About this Report The Equal Justice Society commissioned this report through a grant from the Minami Tamaki Yamauchi Kwok & Lee Foundation. The San Francisco-based MTYKL Foundation in February 2016 awarded a total of $100,000 to nonprofit organizations involved in immigrant rights and advocacy, including the Equal Justice Society. The MTYKL Foundation was founded in 2014 by Dale Minami, Donald Tamaki, Brad Yamauchi, Minette Kwok, and Jack W. Lee. http://MTYKL.org The Equal Justice Society is transforming the nation’s consciousness on race through law, social science, and the arts. Our legal strategy aims to broaden conceptions of present-day discrimination to include unconscious and structural bias by using social science, structural analysis, and real-life experience. Currently, EJS targets its advocacy efforts on school discipline, special education, and the school-to-prison pipeline, race-conscious remedies, and inequities in the criminal justice system. The Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit also engages the arts and artists in creating work and performances that allow wider audiences to understand social justice issues and struggles. http://equaljusticesociety.org About the Authors Katherine Spencer is a social/personality psychology doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on the relationship between implicit bias and behavior, with special attention on the control of implicit bias. Sara Campos is a writer, lawyer, and consultant specializing in immigration and refugee issues. A graduate of UCLA Law, she worked at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area where she directed the Asylum Program. She also worked as a Staff Attorney for the National Immigration Law Center and taught Refugee Law at Golden Gate University and University of San Francisco Law Schools. Special thanks to Professor Jayashri Srikantiah and Professor Karthick Ramakrishnan for their assistance in reviewing a draft of this report.
Feedback and questions about this report can be directed to: Keith Kamisugi Equal Justice Society 1939 Harrison Street, Suite 818 Oakland, CA 94612 kkamisugi@equaljusticsociety.org http://equaljusticesociety.org/immigrantrights Report v20161208_0000
Psychological Biases, Anti-Immigrant Racism, and Xenophobia By Sara Campos and Katherine Spencer December 8, 2016 The Interplay Between Psychological Biases and Anti-Immigrant Sentiment This report details how implicit biases, stereotyping, and racial anxiety contribute to anti-immigrant racism and xenophobia. We begin by discussing current and historical anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States. Next, we discuss some of the psychological research on implicit bias, stereotyping and racial anxiety and how they influence anti-immigrant sentiment and xenophobia, followed by examples of specific incidents and policies. Lastly, we suggest some messaging on these topics. I. Anti-Immigrant Sentiment Today Echoes the Past The incidents have become troublingly familiar. A couple in Harrisonburg, Virginia left no gratuity for their server, a woman of Mexican and Honduran descent. Instead they left a note saying, “We only tip citizens.”1 In Elkhorn, Wisconsin, students at a high school girls’ soccer game chanted, “Build that wall,” at their Latina opponents.2 And in Wichita, Kansas, a motorcyclist jeered at a 23 year-old Muslim student and his Latinx friend at a Kwik Shop, “Hey, you brown trash, you better go home.” Taunts such as these have even been heard in the progressive enclave of Berkeley, California. At Rosa Parks School, teachers heard students rib Latinx students with, “You were born in a Taco Bell.”3 What is worse is that hate crimes have increased, especially against Muslims, Sikhs, and Arab Americans. A new report cites 180 reported incidents of anti-Muslim violence during the period between March 2015 and March 2016.45 Moreover, according to the Anti-Defamation League, anti-Semitic violence is also on the rise.6
1
Wootson (2016) Ng (2016) 3 Morrison (2016) 4 Hussain (2016) 5 Lichtbau (2016) 6 Markoe (2016) 2
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Many have attributed the rise of hate speech and race-related crimes to the harsh rhetoric of President-elect Donald Trump unleashed during his presidential campaign. Efren O. Perez defines xenophobic rhetoric as political communication that raises the salience of ethnic identity while devaluing its worth. 7 Mr. Trump’s rhetoric fits this definition. For example, on June 16, 2015, he stated: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some I assume are good people.”8 Mr. Trump has also stated that he wants to build a great wall between Mexico and the U.S. and that the government should round up 11 million undocumented immigrants and deport them, much like President Eisenhower did with his flawed “Operation Wetback” in the 1950s.9 Mr. Trump has also called for a ban on all Muslims from entering the United States.10 His rhetoric is not surprising. Despite the lofty paeans and tributes to the words of Emma Lazarus,11 the United States has displayed ambivalence towards immigrants since its earliest days. In 1751, Benjamin Franklin made the following statement about German immigrants: “Why should Pennsylvania…become a colony of aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us, instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our language or customs, any more than they can acquire our complexion?”12 7
Perez (2014) Lee (2015) 9 Wang (2015) 10 Diamond (2015) 11 Engraved on a bronze plaque and mounted inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty are the words of Lazarus’ poem, The New Colossus. The most famous lines read: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” Lazarus, Emma, The New Colossus, Liberty State Park. 12 Rampell (2015) 8
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More pointedly, he called Germans “the most stupid of their nation.�13 U.S. history is replete with examples, not only of ambivalence towards immigrants, but also of outright hostility and even violence towards them.14 Periods of antiimmigrant animus come in waves, ebbing and flowing, depending on the politics, economics, and insecurities of the time.15 Economic woes often spur anti-immigrant sentiment.16 But racial intolerance is also at play. Racial and ethnic minority immigrants have paid dearly when anti-immigrant hysteria has led to legislation -in the 1880s when the U.S. passed the Chinese Exclusion Act,17 in the 1920s when it enacted quotas in the Johnson Reed Act,18 in the 1990s when California passed proposition 18719 and a trilogy of federal immigration legislation criminalized immigrants and cut social services to legal immigrants,20 and in 2001 after 9/11, when the government enacted the U.S. Patriot Act21 and applied numerous policies against Arab and Muslim Americans. Today, we are in a political moment when anti-immigrant sentiment is once again being invoked, sometimes violently.22 Political commentators point to Presidentelect Trump as the source.23 What is likely, however, is that Mr. Trump merely uncorked an already brimming bottle, tapping latent bigotry that was already there. One need only look at Pete Wilson’s 1994 California gubernatorial race24 for an
13
Davis (2007) Murphy (2005) 15 Tichenor (1994) 16 Epenshade (1992) 17 Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, 22 Stat. 58 18 H.R. 7995; Pub.L. 68-139; 43 Stat. 153 19 Martin (1995) 20 Pub.L. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (April 24, 1996); Pub. L. 104-193 (August 22, 1996), Pub. L. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009-546 (September 30, 1996). 21 Pub. L. 107-52 (October 26, 2001). 22 Kate (2016) 23 Bump (2016) 24 In 1994, Pete Wilson sought reelection for governor of California. He was doing poorly in the polls and embraced proposition 187, an initiative that would, among other things, deny public education to undocumented children. Gold (March/April 2016) 14
