Rhetorical Barriers to Mobilizing for Immigrant Rights: White Innocence and Latina/o Abstraction

Rhetorical Barriers to Mobilizing forImmigrant Rights: White Innocence andLatina/o Abstraction

Jamie G. Longazel

In the summer of 2006, Hazleton, Pennsylvania passed the Illegal ImmigrationRelief Act (IIRA). In this article, the politics that emerged in that law’s wake are usedas a case study to identify the rhetorical tools that justify and help achieve Whitedominance in local struggles over immigration in the United States. In tracing threesuccessive waves of post-IIRA activism, what legal scholar Thomas Ross has termedWhite innocence/Black abstraction—a racial narrative that absolves Whites ofwrongdoing and obfuscates minority suffering—is shown to be a central theme in thediscourse of Hazleton’s White majority. This colorblind rhetoric is used to make exclu-sionary legislation appear justifiable and to curtail the efforts of immigrant rights activists.By bringing Ross’s insights into a new substantive context (i.e., immigration) and outsidethe confines of formal law (i.e., legal mobilizations rather than judicial opinions), thisarticle demonstrates the centrality of innocence/abstraction in on-the-ground efforts todefend existing social arrangements.

Rhetoric is a magical thing. It transforms things into their opposites. Difficult choicesbecome obvious. Change becomes continuity. Real human suffering vanishes as weconjure up the specter of righteousness. Rhetoric becomes the smooth veneer to the crackedsurface of the real and hard choices in law.

Thomas Ross, The Rhetorical Tapestry of Race

My dad, as you probably know, was the governor of Michigan and was the head of a carcompany. But he was born in Mexico . . . and had he been born of Mexican parents, I’dhave a better shot at winning [the presidency]. But he was unfortunately born toAmericans living in Mexico. . . . I mean, I say that jokingly, but it would be helpful tobe Latino.

Mitt Romney

Jamie G. Longazel is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and SocialWork at the University of Dayton. Please direct all correspondence to [email protected]. This articleis based on work supported by the Law and Social Science Dissertation Fellowship and Mentoring Program,cosponsored by the Law and Society Association, the American Bar Foundation, and the National ScienceFoundation (National Science Foundation Grant No. 0 719 602). The project was approved by theUniversity of Dayton Institutional Review Board. The author would like to thank Benjamin Fleury-Steiner,Doris Marie Provine, Maartje van der Woude, and Majorie Zatz for their helpful comments on previousdrafts.

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INTRODUCTION

Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s comment illustrates therhetorical power of Latina/o abstraction and White innocence (Ross 1990a).1 It containsno consideration of the real, lived experience of being Latina/o in the United States. Itignores the pervasiveness of anti-Latina/o sentiment (Chavez 2008; Ross and Agiesta2012), persistent institutional barriers to Latina/o advancement (Cárdenas and Kerby2012), and the discrimination and profiling Latina/os face, regardless of immigrationstatus, in the wake of hostile immigration laws (Cervantes, Khokha, and Murray 1995;Romero 2006; Rubio-Goldsmith et al. 2009; Nill 2011).2 This rhetorical move, further-more, enables Romney to avoid responsibility for contributing to such conditions, eventhough he has been a proponent of “self deportation” policies designed to make lifeespecially difficult for unauthorized immigrants (Boroff and Planas 2012). In fact, theundertone of his messages is that Whites3 have been victimized by Latina/o demands forjustice—demands that are here taken so far out of context that being Latina/o in theUnited States is presented as having more perks than White privilege and inheritedwealth.

While an inaccurate depiction of reality,4 this comment is not simply an isolatedstatement that can be debunked with the presentation of contrary facts. Nor is it aharmless witticism as Romney implies. It is, instead, part of a narrative deeply rooted inUS legal and racial history. As Thomas Ross (1990a, 3) points out, “[f]rom Dred Scott v.Sandford through the most recent affirmative action cases,” Supreme Court justices havedeployed a remarkably similar racial rhetoric that links Whiteness to innocence andconfronts minority suffering only in the abstract. The result is the construction of a“smooth veneer” to cover the “cracked surface” of continued racial oppression in anation committed to the principle of equality.

