Xenophobia as American Tradition
What?
Throughout the article “Amnesty or Abolition?” the author, Kelly Lytle Hernández, provides many key points that are crucial when it comes to understanding the issues we are still facing today.
Hernández begins by stating that “Congress has greatly expanded the list of offenses that trigger deportation for legal immigrants” (Hernández). Minor criminal violations could lead to deportation and imprisonment, which further contributes to mass incarceration. There has been a rise in security when it comes to immigration policy and immigration imprisonment has become “far reaching.”
Hernández later claims that “the black freedom struggle was directly tied to immigration politics and Douglass recognized the critical importance of opposing the rise of immigration control” (Hernández). She argues that proposing immigration control to begin with was just a way to degrade them by restricting immigrant’s rights. The way they are degrading the Chinese is similar to how Blacks were degraded. Hernández explains how the Chinese did not have any rights to be in the United States and so did African Americans. The government was oppressing both communities and neither had the right to be an American; however, they were not allowing the Chinese to step foot in the United States at all even to begin with.
Hernández explains how “Congress banned Chinese workers and all “lunatics, idiots, convicts, those liable to become public charges, and those suffering from contagious diseases.”” (Hernández). This is a prime example of xenophobia. The United States was acting as if they were the better race and that the other race, Chinese, was lesser than them. They believed that they could treat them horribly and they were treating these racist labels of the Chinese as justification for nationalism. Within this quote, they are referring to the Chinese as all of these negative things: lunatics, idiots, convicts, etc. The U.S. treated them like they were sick and like they didn’t follow a traditional society.
Furthermore, Hernández emphasizes how Congress has “ introduced a national origins system, which limited how many immigrants could enter the United States each year; it favored Western European immigrants” (Hernández). The United States only favored people like them and accepted people who were the same. China was not westernized at this time and was refusing to westernize. The United States did not care about the Chinese and would scramble the Chinese land without asking them for any input. Hernandez illustrates how the U.S. is the biggest imperial power. She then refers to the U.S. government as “a zone of unmediated federal power.” (Hernández).With lots of power the U.S. is able to do what they want while accepting whoever they want into the country. Individuals want to be in this country because the U.S. is the most prosperous; however, they limit these people from coming in to tell them they cannot be a part of this community.
It is crucial that we understand that “provisions of the Constitution, securing the right of trial by jury, and prohibiting unreasonable search and seizures, and cruel and unusual punishment, have no application” to the Chinese and other immigrants. (Hernández). Officials could go up to immigrants and invade their homes to deport them because they are illegal. This violates basic human rights. They are going against everything that our country stands on by doing the exact opposite of what the Constitution states. The government can deport without any reason and has the power to do whatever they want. Immigrants could “be searched without warrants, they could be detained without being arrested, and punished by Americans in ways Americans could not be” (Hernández). The United States is betraying all of its policies and treating immigrants like a whole other species.
I think it is important that we recognize where Hernández says that “Border Patrol officers were given no guidance” (Hernández). This uncovers the ideas that detaining immigrants was unorganized and done however the Border Patrol officers wanted. They were given little to no orders which contributed to the unethical deportation of individuals at the border. She claims how “whenever a criminal record exists, we use the words, ‘criminal alien,’ and when no criminal record exists, the words, ‘deportable alien.’” (Hernández). We are trying to make them seem bad and referring to them as “aliens” dehumanizes them. The government bases their suspicions purely off of citizenship and race.
So What?
Hernández illustrates how “the United States holds over two million people behind bars” (Hernández). This shows that the United States in general is just throwing hundreds of people into prisons without probable cause. They are aiming to arrest people here with illegitimate reasons and there are little policies to protect these people.
Later, Hernández claims how “African Americans and Latinos, together, constitute 67 percent of the total state-prison population, but the rate of incarceration is significantly higher for the former” (Hernández). With these high rates of incarceration, African Americans are being unevenly impacted. They lack the rights that most other people have due to this mass incarceration. They are stereotyped as “dangerous” and “criminals.”