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example.25 Yet, there are important differences between today and yesterday’s immigration battles. During the 1980s and 1990s, Americans sharply debated the effect of immigrants upon our economy, i.e., whether immigrants competed with native-born Americans for jobs, used social services, and otherwise hurt the economy. Reasonable people could point to economic reasons for their negative views on immigration. However, given the plethora of studies concluding that immigrants boost the economy, that position is no longer tenable.26 That is not to say that people who believe in curbing immigration are racist, it simply means that something besides economics is driving them to that position. Another difference is the way immigration is characterized. After the 9/11 attacks, the government dismantled the Immigration and Naturalization Service and created the Department of Homeland Security, thus viewing immigration through a security lens.27 Terrorism, whether it happens on U.S. soil or not, taps into people’s biggest fears. Organizations such as the Center for Security Policy have sought to capitalize on those fears.28 They not only seek to curb the immigration of people from Middle Eastern countries, but as is discussed below, they are also attempting to prevent mosques from being built in communities.29 The fear-based policies create a cycle in which Middle Eastern immigrants are marginalized from the mainstream, creating more opportunities for anti-immigrant fervor to fester. A major shift has also occurred in the tenor and tone of today’s immigration debate. Although there are exceptions, for the past several decades, Americans have tread carefully whenever engaging in racial discourse. In 1988, during the presidential race between Michael Dukakis and George H.W. Bush, a Republican PAC ran a television ad about convicted murderer Willie Horton. During a weekend period away from prison (a program instituted while Mr. Dukakis was governor of Massachusetts), Mr. Horton committed multiple crimes, including robbery and rape. The ad suggested that Mr. Dukakis was soft on crime. Although Mr. Horton was
25
Beinbart (2016) Blau (2016); Giovanni (August 2010); Costa, Cooper & Shierholz (April 12, 2014) 27 Homeland Security Act of 2002, (Pub. Law 107-296) November 25, 2002 28 Bump (2015) 29 American Civil Liberties Union, “Map-Nationwide Anti-Mosque Activity” (2016) 26
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Black, the ad never mentioned his race. Race was a taboo topic, treated subtly and coded in so-called “dog whistles.”30 Today, Mr. Trump and others have taken off the gloves, chastised political correctness, and dived into shrill xenophobia.31 Not only that, but the discourse has reverted to some of the worst racial stereotypes. According to writer Adam Serwer, during his presidential campaign, Mr. Trump engaged in an insidious form of racism, one that is couched in a kind of benevolence.32 Mr. Trump said Black communities are “absolutely in the worst shape they’ve ever been in.”33 As Serwer notes, that is quite a diagnosis in a country where Black people were once enslaved.34 Mr. Trump invoked vile stereotypes saying Blacks and Latinos are criminals and Muslims are terrorists and told his mostly White audiences that he wanted to help.35 His offerings of assistance deflected his use of prejudices and allowed him to convince himself and his followers that they are not racist. Finally, a major difference in today’s immigration debate is the use of social media. The landscape of news has changed dramatically; fewer newspapers are in print while the number of cable channels of various partisan leanings and social media platforms have proliferated.36 More people than ever obtain their news mainly from social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat.37 Facebook now boasts nearly 1.6 billion monthly active users, up 60% from 2012, when the last presidential election took place.38 Twitter has 385 million monthly active users, up from 185 million in 2012.39 Social media can reduce news to sound bites and catchphrases, memes and videos that friends can exchange. There is little opportunity to test the accuracy of the material posted. Social media thus becomes a kind of echo chamber where people
30
Ehrenfreund (2016) Tumulty & Johnson (2016) 32 Serwer (2016) 33 Serwer (2016) 34 Serwer (2016) 35 Serwer (2016) 36 Mitchell & Holcomb (2016) 37 Lang (2016) 38 Lang (2016) 39 Lang (2016) 31
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obtain the news they want to hear by reading articles posted by friends and families. The information collected does not resemble news as much as it does propaganda.40 Moreover, stereotypical memes and stories can be disseminated and multiply exponentially within these spaces. How does all this add up? Strong feelings against immigrants, both Latinx and Arab, African, Middle-Eastern, Muslim and South Asian communities (hereinafter AAMEMSA), have been stirred during this election season, much of it stereotypical and xenophobic. Social science research can help us unpack these sentiments – how they function and how they affect our judgments and attitudes. Psychological biases play a significant role in anti-immigrant racism and xenophobia, and as will be shown below, some of these have made their way into policies and laws against immigrants. Raising awareness of these biases is the first step in reducing the effects these biases have on our judgment, decisions, and behavior. II. Psychological Biases – A primer During the first presidential debate of 2016, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton talked about the need to train police officers on implicit bias. She said we all jump to conclusions about each other. “I think we all need all of us to be asking hard questions about ‘why am I feeling this way?’”41 In a speech to Georgetown University students following a series of fatal shootings of unarmed Black men, FBI director James Comey also encouraged police officers to identify and address the implicit biases they may have about the communities they serve. He said police nationwide should have an “open and honest discussion” about the relationship between officers and communities of color and the unconscious bias that often triggers people to act differently against individuals of other races.42 Comments like these demonstrate that the science of psychological bias, especially implicit bias, is making its way into mainstream thinking about discrimination. Implicit bias is but one of the psychological functions that factor into our judgments, decisions, and behavior. These outcomes are complex and multi-faceted and involve 40
There is broad agreement that news coverage in the United States has grown more ideologically divided over time, with a particularly strong divergence in television news after the launch of Fox News in 1996. See Haynes, Merolla & Ramakrishnan (2016) 41 Hunter (2016) 42 Sanburn (2015)
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implicit and explicit biases as well as cognitive, emotional, and physiological responses. Following is a primer on the ways these processes work and interact with each other. Implicit bias: prejudice and stereotyping The science behind implicit bias is primarily the study of human cognition. Humans are by nature associative thinkers; we perceive, encode, and remember the world around us through existing mental associations.43 When we observe two things together – for example, hot dogs at baseball games or popcorn at the movies – our minds associate them. The classical conditioning paradigm of learning and memory illustrates how this process works. In the well-known experiment, Ivan Pavlov presented dogs with food and observed them salivate in response to it.44 When he rang a bell for the dogs, they did not respond. After repeatedly ringing the bell with food, the dogs salivated in response to the bell alone, just as they would have in the presence of food. This response showed that the dogs had learned to associate the bell with food.45 The same principles apply to humans. We do not need rewards to form associations. Nor do we necessarily need unconditioned responses to form them. Perceiving two things occur together in our environment is enough for us to associate them. We learn the association and lodge it in our memories. Since this paper concerns people’s attitudes towards other people, the “things” that are linked together are groups of people (social groups) and attributes applied to them. People form semantic associations, or stereotypes, about groups of people (which we discuss in more depth below).46 People might, for example, associate doctors with health or illness and police officers with protection or threat. Throughout this paper, we will refer to people who belong to the same race/ethnic group as ingroup members, and people who belong to a different group as outgroup members.