My intent here is to reveal how similar rhetorical tools play a key role in thecontemporary US immigration debate, thereby justifying and accomplishing the sub-ordination of Latina/o immigrants. Whereas Ross focused on judicial opinions—thatis, how these rhetorical themes are prominent as law—I demonstrate that this rhetoric

1. While Thomas Ross (1990a) uses the phrases white innocence and black abstraction, I will reveal herethat a very similar rhetoric is used by the White majority in debates surrounding Latina/o immigration.Accordingly, I replace the term black abstraction with Latina/o abstraction without otherwise altering Ross’sdefinition.

2. Although my focus throughout this article is on the politics surrounding Latina/o immigration, itshould be acknowledged that other immigrant groups have also been disaffected by harsh rhetoric andpunitive immigration laws and that these struggles, despite much overlap, are distinct in many ways (see,e.g., Maira 2004).

3. Following Steinbugler, Press, and Dias (2006, 822–23), I “capitalize ‘White’ in this article to disruptthe use of Whiteness as an unmarked normative category and to recognize that Whites, like Blacks,constitute a socially defined racial group, albeit with heterogeneous origins and cultural practices.”

4. Latina/os in the United States continue to suffer from inequality in various institutional realms. Forexample, the Latina/o unemployment rate is higher than that of Whites (11.5 percent vs. 7.9 percent in2011). Moreover, Latina/os “receive lower-quality health care, suffer worse health outcomes, and havehigher rates of certain illnesses.” Regarding political representation, the specific realm to which Romneymade reference, Latina/os “are still grossly underrepresented in proportion to their population numbers,”holding 3.3 percent of all elected positions despite making up 16 percent of the country’s population(Cárdenas and Kerby 2012). Within this broader context of institutional racism, I use the phrase Whitedominance throughout the text (see also Haney López 2006).

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is also prevalent in contemporary debates around law, with ordinary residents,activists, and public officials relying on it as they mobilize to preserve establishedsocial arrangements.

My focus is on the activism that followed the 2006 passage of the Illegal Immi-gration Relief Act (IIRA) in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. This local ordinance sought topunish landlords who rent to undocumented immigrants and businesses that hireundocumented immigrants and made English the official language of the city. Hazletonis a useful site for such an inquiry because the IIRA was one of the first in whateventually became a parade of local- and state-level ordinances seeking to “crack down”on undocumented immigrants (for a review, see Varsanyi 2010). When the IIRA passed,Hazleton garnered significant national attention (see Kroft 2010), prompting manylocales to pass legislation of their own, some of which borrowed language directly fromthe IIRA.5 Hazleton is also undergoing rapid social, demographic, and economicchange, conditions that are ripe for reactionary politics (Blumer 1958; Erikson 1966),thus making it a compelling site for examining the particular rhetorical tools deployedin defense of racial hierarchies.

I begin by explaining in more detail Ross’s conception of White innocence andBlack abstraction and my plans to build on his analysis. Next, I move to my case study,in which I trace three successive waves of post-IIRA activism. Drawing on fieldworkconducted in Hazleton in the years following passage of the IIRA (2007–2010)—including twenty-three interviews with activists on both sides of the debate, observa-tions of events and meetings hosted by a key activist group, and an analysis of onlinevideos of pro-IIRA rallies held in and around Hazleton—I pay particular attention tohow the community majority6 discussed issues of race and law in its efforts to subvertLatina/o resistance. I conclude by reflecting on the implications of this research, bothfor sociolegal scholars and activists.

WHITE INNOCENCE AND LATINA/O ABSTRACTION

Thomas Ross’s (1990a, 20; see also Ross 1990b) important law review article “TheRhetorical Tapestry of Race” identifies the key rhetorical techniques used to “smoothover the apparent inconsistency between our realities and our principles.” Studyingjudicial opinions, Ross notes that judges have historically handled racial issues byrelying on the rhetorical themes of White innocence—“the insistence on the innocenceor absence of responsibility of contemporary whites” (3)—and Black abstraction—“therhetorical depiction of the black person in an abstract context, outside of any real and

5. It is important to note, however, while influential in helping to spark the localization of immigrationlegislation, the movement did not originate in Hazleton but was instead part of an effort spearheaded in largepart by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). The actual text of Hazleton’s IIRA, infact, comes directly from an ordinance originally considered but later dropped for fiscal reasons in SanBernardino, California. Kris Kobach, Hazleton’s lead attorney, has close ties to FAIR, a group that theSouthern Poverty Law Center has identified as a hate group (Fernandez 2010).

