The Media and Us.
The American mainstream media are liberal or left-leaning. Perhaps that was or is true, but rarely when it has been about us Latinos.
As I began my journalistic career in Southern California in the early 1970s, the hallowed bastion of liberalism, The Los Angeles Times, resorted to racist tropes.
By chance, I was in the middle of researching my master’s thesis when I got my first reporting job. Here is a long excerpt from the thesis. Today, have added some comments to the text.
The Times, on occasion, chooses to describe the United States Border Patrol as a group of rugged cowboy-types, shorthanded, but nevertheless, struggling to stop the flood of “illegals. “This is exactly how the Border Patrol is portrayed in “The Border Game,” an article which appeared in a Sunday supplement in September 1972.
The author wrote, “· .. The outnumbered Border Patrol does little but track down the few hundred wetbacks (a racist cliche) it can grab daily, process them for ‘voluntary return, load them on buses and ship them home to Mexico. There is little to prevent the aliens from trying again.
The cost to the American economy in terms of lost jobs, squandered welfare funds and unfair competition is incalculable. (Basic journalism, even then, would have demanded that you provide hard stats. In truth, that would be difficult, because the assertions are false.)
Border Patrolman Ab Taylor, “The Hunter, expressed satisfaction in hunting undocumented Mexicans. When they were caught, Taylor explained, Mexicans were “reconciled and resigned.” (So we are stoic and fatalistic) He continued, “The Mexican people are more able to take adversity in their stride than we are. They don’t show their frustration so much at having their plans spoiled. “The implication, of course, was that Mexicans did not mind too much enduring hardships to get across the border only to be caught and sent back to Mexico.
More to come in near future posts
Ricardo Chavira Chicano 