This information clearly relates to the community members that I have been working with. Mass incarceration is a major issue that is affecting the Black community. Structural racism exposes Blacks to more contact with the criminal justice system and causes there to be profound differences in income and education when it comes to race. Both immigrants and people of color are held to double standards when compared to White people in this country. It is clear that there is a disproportionate number of African Americans, as well as Latinx, placed behind bars. We have the tendency to stereotype individuals based on their characteristics, which can lead to the issue of mass incarceration. There is a bias towards different ethnicities, immigrants and African Americans, and people are structured to believe that a certain race is more guilty than another.
Hernández explains how the “Jim Crow [were] laws designed to marginalize African Americans under the rubric of “separate but equal.”” (Hernández). These were laws that segregated people and said that African Americans had the same civil rights when in reality Whites were demeaning African Americans. They were absolutely not equal at all. She refers to “mass incarceration as the “new Jim Crow”” (Hernández). To this day, we are still separate and not equal. Officials are trying to argue that imprisonment is equal, but, in reality, we are imprisoning African Americans and Latinx way more than other races.
Minorities, especially African Americans, often get segregated within neighborhoods and this causes there to be substantial power gaps in society. For example, the community in Golden Gate Village is being forced into impoverished living situations, which causes them to have little to no opportunities. This causes them to be more at risk for staying in poverty. Mass incarceration is a form of structural racism and by forcing these individuals into more impoverished and less privileged areas you are making them more predisposed to having to commit criminal acts to survive.
Now What?
The coronavirus pandemic is beginning to seriously impact prisons. Within the article “When Purell is Contraband, How Do You Contain Coronavirus?” the authors, Keri Blakinger and Beth Schwartzapfel, argue that “Jails and prisons have little in the way of infection control, according to the former chief medical officer at New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex” (Blakinger and Schwartzapfel).
These authors begin by telling the story of Lauren Johnson and how when she reached for a squirt of hand sanitizer within the Central Texas prison the officer on duty “screamed at [her]” because “alcohol-based hand sanitizer was against the rules” (Blakinger and Schwartzapfel). This illustrates the strict rules within prisons and the facts that cleanliness is not a top priority within these facilities.
These rules persist today and “underscore a potential problem for combating coronavirus” (Blakinger and Schwartzapfel). Many products that are used for disease prevention are completely against the rules within prisons which can lead to a profound amount of germs within prisons, which are “often dirty and have very little in the way of infection control” (Blakinger and Schwartzapfel). There is little access to any soap or paper to dry your hands with. Within prisons, the ability to “[cover] your mouth can be impossible if you’re handcuffed” (Blakinger and Schwartzapfel). This causes prisons to be very unsanitary and puts many inmates at risk for disease. Overall, the basic task of hand-washing can be difficult and it does not help that prisons do not provide effective cleaning supplies to inmates.
Blakinger and Schwartzapfel illustrate how correctional facilities maneuver around and respond to outbreaks. They often follow the procedure of “lockdowns, solitary confinement and visitation restrictions” (Blakinger and Schwartzapfel). There is a struggle to find a solution to protect inmates from the effects of the coronavirus while keeping them locked up.
All in all, the coronavirus, and many other diseases, can have negative effects on the prison population. With lack of access to cleaning materials such as soap, hand sanitizer, bleach, etc., inmates are unable to adequately clean themselves as well as their space. It is important that prisons follow procedures in order to keep this virus from spreading within the prison population, and facilities are beginning to take action by turning to solitary and limited visitation. Prisoners are treated unequally with their limited access to the basic human needs to stay clean. We should recognize this inequity as well as the already racially biased incarceration rates. It is necessary that we realize how Latinx and African Americans tend to be victims of mass incarceration the most often and how they are being exposed to a deadly virus within the prison system due to their lack of ability to remain clean.