43
Lodge & Taber (2013) Pavlov & Fol’bort (1928) 45 Pavlov & Fol’bort (1928) 46 Greenwald & Krieger (2006) 44
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People also form evaluative associations or prejudices about social groups.47 These are associations in which people link certain groups with judgments about those groups, such as general like or dislike. These implicit prejudices are also often referred to as implicit attitudes.48 The nature of implicit bias is not limited to the science of learning and memory like in the classical conditioning paradigm, but also includes fundamental dimensions of human cognition, specifically, awareness and control.49 Awareness is divided into two categories: (1) explicit or conscious awareness and (2) implicit or unconscious awareness.50 Control is also divided into two processes that are either (1) intentional and deliberate or (2) automatic and involuntary.51 For example, when a person is learning to drive, all aspects of driving (checking the mirrors, deciding what to do at a traffic signal, shifting gears, checking the blindspot) are highly controlled and also highly explicit. Driving takes much effort and at first the student driver is highly aware of everything he or she is doing. With more experience, driving becomes mostly automatic and a fairly implicit/unconscious process. For example, after a long day of work, a person may not remember driving home. Like driving, once people learn associations between social groups and attributes either as stereotypes or prejudices, they activate, and may also apply, them implicitly and automatically when making social judgments or engaging in social behavior.52 Practically speaking, this means that as we go about our daily lives, we form new associations and/or reinforce old ones based on what we encounter in our environment. We also activate associations without realizing it. Furthermore, because implicit bias is so fundamentally rooted in human cognition, and because of its automatic and unconscious nature, it is likely that everyone has, and is influenced by implicit biases.53 Of course, stereotypes and prejudices can also be conscious and controlled, just like experienced drivers can choose to be more conscious and intentional while driving. But the implicit nature of our biases ultimately means that conscious and intentional components of stereotyping and prejudice are not always 47
Greenwald & Krieger (2006) Greenwald & Krieger (2006) 49 Evans (2008) 50 Evans (2008) 51 Evans (2008) 52 Devine (1989) 53 Hardin & Banaji (2013) 48
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necessary for these biases to affect people and the social world with which they interact.54 Why might we have implicit bias to begin with? Evolutionarily, associative learning and memory has worked well for humans. Associations help us categorize the world: they help us determine things that are good, such as plants and animals that are good to eat, or those that are dangerous and harmful.55 For example, conditioned taste aversion occurs when eating a food leads to harm (nausea, vomiting, etc.). We associate the food with this negative outcome and develop an aversion to the food.56 Associations also help us perceive correlations, like Pavlov’s dogs learned the correlation of food with a bell. Moreover, it is good for us to understand cause and effect; if two things occur together enough in the environment, it is likely that one causes or leads to the other. Associations also help us favor our own. As social creatures, we favor the groups we belong to.57 Positive associations with those groups often leads to more favorable judgments and behaviors toward people in those groups.58 Associations also help us make judgments with few or incomplete resources.59 So much happens in the world and we are often processing or doing more than one thing at a time that it is helpful to use our associations like heuristics or “rules of thumb” to help us make decisions.60 Because of the unconscious and automatic nature of these associations, they take little or no effort to implement. Sometimes, however, people’s associations about others involve judgments that have negative consequences. People tend to ignore variations when making judgments of individuals belonging to certain groups. For example, when a person applies a stereotype to an individual from a group, that application functions as an expectation that the individual will conform to the stereotype. It ignores the variability among individuals within the group, and requires further processing
Harsdin & Banaji (2013) Parker (2003) 56 Parker (2003) 57 Dasgupta (2004) 58 Dasgupta (2004) 59 Richardson & Goff (2013) 60 Richardson & Goff (2013) 54 55
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when the individual does not conform to the stereotype. The person processes the variability as though an error has occurred.61 Using these associations can also lead to discriminatory practices. People who attribute specific characteristics and behaviors to social groups might interact with them differently. For example, they might choose not to hire them62 or rent them an apartment.63 Ultimately, some of the consequences can be dire, determining who is sentenced with the death penalty,64 or even who is shot and killed.65 The environment in which people form their associations is also important. The environment is subjective and therefore not necessarily accurate. It is composed of what people see through the media, the experiences of family and friends, and their own personal experiences. As noted above, because more and more people receive their news from social media, their information may be limited and skewed. Because biases are unconscious and automatic, they may be at odds with what people consciously believe or intend. People may see themselves as egalitarian, but when they are tested, using a method like the Implicit Association Test, or IAT,66 they may find that they hold prejudiced attitudes or stereotypic beliefs about certain groups at an unconscious level.67 In fact, research indicates that great variation exists between implicitly and explicitly held attitudes.68
61
Macrae Bodenhausen (2000) Krieger & Fiske (2006) 63 Massey (2005) 64 Eberhardt, Davies, Purdie-Vaughns & Johnson (2006) 65 Correll, Hudson, Guillermo & Ma (2014) 66 Greenwald, Mcghee & Schwartz (1998) 67 There are a variety of ways to measure implicit bias, but the most common is the Implicit Association Test, a task which measures how long it takes people to sort stimuli associated with a social group (such as a racial/ethnic group) with stimuli associated with different attributes (such as words corresponding to “good” or “bad”). Bias is measured by seeing how long it takes an individual to sort one social group versus another social group (e.g. White Americans versus Black Americans) with “good” words versus “bad” words; if it takes a person longer to sort Black Americans with good words than White Americans, and less time to sort Black Americans with bad words than White Americans, this person is demonstrating anti-Black/pro-White bias. See Greenwald, Mcghee & Schwartz (1998) or Greenwald & Krieger (2006) for further discussion. 68 Hofmann (2005) 62
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The likely universality of implicit bias becomes more important when considering the numerous effects it can have on people’s judgments, decisions, and behaviors, such as voting, hiring decisions, medical diagnoses, interpersonal interactions, and decisions to use lethal force.69 As discussed above, both attitudes and stereotypes are components of implicit bias; we turn to stereotypes in the next section. Misuse of stereotypes A stereotype is a semantic association between a social group and an attribute. Walter Lippmann coined the term stereotype in 1922 when he used it to refer to “pictures in our head” that portray all members of a group as having the same attributes – often not very attractive ones. Lippman suggested that this fixed mental picture of a group would enter our thoughts each time we encountered someone from the same group.70 A stereotype operates like a shortcut, rule of thumb, or a heuristic way of processing social information. Stereotypes are components of implicit bias and can be explicit, or both implicit and explicit, and have profound effects on judgments and decisions. They also unconsciously affect memory by acting like a filter for processing, storing, and remembering information.71 Generally speaking, information consistent with stereotypes is encoded and recalled better, partly because people pay more attention to it. On the other hand, information inconsistent with stereotypes is filtered out. Additionally, stereotypes can lead to recollection errors (forgotten information and “distorted recollections” or false memories) about groups to which they apply.72 Specifically, information inconsistent with group stereotypes is more likely to be forgotten and information consistent with group stereotypes is more likely to be falsely recalled.73 How does stereotyping work? In a seminal publication, Patricia Devine studied stereotypes in terms of activation of application.74 People automatically and unconsciously activate stereotypes when they are in the presence of members of 69
Jost, Rudman, Blair, Carney, Dasgupta, Glaser & Hardin (2009) Lippmann (1965) 71 Hamilton & Sherman (1994) 72 Levinson (2007) 73 Levinson (2007) 74 Devine (1989) 70
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particular groups.75 An association exists even when individuals are simply aware of a cultural stereotype, independent of their conscious beliefs. Applying the stereotype, i.e., using stereotypes to judge or decide something about someone’s behavior is more explicit and conscious; however, because stereotypes are activated automatically, conscious processes must override them in order to keep them from influencing judgments and behaviors.76 That is to say, stereotypes themselves arise first; personal beliefs about stereotypes arrive later. The ways stereotypes work can be observed in studies using non-conscious or subliminal priming, such as Devine’s studies. In these studies, participants are shown pictures of people or words belonging to a social group, often racial or ethnic groups. These pictures or words are shown subliminally, with displays of a fraction of a second, below conscious awareness.77 In one of Devine’s studies, when participants were subliminally shown words or images related to racial/ethnic groups, participants made subsequent judgments that were biased in ways consistent with the activated stereotype.78 For example, after being primed with words such as Blacks, Negroes, poor, lazy, and athletic, study participants interpreted the ambiguous behaviors of an individual named “Donald” as more hostile. “Donald” was described to participants with behaviors like demanding his money back or refusing to pay his rent until his apartment was painted. After seeing “Black” primes, participants rated these behaviors as more hostile, consistent with cultural stereotypes of Black Americans, regardless of how explicitly prejudiced the participant was.79 Participants in the above study did not realize that the word primes had affected their judgment of Donald. They were not even aware that they had seen primed words; the activation of the stereotype was automatic and unconscious. Therefore, the participants did not override the stereotype or its effects with conscious beliefs, even when specifically asked to be as unbiased as possible.80 Of course, people can
Devine (1989) Devine (1989) 77 Devine (1989) 78 Devine (1989) 79 Devine (1989) 80 Devine (1989) 75 76