6. Throughout this article, I use the phrase community majority to refer not necessarily to a numericalmajority but to the dominant sentiments in Hazleton—what might be called the “status quo.”

Rhetorical Barriers to Mobilizing for Immigrant Rights 3

rich social context” (6). In the nineteenth century, for example, judges denied thebrutality of slavery by “placing the black outside of the community of humans” (Ross1990a, 8) and by depicting White slaveholders as potential victims unjustly compelledby the law to give up their cherished way of life.

Although modern observers have since discredited much of the blatant racism thatcharacterized this early judicial rhetoric, Ross (1990a, 1–2) persuasively argues that,today, we still “talk and argue about race in much the same way as our predecessorswhose choices stain our legal history.” Although colorblind on the surface, it is notuncommon for contemporary judicial narratives on the subject of race to mirror thejustifications for racism relied on in prior eras, thus weaving a coherent rhetoricaltapestry that covers much of US legal and racial history. In his analysis of contemporarycases dealing with busing, residential segregation, and affirmative action, Ross specifi-cally reveals a judicial tendency to (1) deny that Blacks experience harm (and usuallyclaim that they benefit), (2) emphasize the absence of racial motivation, and (3) raiseconcerns about White victimization and loss of their way of life.

Innocence, Abstraction, and the Latino Threat Narrative

I expand on Ross’s insightful analysis in two ways. First, I contend that thisrhetoric, which has historically been used to justify the subjugation of African Ameri-cans, is also evident in contemporary debates about Latina/o immigration. Althoughoften less overtly racist than prior justifications for immigrant exclusion (Haney López2006), contemporary anti-immigrant advocacy nonetheless draws heavily on thesedeeply rooted themes of innocence and abstraction.

Reactionary politics surrounding Latina/o immigration in the United States todayare characterized by what Leo Chavez (2008, 2) calls a “Latino Threat Narrative,”wherein Latina/os are seen as “part of an invading force from south of the border thatis bent on reconquesting land that was formerly theirs (the U.S. Southwest) anddestroying the American way of life.” This narrative, embodied at the local level in lawsaiming to crack down on undocumented immigrants (Longazel and Fleury-Steiner2011; Longazel 2013a), is predicated on abstraction or the virtualization of Latina/os.Rather than engaging the realities of the Latina/o experience in the United States,Chavez (43) points out:

The virtual lives of “Mexicans,” “Chicanos,” “illegal aliens,” and “immigrants”become abstractions and representations that stand in the place of real lives. . . .They are no longer flesh and blood people; they exist as images. Because of this, a“global card trick” occurs between virtual personas and real life personas. Thevirtual personas of Latino immigrants—represented as a threat to the nation—make the authority that has accumulated for real immigrants in their role asworkers and consumers vanish.

By obscuring racial realities in this manner, the White majority manages not onlyto avoid culpability for having contributed to the hostility engendered by the Latino

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Threat Narrative but also to present itself as victimized by this perceived invasion.7

Moreover, this rhetorical structure, by “muting” racism (Davis 2007), substantiallyhinders resistance. Because they do not adhere to the norms of “colorblindness”(Bonilla-Silva 2006), race-cognizant (i.e., explicitly pro-Latina/o) (see Frankenberg1993) efforts to challenge the Latino threat narrative ironically are cast as “racist,”embedding even further the upside-down perception that the oppressor is oppressed.The discriminatory reality of a climate that is hostile toward immigrants is thussmoothed over to the point that hostility appears justified and the existing social orderis protected.

