rights, backing a candidates, reaching across the aisle, or getting a stronghold in another country.

A self-defense class. Source: Wikipedia commons

Sadly, many of these body metaphors are based on ideas of defending oneself against attackers.  We don’t even think about this, but most of the ways we talk about arguments use metaphors such as taking a stand on the issue, confronting your opponent or arguing from a position of strength.  In evolutionary terms, this makes sense. We are all familiar with the stories of our ancient ancestors fighting off cave bears or saber-tooth cats to survive.  We would not have survived as a species if we were not good at defending our bodies.

Source: Wikimedia commons

At a higher level of awareness and social grouping, we can also talk about the importance of our families in our lives.  The idea of belonging to a family is another rich source of metaphor creation on several different generational levels.  We talk about the founding fathers of our country, our soldiers in World War I and World War II as brothers in arms, or your latest pet project at work as your baby.  We also have the metaphorical expressions of “necessity is the mother of invention” and Uncle Sam referring to the U.S. government.  While there are not any metaphorical expressions referring directly to defending one’s family, we can understand that there is a natural instinct among all parents and grandparents to protect their loved ones in case of attack.  This is common in the natural world as well.  I am not a hunter but I have heard the saying that the only thing more dangerous than a grizzly bear is a momma grizzly bear defending her cubs. It is not surprising that two of our most powerful civil rights groups founded by women have the word mother in the name of the organization, e.g., Mothers Against Drunk Driving which not coincidentally spells out the acronym MADD indicating their anger at all the lives lost to drunk drivers.  There is also a group fighting for more gun regulations called Moms Demand Action.  

Source: Wikimedia commons

At the next higher level of social group is the sense of home.  The notion of home has several meanings.  Literally it means the house that people live in with their families.  But metaphorically it has other more powerful meanings.  A home is much more that a building, it represents the sense of love, family and belonging to a place.  In my much younger days I served two years in the Peace Corps in West Africa.  The other volunteers and I spoke often of going back home after our service was complete, as do thousands of military service men and women today.  Of course, we were not simply speaking of returning back to the houses that we grew up in, but to our family, friends, community and country.  We have many metaphors derived from our experience of living in a home, e.g., we call the founding fathers the framers of the constitution as if they were building a house, we talk about opportunity knocking (on the door) and the window of opportunity closing, and some politicians want to make a clean sweep of corruption in Washington D.C.  In terms of defending our homes, we also talk about having gatekeepers who maintain order in society, avoiding backdoor activities of corrupt politicians, and more to the point, having our national defense system literally called Homeland Security.  The Stand Your Ground laws in some states allow a homeowner to shoot someone who invades their property.  It is loosely based on the old British idea that “a man’s home is his castle.” This phrase is loaded with metaphorical power.  It involves the sense of standing to protect oneself (the body), or your loved ones (the family) on your ground or property (the home).  It’s a triple play for 2nd Amendment proponents who instinctively desire to defend themselves. 

In a larger sense, we also extend the meaning of home to include our streets, neighborhoods and communities.  And we protect our communities against outside interference.  Thus we have the acronym NIMBY, meaning Not In My Backyard, a phrase used by homeowners threatened by the possibility of a landfill, nuclear waste disposal site, a new airport or any other dangerous or noisy development.  

Source: Wikimedia commons

What does this have to do with mass shootings?  It is pretty clear that it is part of human nature to defend one’s body, family and home for danger.  When someone refers to a city being infested by rodents, most of us would shudder in disgust.  Anyone who has gone camping has most likely experienced insects crawling over our bodies during the middle of the night.  Harmless insects such as ants are annoying, but animals such as spiders or rodents that carry diseases is definitely a dangerous situation.  No one would like to think of their homes being infested by creepy, dangerous animals.  Also, it is normally the poor urban areas that are infected by rats, poor urban areas which are usually populated by poor people and minorities who have been forgotten by society.  Saying that a certain area is infested by rodents is clearly sending a message that the area is in bad condition because of the fault of the minorities to keep the area clean, even though it is almost always the case because the government has not provided the resources to maintain that area.  It is rarely the fault of the local people. 

Source: Wikimedia commons

When politicians talk about an invasion of immigrants, they too are sending a clear message that immigrants coming into this country is a dangerous thing.  The term invasion reminds people of military takeovers, such as Viking attacks in Europe during the Middle Ages, or German invasions of parts of Europe during World War II.  What could be more dangerous than an invasion?  People are well aware that their homes may be taken or destroyed or their family members could be killed during an invasion.  (We also talk about a flood of immigrants as if a tidal wave is coming to wipe out everyone and everything in its path.)