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be highly aware of stereotypes, and endorse or reject them consciously, but they may also harbor implicit biases and not know it. Racial anxiety Walter Stephan, one of the original researchers of racial anxiety, published an excellent and exhaustive review article about racial anxiety, which we will discuss and refer to in this section.81 Racial anxiety, or intergroup anxiety, is anxiety about interacting with people who are from different racial or ethnic groups (outgroup) than oneself. Intergroup anxiety is made up of three primary components: (1) affect (feelings and emotions), (2) cognition (thoughts and other mental processes), and (3) physiology.82 As one might expect with any type of anxiety, the emotional aspect of intergroup anxiety is negative and unpleasant. The cognitive part includes the expectation of negative consequences from the interaction. According to Stephan, these expectations can come from a variety of concerns. People may fear embarrassment, being discriminated against, or being exploited. Concerns can also be interpersonal. For example, people may fear that the outgroup they interact with will judge them negatively. People may also fear that their ingroup will negatively judge them as a consequence of their interactions with the outgroup. The physiological component of intergroup anxiety includes increased cortisol levels, heightened blood pressure and other cardiovascular responses, and a general state of arousal.83 Intergroup anxiety can be experienced by both dominant/majority and minority group members. Minority group members may worry that they may be victims of racial prejudice from the dominant/majority group, while dominant/majority group members may feel racial anxiety as a result of their preexisting biases, or from concerns that they will appear racist, a deeply pejorative term in our egalitarian society.84
Stephan (2014) Stephan (2014) 83 Stephan (2014) 84 While the term racist is still a loaded term, legal scholars such as Ian Haney-Lopez said, “Ten, 20 years ago, people felt like there was something immoral, unjust, unacceptable about expressly mentioning race, and that’s shifting.” Ehrenfreund (2016) 81 82
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According to Stephan, people may be anxious about interacting with others from different racial or ethnic groups for many reasons. These reasons may include personality characteristics like social identity. People who strongly identify with their ingroup may be especially anxious about interacting with outgroups. For example, Americans who strongly identify as Americans may be especially anxious about interacting with immigrants because they do not perceive them as Americans.85 Other individual differences, such as the desire to maintain the societal status quo where White Americans are the dominant/majority group, or the preference for social hierarchy and inequality (e.g. the belief that “it is unfair to try to make groups equal86”), also contribute to racial anxiety. Preexisting biases like prejudices and stereotypes (negative attitudes or beliefs about outgroup members) may also lead people to feel anxiety about interacting with people from outgroups. Perceptions of the relationship between one’s ingroup and an outgroup can also lead to racial/intergroup anxiety. Groups may perceive status differences between themselves that lead to racial anxiety. Lack of previous contact with members from other social groups and situational factors like language barriers may lead to racial anxiety. The ingroup may feel threatened by the outgroup and may perceive that the outgroup has harmful intentions towards it.87 An example of this is Ann Coulter’s book, Adios America: The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole. In it she talks about “Latin American rape culture,” and the “gusto for gang rape, incest and child rape of our immigrant groups.”88 If such statements are heard repeatedly in the media, groups may indeed develop anxiety, particularly if they have little context or contact with immigrants. Stephan also notes that the consequences of intergroup anxiety can be cognitive, affective/emotional, or behavioral. People may form or reinforce stereotypes and prejudice, both implicit and explicit, about outgroup members during interactions with them, perhaps as a direct result of the anxiety they experienced during the interaction. The person experiencing the anxiety may attribute its cause to the
Stephan (2014) Ho, Sidanius, Kteily, Sheehy-Skeffington, Pratto, Henkel, Foels & Stewart (2015) 87 Stephan (2014) 88 Beinart (2016) 85 86
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person he or she is interacting with rather than with their own anxiety. Individuals’ cognitive resources may also be depleted as a result of the anxiety experienced during the interaction. For example, a person from an ingroup may worry so much about saying the wrong thing to a person from an outgroup that they may become mentally exhausted. They may then have difficulty regulating themselves during the interaction.89 Affective/emotional consequences can include increased emotions such as fear, anger, and general feelings of malaise. Behavioral consequences include non-verbal behaviors like closed body posture, leaning away, and reduced eye contact.90 Other behaviors related to intergroup anxiety include less favorable behavioral intentions with outgroup members, for example, an unwillingness to provide direct assistance to immigrants with accented or limited English.91 Intergroup anxiety also appears to be related to lower rates of intergroup contact as well as avoidance of such contact.92 Given this framework, it is important to note that both implicit and explicit biases likely play a role in intergroup anxiety, both as antecedents and consequences. However, it can be difficult to separate the cause from consequence, as in many instances they might be mutually reinforcing. For example, behaviors that reflect racial anxiety look a lot like behaviors that reflect implicit or explicit bias (e.g. closed body language, poor eye contact, physical distance, and other non-verbal cues).93 These cues can lead to a feedback loop in which minority group members perceive more bias toward them and behave more negatively toward dominant group members, who then feel as though they are being perceived as more racist. Ultimately, negative expectations are fulfilled by negative behaviors, and anxieties and biases become justified and reinforced, even when the behavior does not truly reflect the intentions of the parties involved.94 It is also important to recognize that while both majority and minority group members may experience racial anxiety, the implications for minority group Stephan (2014) Stephan (2014) Costello & Hodson (2011) 92 Stephan (2014) 93 Dovidio, Kawakami & Gaertner (2002) 94 Stephan (2014) 89 90 91
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members may be more serious. Majority members tend to be over-represented in positions of power (employers, teachers, etc.) while minority group members tend to be under-represented in these positions.95 This power imbalance effectively means that majority group members have disproportionate control or influence over the outcomes of minority group members. Additionally, because of this imbalance, majority group members can often avoid interacting with minority group members, while the opposite is not usually true. Biases, stereotypes, and racial anxieties do not exist in a vacuum; they are created, fed, and reinforced by the environments that people inhabit. We turn to the ways these phenomena work in the next section. III.
How Are These Prejudices and Stereotypes Formed and Maintained?
There is dynamic interplay between implicit attitudes, racial anxiety, and stereotypes and the environment. In 2013, Lodge and Taber put forth a framework for political thinking based in cognitive psychology research that they called the “John Q Public” model of political reasoning, which we will refer to throughout this section. 96 Their hypothesis suggests that repeatedly associating social groups with positive or negative connotations leads to implicit socio-political associations with affective or emotional “charges.” Furthermore, because emotions arise faster and earlier than cognition, all associations are accompanied by automatic feelings that then form the basis for later judgments.97 For example, the words “Latino,” “illegal,” and “criminal” have been closely linked in public opinion.98 The words “illegal” and “criminal” carry negative charges99 that lead to an experience of negative emotions. Here is how the model works: all individuals store their unique representation of the world as a network of associations in long-term memory. Each associative object – for example, “immigrant” – is a “node” to which related thoughts, beliefs, and feelings are attached. For “immigrant,” these may include “legal,” “illegal” or “undocumented.” Whenever a node is activated, it spreads to a network of related nodes, concepts, and characteristics, such as “hardworking,” “violent,” or 95
Park, Keller & Williams (2016) Lodge & Taber (2013) 97 Lodge & Taber (2013) 98 Haynes, Merolla & Ramakrishnan (2016) 99 Stribley (2016) 96
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“dangerous.” Each time these nodes are stimulated, the activated networks have the potential to come into conscious awareness100.On the other hand, because activation is automatic and unconscious, it can have a “priming” effect that serves to influence subsequent judgment, decisions and behavior without awareness or intention, much like information presented subliminally can affect how behavior and stereotypes are interpreted. The activation of a node also leads to the inhibition of unrelated or unexpected nodes, concepts, and characteristics. It therefore takes more time and effort to process and use information that does not fit people’s existing representation of the world.101 Ultimately, then, updating attitudes and beliefs is a biased process that favors existing associations and hinders change. Hence prejudices and stereotypes, once formed, are difficult to shake. As noted above, the environment in which people learn associations is of tremendous importance. One of those environments, the media – including social media –plays a significant role in leading people to form associations. Whether we are aware of it or not, our minds pick up what much of what is in mainstream culture, and it is nearly impossible to resist the pull toward culturally rooted stereotypes.102 Chronic exposure to negative information about issues encourages people to develop implicit attitudes consistent with the information they perceive. According to Efren O. Perez, the media has linked immigrants with illegality and therefore given them a negative association. It generally “primes” Latinos by “framing” them in the context of illegal immigration. Perez defines priming as the process by which news outlets draw attention to some aspect of a topic at the expense of others. He describes “framing” as the way issues are to be understood and what aspects are most relevant. 103 In a study of news coverage over the past twenty-five years, Efren Perez shows how the news media has regularly framed Latinos in the context of illegality. Perez reviewed news stories at the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, and Atlanta-Journal Constitution, as well as the three major
Lodge & Taber (2013) Lodge & Taber (2013) Banaji, Mahzarin & Greenwald (2013) 103 Perez (2016) 100 101 102
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television stations, ABC, NBC, and CBS. He found that the number of stories covering illegal immigration overwhelmingly outnumbered those that covered legal immigration, even during times when the numbers of illegal and legal immigration were about equal. 104 Moreover, Perez found that the ethnic group most associated with illegal immigration was Latino, even though other groups such as Asians and Europeans105 also overstay their visas or arrive in unauthorized ways. 106 Additionally, the belief that Latinos, and in particularly Mexicans, continue to come illegally continues to be widespread, even though the numbers of illegal entrants from Mexico has decreased significantly since the recession in 2008, was at a standstill a few years ago,107 and has since stabilized.108 IV.