Innocence and Abstraction in the Mobilization of Law

Ross’s analysis, I suggest, also applies to rhetoric outside the confines of formal law;in particular, to legal mobilizations that defend existing social arrangements. In thisrespect, I draw attention to the constitutive effects (Fleury-Steiner and Nielsen 2006) ofWhite innocence/Latina/o abstraction and show how this rhetoric severely constrainsimmigrant rights advocates while it empowers those who work to maintain the status quo.

My analysis draws from literature on law and community (Engel 1984;Greenhouse, Yngvesson, and Engel 1994) and the conservative mobilization of rights(Goldberg-Hiller and Milner 2003; Dudas 2005, 2008). These studies document howmembers of majority groups in various contexts tend to dismiss efforts by minoritygroups to evoke rights and law, treating them as demands for special, as opposed toequal, rights (Goldberg-Hiller and Milner 2003). Shrouded in innocence, they con-versely construct their own rights claims and legal mobilizations as acceptable, evennecessary, to assuring the persistence of community harmony (Engel 1984). By selec-tively accepting law in this way, community “insiders” disguise a defense of hierarchy asa defense of values (Dudas 2005). They portray themselves as interested in preservingequality while “outsiders” are “greedy” and “self-interested,” despite that, in the end,their own material interests are satisfied and “outsiders” find themselves furthermarginalized.8 In this respect, the politics of special rights at once camouflages the

7. What I describe as “White innocence” aligns closely with what Lisa Marie Cacho (2000) has termedthe “ideology of White injury.” I am inclined to prefer Ross’s term, however, because it draws attention toan ironic claim of injury while also evoking the powerful conceptions associated with the term innocence.

8. In his analysis of how White innocence and Black abstraction were used by nineteenth-centuryjudges, Ross (1990a, 13) quotes Justice Bradley’s decision in The Civil Rights Cases (1883), which deemedunconstitutional the first two sections of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which protected Blacks fromdiscrimination amidst reconstruction:

When a man emerges from slavery, and by the aid of beneficent legislation has shaken off the inseparableconcomitants of that state, there must be some stage in the process of this elevation when he takes therank of mere citizen, and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws, and when his rights as a citizen, ora man, are to be protected in the ordinary modes by which other men’s rights are protected.

Here, the convergence of Black abstraction and a discourse on “special rights” can be clearly seen. The claimthat Blacks are being treated as “special favorites of the laws,” Ross (1990a, 13) notes, “is coherent only in theabstract . . . [because] this special treatment was the product of the reality of pervasive oppression of blacks bywhites.”

Rhetorical Barriers to Mobilizing for Immigrant Rights 5

mobilization of power, quells resistance, and further justifies unequal arrangements byasserting that outsiders are “no longer legitimate rights bearers but rather morallydangerous, irrational, or profligate people whose very rights claims become indicators ofthis general unseemliness” (Goldberg-Hiller and Milner 2003, 1079).

Seen through this lens, the rhetoric of White innocence/Latina/o abstraction hasutility, not only “for the judge as rhetorician [seeking] to make coherent the choices thatmight divide us as a community” (Ross 1990a, 3), but also for the reproduction of poweroutside the courts, particularly surrounding on-the-ground debates about race and law.Thus, it should not be surprising that this rhetoric can easily take root when minoritiesare perceived to be challenging existing power structures (compare Blumer 1958;Erikson 1966). As David Engel (1984, 580) wrote in his classic study of Sander County,the backlash against personal injury claims “was significant mainly as one aspect of asymbolic effort by members of the community to preserve a sense of meaning andcoherence in the face of social change that they found threatening and confusing.” Aswe will see, the conditions in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, are likewise ripe for mobilization.

The Local Politics of Immigration: The Case of Hazleton, Pennsylvania

In recent years, low-paying, temporary jobs have rapidly replaced many of thebetter-paying, stable positions that had, in the past, employed Hazleton’s primarilyWhite, working-class residents (Fleury-Steiner and Longazel 2010; Longazel andFleury-Steiner 2011). Prior to 1980, according to Pennsylvania’s Department of Laborand Industry, the number of manufacturing jobs in Hazleton’s Luzerne County wasconsistently above 40,000. By 1990, that number had dropped to below 30,000, andmost recent figures indicate that fewer than 20,000 Luzerne County residents currentlywork in the manufacturing sector. Most of Hazleton’s recent industrial acquisitions(e.g., a meatpacking plant and several warehouses) provide jobs that are low-skilled,low-paying, temporary, or all of the above. Such changes have prompted a large-scaledemographic shift in Hazleton: the city’s population was 95 percent White at the timeof the 2000 Census; by 2010, it was 37 percent Latina/o (Katchur 2011).