This discussion begs the question of why white people in America are so afraid of African-American, Hispanic, Asian or other minority people in the first place. To most Americans this fear is absurd.  Anyone who has lived or worked with people of color knows that they are just like anyone else in the world.  They are hardworking, law-abiding, family-loving people.  But to bigoted or racist people, minorities represent “the other” — people not like themselves, and thus they cannot be respected or trusted. Where does this idea come from?  Sadly it seems to have been part of human evolution for thousands of years.  No one knows exactly why Neanderthal Man disappeared.  Neanderthals lived in Europe for 400,000 years before disappearing shortly after the arrival of the rival species, Homo sapiens.  It is possible that the Neanderthals died off from disease, food shortages or climate change, but they may have also been killed by tribes of Homo sapiens.  In human prehistory, most hunter gatherer tribes coexisted peacefully for thousands of years.  However, when agriculture was discovered about 4000 BC, towns and cities quickly developed since people could, for the first time, stay in one place to live.  Sadly, the development of agriculture led to imbalances of food, money and power.  It is not long after that the first records of slavery occurred.  It seems to be part of human nature that a group in power will try to subjugate another, less powerful, group of people.  

Source: Wikimedia commons

Americans tend to think of slavery as a problem of American history, but of course, anyone who has seen the movie Gladiator, will remember that slavery existed in Ancient Greece and Rome.  Also, anyone who has seen the mini series Roots, based on the book by Alex Haley, will remember that the African slave trade, although promoted by Europeans and Americans, was also facilitated by some African tribes capturing and selling members of other African tribes.  I happened to live in the West African country of Benin during my Peace Corps service.  I have been to the museums in the coastal cities such as Ouidah, where the African slaves were sold off to the American traders. I saw the actual shackles and chains used by some African tribes to capture other Africans.  To most people, the idea of selling a person is appalling, as if they were simply property.  However, even our revered founding fathers counted slaves as only 3/5 of a person. 

This idea of subjugating people also has its origins in something called the Great Chain of Being.  This notion also goes back to the Ancient Greeks.  The idea was that people lived in the middle of a specific ranked order of beings, animals and plants.  In its most famous iteration Medieval Christians assigned the basic order, from highest to lowest, God, angels, humans, animals, plants and minerals, depicted in this drawing from 1579.  European kings used this idea to establish that they were closer to God thus higher in rank than ordinary people.  Colonial European powers used this idea to justify the horrible treatment they gave to African, Asian and Pacific Island nations as they plundered their natural resources for their own benefits.  And of course, 17th century Europeans and colonial American states used this idea to justify slavery as a means of obtaining a free source of labor.  Needless to say, our own treatment of Native Americans for the past several centuries has been just as bad. 

The Great Chain of Being, 1579 Drawing. Source: Wikimedia commons

Although these ideas sound horribly outdated, we find similar ideas in the Bible: 

Genesis 1:26: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”  

While this passage is only speaking of humans having dominion over animals, it too has provided justification for hunters to kill animals for no reason.  While most modern hunters kill animals only for the meat, or to protect themselves from animals from attacking their families or their livestock, there are still so-called trophy hunters who kill only for the pleasure of killing a rare or dangerous animal.  You may remember the public outrage when a beloved lion named Cecil was killed by a trophy hunter in Zimbabwe in 2015. 

Sadly, people in many cultures around the world have treated other people as animals, lower in value than humans.  You may have read the remarkable book, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, in which he describes the men who hunted escaped slaves as if they were wild animals. Scientists used African-American men as guinea pigs in studies of syphilis at the Tuskegee University in Alabama between 1932 and 1972.  Even sadder still is the fact that human trafficking and other forms of slavery still exist in almost every corner of the world. It is perhaps no surprise then that in the United States and other parts of the world, immigrants are seen as less than human, somehow a lower form of life that must be stopped from coming into the home country.  These immigrants are a threat to the status quo of the privileged white social class who want to maintain their superiority over less powerful groups.  The ultimate irony, of course, is that in the United States, everyone except Native Americans are immigrants.  Our ancestors came from other parts of the world at different times in American history.  However, immigrants with darker skin, people of color, are judged to be the other, and thus become targets of discrimination and bigotry.  The reasons for this bigotry are complex.  In addition to the personal reasons of defending oneself or one’s family, there are also economic reasons — the fear of immigrants taking the jobs of Americans, political reasons — the fear that our government will be controlled by minorities, or social reasons — the fear of miscegenation, i.e., that the “pure” white race will be diluted by intermarriage with people of color.  