How Do Psychological Biases Contribute to Anti-immigrant Racism and Xenophobia?
Stereotyping influences much of the current xenophobia in the U.S. To illustrate this, we discuss a book chapter published in 2012 by researchers Susan Fiske and Tiane Lee,109 which describes perceptions of immigrants in the United States – xenophobic and otherwise – through the lens of the stereotype content model. According to Fiske and Lee, xenophobia can be broadly thought of as fear of the “other,” and immigrants often represent this “other.” Their well-studied empirical model of intergroup perception explains that people universally (not only within the U.S.) stereotype groups along dimensions of warmth and competence. Groups with warm intention and high competence, like one’s ingroup, are seen most favorably. The dimensions along which groups are stereotyped are important to think about because of their relation to behaviors and emotions.110 People judge warmth before competence. Additionally, warmth is more important in determining how people feel about and behave toward others. People ascribe warmth to groups of 104
Perez (2016) As will be seen in the next section, Asian and European immigrants are often viewed more favorably as “good” immigrants. 106 Perez (2016) 107 Gaynor (2012) 108 Krogstad, Passel & Cohn (2016) 109 Fiske & Lee (2012) 110 Cuddy, Fiske & Glick (2007) 105
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people whom they believe share their group’s general intentions and motives. Hence, the warmer they see a group, the more they see it as trustworthy and having positive intentions. On the other hand, the colder people see a group, the more competitive and potentially threatening they see it. Behaviorally, the warmth dimension relates to the perceiver’s interest in actively helping (e.g. assisting or defending) or harming (e.g. harassing or assaulting) the group.111 The competence dimension, on the other hand, relates to status. The more competent people perceive a group, the more status they attach to them and the more they see them as able to effectively act upon their motives. Behaviorally, the competence dimension relates to whether the perceiver might passively help (e.g. associate with) or harm (e.g. neglect) the group.112 Fiske and Lee also detail a study showing how Americans (individuals who had been U.S. residents for at least 5 years) see specific groups of immigrants in the United States.113 Their chapter assesses how U.S. citizens gauge the warmth and competence of immigrant groups as well as non-immigrant groups, and how these perceptions relate to how these groups are treated. The study indicates that some groups are perceived as both warm and competent, such as European immigrants, Canadian immigrants, and documented immigrants, while others are seen as both cold and incompetent, such as undocumented immigrants, farmworkers, Mexicans, South Americans, Latinos from unspecified countries, and African immigrants. Fiske and Lee note that the latter group appears to represent immigrants of color, who are the “primary targets of anti-immigrant political resentments,” active attack and/or passive neglect, and dehumanization.114 This study also shows that many groups are perceived ambivalently: either as warm and incompetent, or as cold and competent. East Asian or unspecified Asian immigrants are perceived as cold but competent, sometimes more competent than Americans. These groups may be envied, disliked, or accorded begrudging respect.
Fiske & Lee (2012) Lee & Fiske (2012) Lee & Fiske (2006) 114 Lee & Fiske (2006) 111 112 113
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And, in conditions of “societal breakdown” such as riots, they may be attacked. “Harmless immigrants,” such as Irish and Italian immigrants are also perceived ambivalently, but as warm and incompetent. These groups might receive help from others, but they may also be neglected.115 While stereotypes of warmth and competence clearly play a role in anti-immigrant racism and xenophobia, other biases, both implicit and explicit, contribute significantly as well. In a 2010 study, Efren O. Perez showed that implicit biases are implicated in the judgments people make about immigration.116 People who held implicit biases of Latino immigrants, as measured by the Implicit Association Test, were shown to oppose both legal and illegal immigration.117 This outcome was distinct from the similar effects measured when people held explicit sentiments such as ethnocentrism, conservativism, and socio-economic concerns about immigration.118 In other words, the effects of implicit bias on immigration policy judgments were unique and could not be explained by other similar explicit biases. Implicit bias may also be linked to support for President-elect Trump during the election. Reporting for The Oxford University Press in April 2016, Jennifer Saul and Michael Brownstein discussed the specific role of implicit bias in support for Trump.119 They suggest that Trump’s focus on the “good old days” of 1950s America might be activating related implicit biases, such as an association of “American” with “White” and negative implicit attitudes about Muslims.120 Saul and Brownstein also suggest that economic inequality segregates people in housing, schooling, policing, and employment, leading to racial and cultural isolation.121 Such isolation cultivates, forms, and reinforces implicit racial/ethnic biases, leading individuals to form positive, safe associations with only those social groups to which they already belong.122 Under these isolating conditions, the only information and “contact” individuals have about and with other social groups come Fiske & Lee (2012) Pérez (2010) 117 Pérez (2010) 118 Pérez (2010) 119 Saul & Brownstein (2016) 120 Saul & Brownstein (2016) 121 Saul & Brownstein (2016) 122 Saul & Brownstein (2016) 115 116
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through already biased avenues like the media, leading to negative associations with outgroup members.123 The authors further note that many of Trump’s supporters live in segregated environments. Thus, a theoretical link between implicit biases and Trump support can be seen.124 Explicit attitudes are implicated in several other studies as well. A 2015 study by Shin, Leal, & Ellison links explicit negativity towards Latinos (specifically, negative stereotypes about Latinos, negative views of Latino contributions to society, and preference for social distance from Latinos) to negative views about the outcomes of immigration, such as increasing crime, rising unemployment, and the belief that Latinos contribute little or nothing to current culture.125 A 2002 study by Lee & Ottati showed that evaluating ethnic outgroup members more negatively than ethnic ingroup members predicted support for California’s Proposition 187, a proposition on the California ballot in 1994 to make undocumented immigrants ineligible for public benefits.126127 We can also see evidence of social norms affecting views of immigration. A social norm is like a rule governing acceptable social attitudes and behavior, or a metaattitude that society holds: an individual may or may not agree with the social norm, but acting against it is difficult and can be very consequential.128 In a 2015 study, Creighton & Jamal looked at the attitudes people communicated about different groups of immigrants.129. They found that people hid their explicit opposition to Christian immigrants, but not their discrimination of Muslim immigrants. Under Saul & Brownstein (2016) While Trump presents an interesting case study of how biased attitudes and both implicit and explicit levels may be linked to anti-immigrant policy, the data linking these biases to Trump support are often not peer-reviewed articles published in academic journals. It is therefore important to examine what traditional empirical research, held to a more rigorous standard for publication, can say about how biases shape immigration and immigration policy judgment. 125 Shin, Leal & Ellison (2015) 126 Lee & Ottati (2002) 127 Undocumented immigrants were already not eligible for public benefits, but Proposition 187 would have prevented undocumented children from attending public schools. Because Proposition 187 was challenged in the courts, most of its provisions were not enforced. See Martin (Spring 1995) 128 Elster (1989) 129 Creighton & Jamal (2015) 123 124
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conditions of total anonymity, participants tended to oppose immigration for both Christians and Muslims. However, because explicitly opposing Muslim immigrants is seen as relatively socially acceptable in the current socio-political climate and explicitly opposing Christian immigrants is not, participants espoused a more hospitable view of Christian immigrants when they were not guaranteed total anonymity.130 As previously discussed, biases affect behavior and political reasoning. It is therefore important to think about how they might concretely contribute to current anti-immigrant sentiment and immigration policy judgment. V. How Psychological Biases Affect Anti-Immigrant Sentiment and Influence Policy Anti-Muslim Sentiment Two decades ago, few people had heard the term Islamophobia – what scholars define as the hostility towards Islam and Muslims that tends to dehumanize an entire faith, portraying it as fundamentally alien and attributing to it an inherent, essential set of negative traits such as irrationality, intolerance, and violence.131 After the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11, Islamophobia became a new normal. Even though President Bush told the American public that he did not hold all Muslims responsible for the attacks, his administration actively investigated and dragooned men of perceived or AAMEMSA backgrounds. Within weeks of the attacks, the government detained over 1200 noncitizens, most of them men of Middle Eastern, Muslim or South Asian descent.132 The majority of them had entered legally and their detentions were based on immigration violations. Most were held indefinitely without charge and without access to lawyers.133 The Attorney General also used his administrative authority to create a series of special registration
Creighton & Jamal (2015) Cashin (2010) 132 Alsutany (2012) 133 Volpp (2002) 130 131
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programs aimed at investigating men from Middle Eastern and South Asian countries. None of the men investigated were ever charged with terrorism. 134 135 After 9/11, hate crimes against Middle Easterners and Sikhs who are not Muslims, but wear head turbans and are often confused as being Muslim or Arab, spiked. These crimes include harassment, arson, and tragic violence such as the massacre of six people at a Sikh Temple at Oak Creek, Wisconsin.136 Mosques were smeared with feces;137 people of AAMEMSA descent were beaten138 and egged;139 their clothes were set afire140 and their children bullied;141 they were fired for wearing hijabs142 and praying;143 they were subjected to discrimination and suspicion,144 especially during travel.145 Today, hate crimes against people of AAMEMSA descent have soared to their highest levels since the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. According to the FBI, hate crimes against American Muslims rose 78% during 2015.146 The Southern Poverty Law Center has documented the rise of hate crimes against the AAMEMSA community since the 2016 election.147 Given the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment against people of AAMEMSA descent, it is not surprising that various movements have sprouted against Muslims. As will be seen below, these include efforts to ban Sharia laws, prevent Mosques from being built, and prevent refugees from settling in different communities.