As I have documented elsewhere (Longazel 2013a), these changes, coupled withallegations of a Latino-on-White homicide, played a crucial role in elevating the localperception of racial threat and prompting Hazleton’s passage of the IIRA, an ordinancedesigned to rid Hazleton of the “nuisance of illegal immigration” (IIRA 2006). Thehomicide involved two undocumented Latino immigrants charged with (but neverconvicted of) murdering Derek Kichline, a White Hazleton man. Following this crime,the news media and Hazleton’s political leadership precipitated a moral panic byconstructing an artificial and highly racialized crime wave.

In a series of hyperbolic local newspaper reports, officials symbolically reasserted theeconomically bruised city’s identity as White and constructed Latinas/os as threateningby drawing sharp contrasts between a virtuous “us” and a depraved “them.” When the citycouncil introduced the ordinance, Kichline’s victimhood was then expanded to encom-pass all White residents of the city as Hazleton was dubbed “Small Town, USA . . . anAll-American city . . . a place where people should be able to raise their families free offear.” Meanwhile, officials expanded the presumed threat posed by undocumented

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immigrants. Despite a dearth of evidence to support such claims, direct links were forgedbetween the undocumented and criminality. As one council member stated frankly: “Ifyou are illegal you are a criminal, that is the gist here” (Hazleton City Council June 15,2006). It was also implied without empirical support that Latina/os, in general, wereburdening the city (e.g., by requiring translation services).

From this perspective, the IIRA emerges not as an attempt to uphold public safety,as officials have claimed, but as an effort to reassert White dominance amidst a per-ceived threat. Given the ordinance’s symbolic significance, it is unsurprising that itwould have staunch defenders. As we will see, the White majority defended this lawvigorously, relying on the rhetorical tools of White innocence and Latina/o abstractionto do so.

POST-IIRA ACTIVISM: MOBILIZING RACE, LAW, AND POWER

My analysis proceeds chronologically, documenting three waves of local activismthat emerged in the wake of the IIRA, both in opposition to and in support of theordinance.9 My rationale in examining both sides of the debate is to show how defend-ers of White dominance both justified their position and quieted opposition. Moreover,by looking at subsequent mobilizations, we can see quite clearly how the rhetoric ofWhite innocence and Latina/o abstraction can adjust to changes in the strategiesmarginalized groups adopt. The first wave of activism I explore is the resistance put forthby a small, loosely organized group of Latina/o community leaders, whom I will refer tofor simplicity’s sake as the “Latina/o Leaders.” These activists began by levying apolitical protest against the IIRA, but in the face of community opposition, later shiftedtheir approach to legal action, helping to file a lawsuit against the city that would delayimplementation of the law (see Lozano et al. v. City of Hazleton 2007). I then examinethe countermobilization of a group known as the Voice of the People, USA (VOP),which vehemently defended the IIRA and protested the lawsuit. VOP held numerousrallies in and around the city in the summer and fall of 2007, undoubtedly affecting thedebate. My analysis concludes by considering the efforts of the Concerned Parents ofthe Hazleton Area (CPH), a group organized to provide services primarily to newimmigrants in Hazleton (e.g., translation, transportation, etc.). This group’s avoidanceof direct engagement with issues of race, I argue, reveals clearly the power of theprevailing rhetoric.

9. The primary data used in each phase of my analysis come from in-depth, semistructured interviews.Interviews were conducted with the Latina/o Leaders (n = 3), members of Voice of the People, USA (n =12), and the Concerned Parents of the Hazleton Area (n = 8) between April and August 2009. I also usesupplementary data as I study each wave of activism. To focus on the community reaction to the Latina/oLeaders, I rely on testimony given at the Hazleton City Council meeting in which the ordinance was beingdebated, as well as on newspaper reports and trial testimony. More than six hours’ worth of online videos ofVOP-organized, pro-IIRA rallies held in and around Hazleton in the summer of 2007 provided furtherperspective on that group’s approach. Finally, I supplemented my interviews with members of CPH byconducting participant observation of the group. In the summer of 2009, I attended multiple CPH meetingsand volunteered at a community event sponsored by the organization.