Now, to come full circle to the question of the importance of metaphors, I remind my readers of the work of George Lakoff on the idea of understanding governments in terms of what he calls the metaphorical “Nurturant Parent family” or the “Strict Father family.” 

In Lakoff’s model, liberals tend to think of government as nurturing parents who take care of their children.  Therefore they expect Congress to ensure a healthy economy, provide health care to the sick, food stamps to the poor and other safety nets to help those in need.  In contrast, conservatives tend to think of government as a strict father.  In a blog post a few years ago, Lakoff explains this idea further.

https://georgelakoff.com/2016/03/02/why-trump/

“The basic idea is that authority is justified by morality (the strict father version), and that, in a well-ordered world, there should be (and traditionally has been) a moral hierarchy in which those who have traditionally dominated should dominate. The hierarchy is: God above Man, Man above Nature, The Disciplined (Strong) above the Undisciplined (Weak), The Rich above the Poor, Employers above Employees, Adults above Children, Western culture above other cultures, Our Country above other countries. The hierarchy extends to: Men above women, Whites above Nonwhites, Christians above nonChristians, Straights above Gays.”

Needless to say, this metaphorical family structure follows the same logic as the Great Chain of Being dating back to the days of the Ancient Greeks.  There are two important points to be made here.  First, some conservatives may believe in this sort of hierarchy and act on it thinking they are justified in doing so based on their belief in maintaining the “well-ordered world.”  Secondly, people who blindly believe in this moral hierarchy may not think on their own; instead they will just believe what someone else tells them, if that person is in a position of higher authority.  For example, years ago a colleague of mine confessed that he did not know who to vote for in the upcoming presidential election, but he wasn’t worried because the pastor at this church was going to tell him who to vote for.  

Of course, I am in no way justifying this type of behavior.  I am only trying to explain how language and metaphors fit into the schema or world views of some people who try to justify their racist behavior.  Words do indeed matter, especially when they incite people to turn their beliefs into actions of killing innocent people for the tragically misguided purposes of maintaining their power in society. 

A Tsunami of Immigrants?

The contentious topic of immigration has been in the news the past few weeks.  The Trump administration allegedly directed two government agencies – DSH, the Department of Homeland Security, and ICE – Immigration and Customs Enforcement – to separate children from their parents at several different border checkpoints in Texas.  Public outcry has led to policy changes and the reunification of most of these families.  However, the crisis highlighted years of discrimination against immigrants going back to the founding of this country.  This sort of discrimination against immigrants has been alive and well in Europe for hundreds of years as well.

Clues of this type of discrimination can be found in the metaphors used to describe immigrants.  While many are neutral terms, others are clearly negative in their connotations. A few years ago, the blogger David Shariatmadari wrote a nice article entitled “Swarms, floods and marauders: the toxic metaphors of the migration debate” on how negative metaphors in England are used against immigrants using such terms as swarms or floods of migrants or describing them as marauders.  Also, a recent article in the Atlantic by Franklin Foer describes “How ICE Went Rogue,” detailing how ICE agents have become increasingly aggressive in arresting and deporting immigrants regardless of their legal or illegal immigration status. Formerly, ICE agents were restricted by government policies as to whom they could arrest.  After Donald Trump became president, ICE officials claimed that their handcuffs were removed.

I have discussed metaphors of immigration in past blog posts but I thought it was time to take a fresh look.  I originally thought that most immigration metaphors were negative, such as those listed above, but recently I have found examples of neutral metaphors, i.e., those that simply describe immigrants or immigration issues without negative connotations. What follows is a short list of metaphors from several different concepts including war, insects, animals, nature, rivers and oceans.  For clarity, I indicate whether each type of metaphor is neutral or negative.  I include examples from recent news articles with links to each source.  Some examples are excerpts from articles; others are merely headlines.  Italics are mine.

