Subject Headings: A Microcosm of Societal Divide
The Library of Congress Subject Headings is one of the most widely recognized and adopted subject indexing languages throughout the world. It is used to catalog the vast variety of materials held at the Library of Congress, thus making said materials easier to identify and track. This benefits both librarians, who oversee the circulation and maintenance of the materials, and researchers, who seek a streamlined process in accessing the materials for their respective fields of study.
For decades, immigrants who arrived in the United States illegally were simply referred to as “illegal immigrants”. This spilled over into how these individuals were written about, and therefore how the literature about them was cataloged. However, in March of 2016 the Library of Congress announced that it would remove the term “illegal alien” from its subject headings, citing that these were “pejorative terms”. Instead, the library plans to use the terms “noncitizens” and “unauthorized immigration”. In response to this decision, the House of Representatives authorized a provision which required the library to retain the terminology that is used in federal law. Included in this is the term “alien”. What is rendered, then, is a standoff between Liberals seeking reform of the stigma on illegal immigration, along with individuals who have personal ties to those who have come to the U.S. illegally, and Conservatives who believe in stricter immigration laws and that current federal law is quite clear on the proper terminology.
What we as observers are left with is a two-part analysis. First, the article points out that there is currently federal terminology that is standard for this subject. As stated earlier, among this terminology is the term “alien”. Therefore, in the strict legal sense, there are clear guidelines to be followed, and the term “illegal alien” is not inaccurate. Further, Webster’s definition of “alien” is, “relating, belonging, or owing allegiance to another country or government.” Given that it is a crime to enter the U.S. without completing the proper immigration processes, the term “illegal alien” is accurate in both a legal sense and in relation to the pure definitions of the words which comprise it. Second is the issue of should the government have interfered in such a matter? Again, legally, there is clear reasoning behind the decision to interfere. With set terminology and established definitions behind these terms, it is easy to fathom why the government interfered. On the other hand, many may question if the government could be spending its time on other things instead of playing politics in order to influence terminology. However, perhaps it is better to view this as the government responding to the people. If this issue was salient enough to gain the amount of momentum needed for the Library of Congress to decide to change its terminology, then it is safe to say that the issue is quite salient among the population at large. In this sense, then, the government acted in a way that preserved the current legal terminology that was already in place. They did not overstep their boundaries, but instead they reinforced terminology that has sound definitional and legal precedence.
I suspect that the next subject headings to come into question will relate to gender. Our society is currently facing these issues as seen with the arguments over bathrooms and pronouns. With the amount of attention that was paid to this issue, it is not out of the realm of possibility that it could also gain enough momentum to force similar changes in institutions such as the Library of Congress. What such a decision would require, like the decision regarding the term “illegal aliens”, is an evaluation of what words we deem to be offensive. The article cites that there was no government intervention when the library removed the term “negro” from the subject headings. However, unlike said term, the terms “alien” and “illegal” are neither slang terms nor do they refer to a specific racial/ethnic group. Therefore, society should brace itself for many more contentious fights such as these in the future.
Tۓ��V