Rhetorical Barriers to Mobilizing for Immigrant Rights 7

Immigrant Rights in a Whitened Community: Hazleton’s Latina/o Leaders

When the city of Hazleton passed the IIRA in the summer of 2006, the first toprotest were a small group of Latina/o community leaders—Amilicar Arroyo, AnnaArias, and Dr. Agapito Lopez10—all long-time residents of Hazleton with relativelyprominent positions in the community. Recognizing their responsibility as leaders, inthe words of Lopez, “to do something to have this ordinance scratched out,” theychallenged the ordinance, as Arias put it, “head on.” Employing a decidedly race-cognizant approach, they confronted the myths propagated by officials who spearheadedthe law, such as the unproven allegations that Latina/o immigrants had increased crimeand were economically burdensome to the city. These leaders pointed out the discrimi-natory and, indeed, racist, nature of the IIRA, suggesting that excessive usage of thephrase “illegal immigrant” was a smokescreen masking a much larger “affront, not onlyto the undocumented immigrants, but to the whole Latino population [in Hazleton].”At the city council meeting where the ordinance was being debated, Arias called thelaw “discriminatory, bigoted, and racist,” warning officials: “If you pass this, you will godown in history as the council that made Hazleton the first Nazi city in the country”(Hazleton City Council July 13, 2006).11

These activists, in short, saw their opposition to the IIRA as part of a largerhistorical struggle. Lopez shared with me a presentation, entitled Intolerance, he hadrecently given at a local college. The presentation situated Hazleton’s passage of theIIRA within the context of intolerant acts committed against less powerful groupsthroughout US history: slavery, the Trail of Tears, and discrimination against immi-grants in prior eras. Each of these activists was personally familiar with the marginalityimmigrants often confront and, thus, saw this as a struggle, not just against the IIRA,but more broadly, as Lopez put it, as a fight “against injustice, against disparity, andagainst lack of representation by minorities.”

“I Could Accuse You of Racism”

Many Hazleton residents dismissed this group’s claims. Perceiving their commu-nity as emblematic of the American ideal of equality and fairness, officials and othermembers of the community majority felt the IIRA did none of the insensitive things itsopponents had suggested. In fact, they saw it as having done just the opposite: To them,the ordinance restored order to an otherwise unruly city. Central to their narrative wasthe claim that the ordinance only targeted undocumented immigrants and was thereforea race-neutral attempt to uphold the rule of law. In the words of Hazleton Mayor LouBarletta: “[T]his ordinance does not target any particular race. If you read it, you will not

10. With permission, I have used these activists’ real names. The names of all other interviewees,however, are pseudonyms. The reason for the discrepancy is that these initial activists had high visibility inchallenging the ordinance and their challenges are in many cases part of the public record (e.g., testimonyat city council meetings and in the Lozano trial).

11. Audio tapes of the June 15 and July 13, 2006, Hazleton City Council Meetings were obtained,transcribed, and analyzed. Transcripts are on file with the author.

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find any reference to specific races, nor will you find any reference to any language otherthan English” (Hazleton City Council July 13, 2006).

Buying in to this colorblind rhetoric, officials and many local residents denouncedclaims that the IIRA was discriminatory. Arias’s comment about Hazleton becoming a“Nazi city,” for instance, met a round of disgruntled boos that filled the council chamber.In addition, when she introduced as an example of the discriminatory effects of theIIRA the case of a man whose trash was not picked up after the ordinance because hewas Latino, her accusation was dismissed as petty in comparison to the undocumentedimmigrant crime wave that officials claimed threatened residents’ safety. Former Hazle-ton resident Ed Makuta testified that he was “appalled” that Arias would equate amissed garbage pickup with the murder of Derek Kichline, and he insisted that Ariasand her colleagues were “causing the problem” (Tarone 2006).