 

War/Military Operations – Negative

I found a few examples of metaphors from wars or military operations to describe immigrants. In addition to the marauder example mentioned earlier, I found evidence of politicians describing their countries as being under siege, under attack or being on the front lines of the battle with immigrants.

under siege

Example:  “British towns are being ‘swamped’ by immigrants, and their residents are ‘under siege’, Michael Fallon, the UK defence secretary, said on Sunday.” (source: The Financial Times)

under attack

Example:  “Trump Uses Language of Exterminators in Attack on ‘Illegal Immigrants’” (source: New Yorker Magazine)

front lines

Example:  “A town at the front lines of the migrant crisis: ‘We can’t let them die’” (source: the Los Angeles Times)

 

Insects and Animals – Negative

Sadly, large groups of immigrants coming into a country are often compared to bothersome insects or animals.  Donald Trump recently compared immigrants to animals that were infestingour country.  I include his tweet below along with a stunning criticism of this language usage by blogger Josh Marshall.  I also include examples of swarminginsects and stampeding cattle as suggested by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.  Finally, I include the controversial example of Donald Trump calling some immigrants animals.  In his defense, he was referring to the violent MS-13 gang members, not all immigrants. 

infest

Example:  “Democrats are the problem. They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13. They can’t win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters!” (source: New Yorker Magazine)

“Josh Marshall makes the unavoidable historical connection:

‘The use of the word ‘infest’ to talk about people is literally out of the Nazi/anti-Semites’ playbook for talking about the Jewish threat. It was also a standard for talking about Chinese in the western United States and it remains part of the vocabulary for talking about Romani (Gypsies) in parts of Europe. This is the most hard-boiled kind of racist demagogic language, the kind that in other parts of the world has often preceded and signaled the onset of exterminationist violence. The verb ‘to infest’ is one generally used to describe insects or vermin (rats), creatures which are literally exterminated when they become present in a house or building or neighborhood.'”

swarm

Example:  “David Cameron criticised over migrant ‘swarm’ language” (source:  BBC)

animals

Example:  “We have people coming into the country, or trying to come in — and we’re stopping a lot of them — but we’re taking people out of the country. You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people. These are animals.” (source: New York Times)

stampede

Example:  “We are not going to let this country be overwhelmed,” Sessions told the press at a Wednesday news conference. “People are not going [to] caravan or otherwise stampede our border. We need legality and integrity in the system. People should wait their turn, ask to apply lawfully before they enter our country. So we’re sending a message worldwide.” (Source: Newsweek)

 

Nature – Neutral

It is very common to use our experiences with nature to describe abstract processes. With immigration issues, I found many examples of metaphors based on trees and erosion of hills to describe these issues, including problems that have a root cause or are deep rooted, grassroots opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration policies, the erosion of national security or the danger of going down a slippery slope to beginning to take away civil rights of Americans.

deep rooted

Example:  “There are an estimated 11m-12m immigrants living in the United States illegally, most of them Latino. Many have families, jobs and property, and far deeper roots in America than in their countries of origin.” (source: The Economist)

grassroots

Example:  “From ‘angry grandmas’ to lemonade stands: How grass-roots groups stepped in to help separated families” (source: CNN)

root cause

Example:  “Letter: To curb illegal immigration, find the root cause” (source: The Chicago Tribune)

erode

Example:  “President Donald Trump’s recent tweets against open borders come as no surprise. Indeed, even fervent immigration advocates worry that open borders would lower the wages of low-skilled natives, erode national security, and overburden the social safety net.” (source: USA Today)

slippery slope

Example:  “The slippery slope of the Trump administration’s political embrace of calling MS-13 ‘animals’” (source:  The Washington Post)

 

Nature – Negative

There are also a few examples of metaphors of nature with negative connotations.  Since some immigrants come into countries illegally, they often hide from authorities and can be described as living in the shadows. The difficult social and economic problems of immigration are sometimes called thorny issues while these immigration issues can be compared to a swamp or quagmire.   Sadly, movements of immigrants into a country may be compared to a natural disaster such as an avalanche.

shadows

Example:  “Illustrations tell story of family ‘living in the shadows’ because of illegal immigration” (source:  West Palm Beach TV)

thorny

Example:  “The Thorny Economics of Illegal Immigration” (source: The Wall Street Journal)

quagmire

Example:  “Republicans caught in immigration quagmire” (source:  USimmigration.com)

avalanche

Example:  “Spain set for ‘avalanche’ of African immigrants” (source: The Local)

 

 

 