134
Tumlin (2004) President-elect Trump is considering a similar program for people of AAMEMSA descent. See Lind (2016) 136 Ser (2016); Yaccino, Schwirtz & Santora (2012) 137 Burke (2016) 138 Hartmann (2015) 139 Fernandez (2016) 140 Hawkins (2016) 141 Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) California (2015) 142 Stone (2016) 143 Imam (2016) 144 Pew Research Center (2011) 145 Luongo (2016) 146 Southern Poverty Law Center (2015); Lichtblau (2016) 147 Southern Poverty Law Center (2016) https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/11/18/update-incidents-hatefulharassment-election-day-now-number-701 135
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New organizations such as the Center for Security Policy have spearheaded bans on Sharia laws.148 Over a dozen states have passed versions of these laws.149 The proposed bills do not expressly name Sharia laws; they simply prevent consideration of foreign laws in U.S. Courts.150 Proponents argue that the bans are necessary to prevent outside influences such as Sharia from taking over our U.S. laws.151 Given the U.S. Constitution, however, these laws have dubious legal impact.152 On the other hand, these bans impinge on Muslims’ ability to freely engage in religious activities. Roughly translated to “The Path,” or “The Path to Water,” Sharia are not laws but moral guides that govern all aspects of Muslim life, including eating, doing business, praying, and marrying.153 According to the Council on Islamic American Relations (CAIR), Sharia law requires Muslims to abide by the laws of the land in exchange for the right to worship freely.154 Attempts at passing these laws are based on fear and misinformation about Muslims. For example, in 2010, Newt Gingrich stated, “I believe Sharia is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it.”155 These Sharia bans create fear among the American public. In fact, engendering fear may be their purpose. David Yerushalmi, the drafter of many of these laws has openly admitted that his anti-Sharia campaign had ulterior motives. He stated: “If this thing passed in every state without any friction, it would not have served its purpose,” he said. “The purpose was heuristic –to get people asking this question, ‘What is Shariah?’” This question was meant to render Muslims suspect and their faith threatening to the rest of us.”156 148
Southern Poverty Law Center (2011) Davis (2015) 150 Sacirbey (2013) 151 Aslan & Zafar (February 29, 2012) 152 Awad (2012) 153 Awad (2012) 154 Awad (2012) 155 Awad (2012) 156 Awad (2012) 149
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Other examples of anti-Muslim sentiment influencing policy may be seen in efforts to prevent Mosques from being built. In some areas, groups block zoning permits for the construction and expansion of mosques and Muslim community centers157 while in other neighborhoods, opponents express concerns over traffic, noise, parking and property values.158 In some areas opponents explicitly cite fears about Islam, Sharia law, and terrorism.159 It is hard to imagine efforts aimed at preventing Christian churches or community centers from being built. Yet, throughout the country, Muslims are experiencing resistance at having their own places of worship in their communities. Finally, in November 2015, in response to the Paris attacks, governors of various U.S. states began declaring their opposition to resettling Syrian refugees in their states.160 At least 31 governors made such proclamations, despite their legal inability to do so, and, despite the fact that most of the refugees from the Middle East are women and children who have lived in refugee camps and whose bona fides have been vetted for periods of at least two years.161 The governors’ protests notwithstanding, approximately 11,500 Syrian refugees have settled in cities throughout the United States since October 2015.162 As seen in models previously discussed (i.e. the Stereotype Content Model and the John Q. Public model of political reasoning), emotion has primacy over cognition, occurring first and exerting a larger effect on behavior. Taken together, these policies suggest that emotional/affective psychological biases, like the powerful tendency to favor one’s ingroup,163 stereotyping these immigrant groups as cold (i.e. having negative intentions toward the American ingroup),164 and racial anxiety165 may play a role in anti-Muslim sentiment.
