Banishing Immigration Newspeak
For nearly thirty years, Michigan's Lake Superior State
University has released an annual List of Banished Words, a brief
inventory of the year's most annoyingly popular expressions, with
the recommendation they be "banished from the Queen's English for
mis-use, over-use and general uselessness."
This year, the tiresome "metrosexual" and the insufferable "bling
bling" were deservedly condemned, as were several war-inspired
entrants such as "embedded journalist" and "smoking gun." I was
disappointed that none of my three choices for this annual
dishonor made the cut, however. My nominees for banishment were:
"Guest worker program," "Matching willing workers with willing
employers," and the worst offender, "Work Americans won't do," as
in "our economy needs illegal immigrants because they do work
Americans won't do."
Combined, these three Orwellian phrases are calculated to convey
the impression that there are certain occupations so inherently
dangerous or otherwise disagreeable that we lazy, self-indulgent,
American crybabies must rely on hardy immigrant stock to roll up
their sleeves and get the job done for us. Tell that to a
Pennsylvania coal miner!
Although it's true that less glamorous jobs are frequently filled
by illegal aliens, the jobs themselves are not intrinsically
unacceptable. Rather, the ready supply of illegal labor has
resulted in many perfectly satisfactory jobs becoming
unacceptable. In short, illegal aliens will work under unsanitary
and unsafe conditions for minimum wage or even less, thereby
lowering standards, and as long as employers can fill jobs by
exploiting illegals, there will simply be no incentive to improve
wages or working conditions.
A recent piece by Nancy L. Othón and Mike Clary in the South
Florida Sun-Sentinel illustrates this principle in action with
the story of Gregorio Ruiz Aviles and Lauro Marquez Hernandez,
two young Mexican illegal alien construction workers crushed to
death in the collapse of a three-story building on which they
were working. Five other men were injured in the accident. The
Florida company which employed them was fined $2.4 million for
having no workers' compensation insurance, but according to Othón
and Clary, "five months after the deaths of Ruiz and Marquez, few
public officials, employers, workers and immigrant advocates
express much hope that change would come soon in an industry
where undocumented workers willingly take any job they can get."
Worse still, employers who play by the rules are easily underbid
by their unscrupulous rivals, and the downward pressure on wages
and safety intensifies. And this phenomenon is certain to worsen
-- not lessen -- under any program which would legalize the
process. Why? Because a "documented" worker is easier to deport,
and will therefore be more likely to do "work Americans won't do"
to avoid unemployment and ineligibility. A guest worker program
will therefore simply institutionalize the current gray market
for employees who will tolerate the intolerable.
It's a tenuous doctrine, that American workers are so expensive
that even American companies can't afford them, and the plan to
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extricate ourselves from this invented predicament by pinning our
hopes on the newly legendary Mexican work ethic is flimsier
still. And yet, there is some evidence that muddleheaded
Americans are being persuaded by the hypnotic repetition of
immigration Newspeak issuing from the White House, the Congress,
and the major news media. A February 2004 Gallup Poll found that
46% of Americans support President Bush's plan to legalize
Mexican nationals currently living here illegally, "as long as
they hold jobs that no U.S. citizen wanted to do."
George Orwell famously observed that political speech is
"designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and
to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." What else can be
said of a phrase such as "undocumented worker" which presupposes
the subject is working, and transmutes the violation of our
borders into an apparent paperwork mixup? Will we now refer to a
bank robbery as an "unauthorized withdrawal?" And what shall we
call the children of undocumented workers? Undocumented students?
Orwell forewarned us more than fifty years ago that sloppy
language begets foolish thinking -- and vice versa -- and it's as
true today as ever. Purposely misleading expressions such as
"work Americans won't do" are solid proof that big lies still fit
neatly into short phrases.
It's time we banished them.
About the Author
Mr. Salientian is a regular contributor to PHXnews.com. You can read more of his articles on politics, economics, trade and immigration at HotFrog.org.
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