Rivers and Oceans – Neutral

Movement of people is often compared to the movement of water in rivers or oceans.  These metaphors can be both neutral or negative in their connotations.  A few neutral metaphors include having a wave, tide or steady stream of immigrants.  The word influx is of Latin origin meaning “flowing in.”  Thus we also find an influx of immigrants in news articles. We can also see a ripple effect of one event influencing another.  In this case, we see the ripple effect of immigration policies on the lives of immigrants.

wave

Example:  “The United States experienced major waves of immigration during the colonial era, the first part of the 19th century and from the 1880s to 1920.” (source: history.com)

tide

Example:  “The Deadly Cost of Turning Back the Immigration Tide” (source: the Daily Beast)

steady stream

Example:  “Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas economists estimate that immigrants and their children comprised more than half of the US workforce growth in the last 20 years and expect this group to make up an even larger percentage over the next 20 years. And, according to Pew Research Center, without a steady stream of a total of 18 million immigrants between now and 2035, the share of the US working-age population could decrease to 166 million.” (source: CNN)

influx

Example:  “Illegal Immigration Influx Continues — 50,000 Attempt Border Crossing for Second Straight Month” (source: townhall.com)

ripple effect

Example:  “The deadly ripple effect of harsh immigration policies” (source: open democracy.net)

Rivers and Oceans – Negative

We can also find examples of water movement metaphors with a negative connotation.  As we saw with an avalanche of immigrants, some metaphors compare immigrant movements to natural disasters, this time caused by rivers or oceans.   Thus, we can find examples of politicians trying to stem the flow of immigrants, being swamped or flooded by immigrants.  In an extreme example, we can also talk about a tsunami of immigrants as if they are causing great damage and destruction.

stem the flow

Example:  “TRUMP’S WALL ISN’T GOING TO STEM THE FLOW OF UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS” (source: Newsweek)

swamped

Example:  “British towns are being “swamped” by immigrants, and their residents are “under siege”, Michael Fallon, the UK defence secretary, said on Sunday.” (source: The Financial Times)

flood

Example:  “Myth No. 1: Undocumented immigrants are flooding into the United States”  (source: The Washington Post)

tsunami

Example:  “Immigration crisis: Official: ‘A tsunami of people crossing the border’” (source: Fox News)

*******

The obvious question is why people have such negative attitudes towards immigrants. In the United States, everyone except Native Americans is an immigrant.  And yet some politicians, themselves with immigrant backgrounds, set policies restricting movement of immigrants into the country.  The usual explanation is that these immigrants are coming into the country illegally whereas their ancestors came legally. However, most immigrants would come legally if the laws were not so restrictive.  Almost all migrants go to another country to escape persecution, economic crisis or to create a better life for themselves and their children. My own Irish ancestors came to the United States after the potato famine in Ireland during which thousands of people died from starvation.  Many modern immigrants coming into the United States are escaping wars in Central America while those going into Europe and the United Kingdom are escaping brutal conflicts in the Middle East.  Who can blame them for trying to survive? I would hope that modern governments accept immigrants into their countries with the same compassion and understanding that was extended to our ancestors.

 

More Metaphors on Immigration

Hello!  Sorry for my delayed posts the past couple weeks.  This is the end of the quarter at my college.  I have been swamped with lesson plans and committee meetings, mired in tests and grading and behind on my paperwork.  I have also been trying to keep up with my family obligations and stay on top of paying bills and other household chores. — Isn’t it amazing how many metaphors we use in every day speech?

Back to the blog, I would like to offer a belated analysis of President Obama’s speech on immigration a few weeks ago.  At first glance, it may seem that there were not many political metaphors in the speech.  However, there were quite a few metaphors that reveal how politicians – and most Americans – think about immigration issues and government policies in general.  All of the quotations today are from the speech itself.  Italics are mine.  You can read the entire speech here at:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/20/remarks-president-address-nation-immigration

Containers/Light and Dark

President Obama took pains to describe how immigrants felt if they did not yet have green cards or their citizenship.  Whether or not they came here illegally or had been born to illegal immigrant parents, these immigrants were described as being locked in containers or trapped in cages.  Here are a few examples:

blog - immigration - Lobster_traptrap

In a common hunting metaphor, one way to capture and kill a wild animal is to set a trap for it.  A person can leave a trap baited with food, and when the animal enters the cage to eat the food, the animal is trapped.  In common terms, when someone is caught in a trap, he or she is not able to exit from a situation. In terms of the immigration debate, President Obama refers to immigrants not being trapped by their past, but who can create a new future for themselves. The implication is that illegal immigrants in the U.S. today are indeed trapped by their circumstances.