American Civil Liberties Union, “Map-Nationwide Anti-Mosque Activity.” (2016) Keen (2012) 159 Keen (2012) 160 Healy & Bosman (2015) 161 Altman (2015) 162 Henderson (2016) 163 Dasgupta (2004) 164 Fiske & Lee (2012) 165 Stephan (2014) 157
158
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Associations between these groups and fear may also play a role, as fear can be associated with social groups via classic conditioning, much like with Pavlov’s dogs.166 Moreover, outgroup members are more readily associated with aversive stimuli like fear than ingroup members.167 Given the prevalence of media portrayals of Islam with terrorism, it is easy to imagine how these harmful, false, and overgeneralized associations may be learned and reinforced. It is also important to consider the role of social norms here. As noted in the previous section linking psychological biases to anti-immigrant racism and xenophobia, social norms operating as attitudes can influence anti-immigrant sentiment and its expression. While people may harbor negative attitudes toward immigrants in general (both Muslim and Christian immigrants), only those negative attitudes that are deemed socially acceptable (anti-Islam attitudes) are likely to be freely and explicitly expressed.168 Shifts in social norms regarding how acceptable it is to have and express negative attitudes toward different social groups like immigrants may be linked to shifts in the public expression of those attitudes, either directly through individual behavior or symbolically through policy. For example, reported hate crimes in the United Kingdom, especially racially or religiously motivated crimes, spiked during the month after the vote to leave the European Union.169 This vote, commonly referred to as Brexit, was seen by many to be an antiimmigrant response.170 Examples of Anti-Latinx Immigrant Sentiment Like attempts by governors to prevent Syrian refugees to enter their states, in July 2014, anti-immigrant protestors rallied against a group of Central American children traveling by bus through the town of Murietta, California.171 The children were en route to a local detention facility. Protestors screamed, yelled, and spit at the children and met them with placards reading, “Go Home,” and “We don’t want you.”172 Like their Syrian counterparts, these children were refugees fleeing violence 166
Olsson, Ebert, Banaji & Phelps (2005) Olsson, Ebert, Banaji & Phelps (2005) 168 Creighton, M. J. & Jamal, A. (2015) 169 The Atlantic (2016) 170 Beauchamp (2016) 171 Hansen & Boster (2014) 172 Graham (2014) 167
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in the Northern Triangle of Central America and were thus worthy of concern rather than hostility.173 Other demonstrations against refugee children occurred in a number of communities throughout the country. Calling it an “invasion” of illegal immigrants, William Gheen, president of the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, said “they expected 300 communities to sign up to protest.”174 The protests against children were only a few of the numerous demonstrations of hate that the Latinx community has endured for decades. They include the constant harassment that the infamous former Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County Arizona used to tyrannize immigrants175 to the more serious intimidation of the vigilante minutemen patrolling border areas in search of them.176 Yet, the Murietta and Arizona protests stand out because they were lodged venomously at children. People often soften when they view children and animals, especially when those children are small, injured or vulnerable. However, protestors may not have perceived these riders on the bus as children, but rather as part of a super-ordinate social group: Latinx immigrants, members of a group they needed to be protected against, akin to the idea of invading predators or the rapists that Ann Coulter writes about. These attitudes are likely related to the negative associations people have with immigrants such as illegal and criminal. Moreover, the John Q. Public model of political reasoning177 indicates that when specific “nodes” are activated (like Latinx immigrants), unrelated or unexpected nodes that do not fit previously conceived stereotypes (like vulnerable children) are inhibited.178 The stereotype content model may also offer some explanation of the protestors’ behavior. According to Fiske and Lee,179 Latinx immigrants are seen as cold and incompetent.180 Such attitudes can lead stereotype holders to engage in harmful Restrepo & Garcia (2014) RT.com/USA (2014) 175 Santos (2016) 176 Navarette (2007) 177 Lodge & Taber (2013) 178 Perez (2016) 179 Fiske & Lee (2012) 180 Fiske & Lee (2012) 173 174
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behaviors towards Latinx immigrants, such as dehumanization or neglect.181 This may help explain the negative behavior expressed toward children. Anti-immigrant state laws In the mid-2000s, frustrated by federal inaction on immigration, states began enacting their own laws to regulate unauthorized immigrants. In 2007 alone, state legislatures introduced more than 1,500 immigration bills, the vast majority targeting unauthorized immigrants.182 One of the most draconian of these laws was SB 1070 in Arizona. The statute accorded the police broad power to detain anyone of being in the country in an unauthorized status.183 It also made the failure to carry immigration papers a misdemeanor. Despite economic prognostications that the law would damage their economies, five states – Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina, and Utah – passed Arizona-styled “copy cat” laws.184 What is instructive for purposes of this paper is the fact that economic arguments against passage were made but ignored. This could be because emotions overpower cognition, as we have previously discussed in the John Q. Public Model of political reasoning.185 Alabama passed a stricter bill than Arizona and economists predicted a 10.8 billion loss to the state’s GDP, mostly due to reduced demand in goods and services provided by Alabama businesses.186 States such as Georgia acknowledged that the bill would affect its agricultural industry, heavily reliant on migrant workers to pick crops and gin cotton.187 Five states nevertheless enacted the anti-immigrant laws.
181 182
Fiske & Lee (2012) American Immigration Council (2010)
183
AZ SB1070 | 2013 | Fifty-first Legislature 1st Regular. (2013, January 22). LegiScan. Retrieved November 21, 2016, from https://legiscan.com/AZ/bill/SB1070/2013 184
National Immigration Law Center (2012) Lodge & Taber (2013) Serrano (2012) 187 Powell (2012) 185 186
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A study of states that enacted such legislation analyzed the proliferation of state laws during 2005 and 2006. Researchers determined that the most salient factor determining the enactment of these laws was the state’s conservative citizen ideology.188 The political debate was often inflammatory and pervaded with racialized images of dangerous outsiders.189 What researchers found particularly significant was that the alleged crisis was framed almost entirely in terms of Mexican and Central American immigrants; there was hardly ever any mention of people who had overstayed their visas from Europe, Canada, or Asia.190 Political leaders and the media appeared to be playing to a moral panic about immigration. Moreover, the researchers concluded that whether the laws were enforceable, worthy of their costs, or effective seemed beside the point.191 Like the Sharia laws that add nothing to our current laws, what these electorates in these states wanted was symbolic satisfaction that they had taken a stand against unauthorized immigration. Like the bias we have seen against the AAMEMSA community, primal and emotional/affective psychological biases like ingroup favoritism,192 cold stereotyping of immigrants,193 and racial anxiety194 may override logical reasoning, leading people to prefer laws that are against their economic interests. The Long Term Effects of Anti-immigrant Sentiment on Future Generations The 2016 presidential campaign has taken its toll on children. Through social media and 24/7 news feeds, children have heard the catchphrases and become aware of the campaign’s harsh tone and rhetoric. Epithets and racial slurs have reverberated in schools throughout the country, giving rise to increased bullying.195 In a recent Southern Poverty Law Center survey, teachers report that students have been emboldened to use “slurs.” 196 When confronted, bullying students point to the 188
Chavez & Provine (2009) Chavez & Provine (2009) 190 Chavez & Provine (2009) 191 Chavez & Provine (2009) 192 Dasgupta (2004) 193 Fiske & Lee (2012) 194 Stephan (2014) 195 Southern Poverty Law Center (2016) 196 Southern Poverty Law Center (2016) 189
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candidates and say they are “just saying what everyone is thinking.”197 Children who are the recipients of the taunts and jeers are having difficulty concentrating and doing their schoolwork. They cannot understand why people hate them.198 The recent Southern Poverty Law Center study found that over two-thirds (67%) of the educators surveyed reported that young people in their schools, often immigrants, children of immigrants, Muslims, African Americans, and other students of color – expressed concern about what might happen to them or their families after the election.199 For example, when 8-year-old Sofia Yassini heard about Mr. Trump’s call for a ban on Muslim immigration, she thought American soldiers were en route to her home and she packed up her dolls, peanut butter, and toothbrush.200 Close to one-third of the students studied in the Southern Poverty Law Center study were children of foreign-born parents.201 Not only immigrant students were affected, however; those with American citizenship also worried they would be sent back to their ancestral countries. 202 Even African American students whose families had lived in the U.S. for generations worried about being sent back to Africa.203 Others, especially young students, worried of the return of slavery and of being rounded up and put into camps. 204 Teachers reported that stressed students have had difficulty learning; anxiety has affected their concentration and their grades. 205 Unauthorized students and those with unauthorized parents are especially vulnerable. The latter population is substantial. The Migration Policy Institute estimates 5.1 million children in the U.S. live with at least one unauthorized immigrant parent.206 About 80% of those children are believed to be U.S. citizens.207 Many of these children worry that their parents will be deported.208 197
Southern Poverty Law Center (2016) Southern Poverty Law Center (2016) 199 Southern Poverty Law Center (2016) 200 Bridge Initiative Team (2016) 201 Southern Poverty Law Center (2016) 202 Southern Poverty Law Center (2016) 203 Southern Poverty Law Center (2016) 204 Southern Poverty Law Center (2016) 205 Southern Poverty Law Center (2016) 206 Capps, Fix & Zong (2016) 207 Capps, Fix & Zong (2016) 208 Pastor, Sanchez & Carter (2015) 198