Example:  “For more than 200 years, our tradition of welcoming immigrants from around the world has given us a tremendous advantage over other nations. It’s kept us youthful, dynamic, and entrepreneurial. It has shaped our character as a people with limitless possibilities – people not trapped by our past, but able to remake ourselves as we choose.”

come out

            When a container is filled with solid or liquid materials, it is a common experience to see these materials coming out of the container when it is used. To say something or someone is coming out, it indicates that it or they are being released from a confining situation.

Example: “…students who bravely come out as undocumented in hopes they could make a difference in a country they love.”

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAcome out of the shadows

A shadow is caused by something or someone blocking sunlight. In English the word shadow can have two meanings.  For one, someone in another person’s shadow is trying to be as good as that person who came before him or her.  Secondly, someone working in the shadows is thought to be doing something bad or illegal.  To say that someone is coming out of the shadows implies the person has been doing something immoral or illegal.  President Obama used this expression in several different ways.

Example: In describing the immigration activist Astrid Silva,  “…she mostly lived in the shadows – until her grandmother, who visited every year from Mexico, passed away, and she couldn’t travel to the funeral without risk of being found out and deported.”

Example: “And undocumented immigrants who desperately want to embrace those responsibilities see little option but to remain in the shadows…”

Example:  After describing the benefits of his new executive order:  “…you’ll be able to apply to stay in this country temporarily, without fear of deportation.  You can come out of the shadows and get right with the law.”

Clothing

            Social situations are sometimes described metaphorically as fabric as if they are part of a piece of cloth.  While fabric can be used as clothing which can be a strong, protective covering, it can also be something that is weak and can be torn or ripped apart.  Metaphorically we see all of these conditions described in political situations.

fabric

Clothing is made out of material or fabric.  The concept of fabric can also be used to describe something very broad that is held together by many threads running in different directions.

Example:  “I know that some worry immigration will change the very fabric of who we are, or take our jobs, or stick it to middle-class families at a time when they already feel like they’ve gotten the raw end of the deal for over a decade.”

blog - immigration - ripped jeanstear apart

Example:  “And undocumented immigrants who desperately want to embrace those responsibilities see little option but to remain in the shadows, or risk their families being torn apart.”

 

ripping children from their parents

Example:  “Are we a nation that accepts the cruelty of ripping children from their parents’ arms?  Or are we a nation that values families, and works to keep them together?”

Houses and Machines

build

We commonly describe the creation of something abstract as if it is something physical we are building.  This usage can apply literally to buildings, machines or any physical object, while metaphorically the verb to build can apply to any abstract process or social relationship.

Example:  “First, we’ll build on our progress at the border with additional resources for our law enforcement personnel so that they can stem the flow of illegal crossings, and speed the return of those who do cross over.”  [Note the use of the river metaphor here stem the flow, discussed in an earlier post.]

blog - immigration - broken pistonbroken

Fragile objects and machines can be described as broken if they are no longer intact or do not function properly.  Once a machine is broken, someone must make the effort to fix it.  President Obama described our immigration program as being broken and needing to be fixed.

Example:  “But today, our immigration system is broken, and everybody knows it.”

 

fix 

Example:  “When I took office, I committed to fixing this broken immigration system.”

Example:  “I worked with Congress on a comprehensive fix, and last year, 68 Democrats, Republicans, and Independents came together to pass a bipartisan bill in the Senate.” 

Games and Rules

blog - immigration - play by the rulesplay by the rules

Whenever a game is played, the participants must agree to set of rules to avoid arguments and controversies during the game.  Anyone who cheats or does not follow the rules is not respected and usually not asked to play the game after that point.  In politics, candidates, government officials and businesses must play by the rules of their particular state or government with respect for the other people involved.  In discussions of immigration, people from other countries must play by the rules in order to obtain citizenship.

Example:  “Families who enter our country the right way and play by the rules watch others flout the rules.”

blog - immigration - straight lineright/straight

            Just as in the concept of playing by the rules in a game, we can also describe being right or straight in one’s behavior.  This common metaphor is derived from our experiences with shapes and lines.  When a line is drawn directly from one point to another, we say that the line is straight.  Describing something that is straight implies that it is true, clear and direct.  The word right also has its origins in describing a straight line.  President Obama often referred to proper behavior by illegal immigrants is by being straight or right with the law while referring to honest behavior as simply being straight as well.