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An Arizona study examined the effects of anti-immigrant sentiment and policies on immigrants.209 As noted above, Arizona passed numerous anti-immigrant laws, including SB1070, one of the harshest bills in the nation. Some Arizona immigrant children had heard of high profile leaders such as former Governor Jan Brewer and former Sheriff Arpaio and were afraid of them as well as of other Sheriffs. 210 The effect of laws and anti-immigrant rhetoric severely affect immigrant communities. Newcomer families in the Arizona study reported increased stress, nervousness, and depression.211 Many were afraid to call the police or seek health services for fear of deportation. 212 Some avoided travel outside the home and felt isolated. 213 Fear of family separation plagues children regardless of their family’s documentation status.214 Learning about detentions and deportations heightens feelings of family separation. Moreover, children may be ashamed of their parents’ lack of legal status, or may believe they are unauthorized even though they were born in the United States.215 Fear of deportation and shame over family members’ status can potentially affect children’s sense of self; they may not want to be associated with their own heritage and may limit their interactions with family members feared to be unauthorized.216 State-level legislation aimed at illegal immigration fuels anti-immigrant sentiment and consequently increases discrimination against those who are or appear foreign born.217 These policies reinforce prejudices and increase ethnic discrimination and profiling.218 Focusing on deporting undocumented immigrants increases negative beliefs and stereotypes that immigrants contribute to greater social problems.219
209
Moya Salas & Ayon (2013) Rubio-Hernandez (April 2015) 211 Moya Salas & Ayon (2013) 212 Burnham & Ahn (2010) 213 Moya Salas & Ayon (2013) 214 Ayon (2015) 215 Ayon (2015) 216 Ayon (2015) 217 Ayon (2015) 218 Rubio-Hernandez (2015) 219 Ayon (2015) 210
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Newcomers who have often fled violence or experienced trauma while en route to the United States220 arrive in hostile communities and feel unwelcome. These attitudes affect unauthorized children as well as those who look like them.221 The cumulative effect of such policies place Latinx children at increased risk for a range of negative outcomes such as emotional stress, limited financial opportunities, and increased social isolation.222 Discrimination has long-term effects on immigrant children. Longstanding evidence points to the negative impact that prejudice and internalized oppression can have on a person’s psychological development and wellbeing.223 Racism can lead an individual to develop a sense of identity confusion and lowered self-worth, feel powerless about their future, and separate from the large society.224 VI. Suggested Messaging for Advocates to Use in Public Discourse: According to Professor Westen at Emory University, two major issues underlie public opinion about immigration and other major public policies: fear and anxiety about demographic change and unconscious prejudice.225 His research has shown that when race and bias are discussed explicitly, people are better able to shift their opinions and be more accepting of immigrants.226 The following messages, derived from extensive public polling analyses conducted by Dr. Westen in collaboration with the Four Freedoms Fund, and with support from additional sources, may be used to effectively discuss unconscious bias and immigration:227
220
Unconscious Bias Exists: o The first message is that it is important to understand that unconscious bias exists. “We are used to thinking of prejudice as something you either
Moya Salas & Ayon (2013) Ayon (2015) 222 Ayon (2015) 223 Torres, O’Conor, Mejia, Camacho & Long (2010) 224 Torres, O’Conor, Mejia, Camacho & Long (2010) 225 Westen (2015) 226 Westen (2015) 227 Westen (2015) 221
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have or you don’t. But despite our best attempts to rid ourselves of prejudices and stereotypes, we all have them.” 228 o Empirical research also suggests that teaching people directly about unconscious bias effectively increases people’s openness to the possibility that they and others harbor implicit biases.229 This research suggests talking about implicit biases with a foundation in the science behind it, as well as using/encouraging people to use experiential tools to examine their own biases in non-threatening ways. o Numerous examples from social science research suggest the significance of unconscious judgments and associations. For example: research shows that the physical attractiveness of hypothetical political candidates unconsciously shapes people’s evaluations of the candidates’ suitability for office.230 Research also shows that interviewers given cold drinks are especially likely to rate interviewees as cold but are unaware that this bias shapes their responses.231Although these examples can apply to any group of people, these biases can occur in scenarios of anti-immigrant racism and xenophobia as well. For example, when people are asked to think of an illegal immigrant they are more likely to conjure up a Mexican immigrant rather than a Canadian or European immigrant.232 Additionally, study subjects who read about a fictitious crime against a woman would sentence the fictitious Mexican perpetrator more harshly than the Canadian for the same crime.233
228
By being conscious of our biases we can limit their effects on how we treat people: o A second message suggested by Dr. Westen and the Four Freedoms Fund is to address how “we can do better” by becoming aware of our biases and then limiting the effects they have on how we treat people. 234 While
Westen (2015) Ghoshal, Raj, Lippard, Cameron, Ribas, Vanessa, Muir & Muir, Ken (April 2013) 230 Ghoshal, Raj, Lippard, Cameron, Ribas, Vanessa, Muir & Muir, Ken (April 2013) 231 Ghoshal, Lippard, Ribas & Muir (2013) 232 Merolla, Ramakrishnan & Haynes (2013) 233 Vendantam (2010) 234 Westen (2015) 229
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we may not be able to eliminate our biases or their effects, recognizing them may be the first step.
Focus on what unites us: o A third message suggested by Westen and the Four Freedoms Fund is that “we should focus on what unites us -- our shared hopes for our families and country -- not our different pasts.”235 Supporting research can be found in a study by Lake Research Partners in November of 2015 that evaluated the effectiveness of several arguments for accepting a limited number of Syrian refugee families into the U.S. in a group of likely voters for MoveOn.org.236 Some of the most convincing arguments for accepting refugees appear to frame this issue as inherently American, by invoking American values or positioning immigrant groups in part of the American ingroup.237 o Examples include arguments using the “golden rule” of treating others as you would want to be treated, comparing the plight of those fleeing ISIS to those fleeing the Holocaust, simply reminding voters that the refugees are fleeing ISIS, reminding voters that although the U.S. has accepted approximately 1500 Syrian refugees since 9/11, no terrorist attack has been carried out by any of these refugees, suggesting that being against accepting refugees is what ISIS wants, and invoking the phrase engraved on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.”238
America needs all of us: o A fourth message suggested by Westen and the Four Freedoms Fund is that “America needs all of us…America is stronger when we all have an opportunity to contribute.”239 The authors suggest using existing examples of diversity working well in specific organizational contexts, such as a fire department, as long as it is an appropriate example for the
Westen (2015) Lake, Gotoff, & Johnstone (2015) 237 Lake, Gotoff, & Johnstone (2015) 238 Lake, Gotoff, & Johnstone (2015) However, this overall pattern in message effectiveness held only for Democrats and Independent voters. 239 Westen (2015) 235 236
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community being addressed. 240 For example, if you look at fire departments in many major cities, you will see what America is increasingly looking like in the 21st century: Whites, Blacks, Latinos and Asians working together. When you are fighting a blazing fire, you trust that your brother or sister has your back. You are not thinking about the color of their skin or where they are from. You are focused on one thing – protecting lives. o What binds together a diverse fire department is what it takes to bind together a diverse society—shared values and goals. But that does not mean asking people to give up what they value about their heritage. Our cultures and heritage make each of us unique. Those things do not take away from who we are as Americans. They add to it. Lastly, and independently of Westen and colleagues’ work, other research suggests it is important to recognize that some groups of people may be especially difficult to reach.241 For example, those with strong pre-existing anti-immigration attitudes are more likely to see the media as being purposely biased against their viewpoint, so those in this group may be especially resistant to these messages.242
240 241 242
Westen (2015) Westen (2015) Mckeever, Riffe & Carpentier (2012)
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CONCLUSION The 2016 presidential election campaign was riddled with anti-immigrant sentiment, particularly aimed at Muslims and Latinos. We do not yet know how President-elect Trump will handle the hate and violence that has sprouted postelection243 and whether he will take stances that are more egalitarian than those he espoused as a candidate. What we know for certain, however, is that xenophobia and bigotry are actively alive in our culture and affecting behavior and policies against vulnerable immigrants. What we also know is that the manifestations of such sentiments significantly and dangerously affects children. One of the most important lessons to take away from this report is that psychological biases exist, affect our emotions, and are difficult to shake, especially given the constant presence of anti-immigrant sentiment – the depictions of certain cultural stereotypes in the media such as the representation of Muslims as terrorists and Mexicans as criminals. These stereotypes form a constant loop that feed our collective unconscious processes. The first step in addressing these biases is to address them, raise awareness of these processes, and teach people how they work. Messages emphasizing American values such as unity and tolerance can also help mitigate anti-immigrant attitudes.
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