Example:  “And let’s be honest – tracking down, rounding up, and deporting millions of people isn’t realistic. Anyone who suggests otherwise isn’t being straight with you.”

Example:  “You can come out of the shadows and get right with the law.”

Example:  “Are we a nation that tolerates the hypocrisy of a system where workers who pick our fruit and make our beds never have a chance to get right with the law?”

Journeys

pathway to citizenship

A path is a small, narrow road.  Metaphorically, we speak of a path as being a process or a way to achieve a goal.  There is also a similar term pathway that is yet another word indicating a manner of doing something.  The process of becoming an American citizen is often described as being a pathway to citizenship.

Example:   “I worked with Congress on a comprehensive fix, and last year, 68 Democrats, Republicans, and Independents came together to pass a bipartisan bill in the Senate. It wasn’t perfect. It was a compromise, but it reflected common sense. It would have doubled the number of border patrol agents, while giving undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship if they paid a fine, started paying their taxes, and went to the back of the line.”

blog - immigration - Pathway_at_Udayagiri_Park

In summary, even though there were not many metaphors in President Obama’s speech on immigration, there were a few examples that reveal how we think about these important issues. Most of us know that illegal immigrants are living in the shadows while liberals and conservatives seem to disagree on whether or not they should come out of the shadows and become citizens or if they should be deported. We also compare our immigration system to a broken machine that needs to be fixed as if it is an old car engine.  But to fix this machine the immigrants must play by the rules as if it is a football game, and be right with the law as if they are walking on a straight line.  If the immigrants succeed they can be on a pathway or journey to becoming American citizens.

Most of us believe that immigrants, whether legal or illegal, add a valuable amount of diversity and hard work to the fabric of our economy and our society.  My own ancestors come from Ireland, France and Sweden.  I think most of us – unless we are Native Americans – can trace our heritage back to other countries.  Let us celebrate our diversity!

Next time:  Metaphors of Physical Forces in Economics

Do Metaphors Matter? Part 2 – Immigrants

For the second part of my investigation into the importance of metaphors, I did some research on whether or not immigrants or naturalized citizens understand metaphors.  If not, I then wondered if this lack of English proficiency would prevent them from participating in American politics.  Please let me know what you think!  Do you know any immigrants who like to read or watch TV about politics but do not understand the conversation because of the metaphors?

*******

As for my second question, I wondered if non-native speakers of English can understand these metaphors. A considerable amount of research has shown that native speakers can understand metaphors as quickly and easily as literal statements (Gibbs, 1993; Gibbs, 1994; Glucksberg and Keysar, 1993; and Ortony, 1993b).  However, in my own experience teaching ESL for almost 30 years, idioms and metaphors are the most difficult English expressions for ESL students to learn.  Even immigrants who have lived in the United States for years have trouble understanding figurative language in everyday English.

For the final question, we consider how immigrants or naturalized citizens participate in the American political process.  According to the 2010 census 12.8% of the U.S. population is foreign-born (http://quickfacts.census.gov/ qfd/states/00000.html) amounting to approximately 40 million people.  Moreover, 20.3% of the population has a language other than English spoken at home.  These statistics beg the question if these immigrants are registered voters, if they vote, or even if they watch television news broadcasts about local or national elections in English or their native languages.

S. Karthick Ramakrishnan completed a thorough study of these issues in his book, Democracy in Immigrant America: Changing Demographics and Political Participation (2005).  He found that immigrants who became naturalized citizens had higher levels of participation in politics because of their commitment to living in the United States and the education needed to pass the citizenship exam (p. 78). He found that the strongest predictors of participation are age, education, marital status, residential stability and English proficiency (p. 81).

Ramakrishnan found that language barriers prevented access to the political process in many different ways.  For example, only those with English proficiency would participate in “writing to elected officials, signing ballot petitions and contributing money to political causes” (p. 159).  Ramakrishnan (p. 8) concluded that political participation was “integral to the mission of securing an economic foothold in the United States” and “to secure a better life…for themselves and their children.”

*******

Do you agree that the lack of understanding of metaphors can hinder immigrants from participating in politics in their local communities or at the national level?

Next time:  Back on track with metaphor analyses.