Perhaps most indicative of the backlash the Latina/o Leaders faced was a tiradeunleashed by Councilwoman Evelyn Graham at the conclusion of the July 13, 2006,Hazleton City Council meeting at which the IIRA was approved. Graham’s words areworth quoting at length, for they reveal the rhetorical power of White innocence andLatina/o abstraction:

Dr. Lopez, I have tried twice to explain to you the serious problems we face and youhave dismissed these problems by insisting they are just the result of a differentculture. You seem to believe that we must accept them. When I and the mayortried to give you and Amilcar Arroyo examples of troubles in the communitywhich we believe are caused by illegal aliens your response was to discount illegalas just a word that changes with time. You belittle any implications of criminality.You show no desire to help solve the problems and will not even discuss them. Imust confess: I am dismayed by this attitude. I was hoping that you would helpbuild the bridge we need. Based on your statements in front of City Council andthose printed in [Hazleton’s local newspaper] the Standard-Speaker [where Lopezsaid that immigrants will not assimilate but will rather acculturate], I could accuseyou and Anna Arias of racism. You, not the mayor or council, are the ones who areinciting segregation instead of encouraging integration. I believe it is you whoare practicing divisiveness. Look into your hearts and you may find that you areadvocating separatism. . . . I believe that most of Hazleton’s immigrants came hereto become a part of the community and build a better life, a new life. I believe theyseek unity rather than diversity. And I believe that you, the mayor, City Council,and community leaders owe it to them and future legal immigrants to get behindthem and encourage their adaptation to a new life and a loyalty to America, theirnew home. We welcome them. And you do them a disservice when you deliber-ately misrepresent our actions for your own purposes.

Notice how Graham, who is White, turns the tables on the local immigrationdebate. The fact that the IIRA drove Latinas/os out of the city (Katchur 2008),degraded them with unsubstantiated myths (Longazel 2013a), and instigated a pushtoward the further subordination of Latina/o immigrants nationwide is abstracted away.Meanwhile, she portrays herself and other pro-IIRA officials as the welcoming arbitersof equality and justice and the victims of the Latina/o Leaders’ “segregationist” and“racist” demands. The rhetorical tools of White innocence and Latina/o abstractionhelp Graham shed the label of oppressor while at the same time making a discriminatory

Rhetorical Barriers to Mobilizing for Immigrant Rights 9

ordinance appear justified. By presenting “us” as welcoming and “them” as divisive,so-called self-interested activists are placed alongside supposedly crime-prone undocu-mented immigrants on the list of those who pose a threat to this “harmonious commu-nity,” a threat leaders claimed they sought to curb by passing the IIRA.

“We Have to Do Something Legal”: Mobilizing Around Lozano

In light of their inability to make much headway in local politics, the Latina/oLeaders began to consider litigation. Soon after the IIRA was passed, they arranged tomeet attorneys and organizations from outside the city who had successfully litigatedimmigrant rights cases in the past. Following a “strategic meeting” between activists andattorneys, Lopez recounts that all involved concluded: “We have to do something legal.We have to stop this ordinance in a legal way . . . [We have to] challenge this ordi-nance.” The majority’s legally infused mantra of “illegal is illegal,” in short, would becountered with a legal retort. As Arias put it, they began to see the IIRA as not onlydiscriminatory but also against the law:

We knew from the beginning that what [Mayor Barletta] was doing was unfair andthat he was violating people’s rights, civil rights. Everyone, no matter whether youare documented or undocumented, you have a right to have a roof over your head.. . . The way this thing was written that you would go to jail even if you sold a canof soda to someone.[12] That is illegal. That is illegal right there. They say illegal isillegal. I don’t know the meaning of that, but this is illegal: to deny someone a glassof water, a bottle of water. You cannot sell a bottle of water to someone because heis undocumented? He has a grey and green dollar bill and he is paying for it, so itshould be legal.

Just over a month following the passage of the IIRA, the American Civil LibertiesUnion (ACLU), along with several other organizations and individuals, filed suitagainst the city of Hazleton (Lozano et al. v. City of Hazleton). At trial, the debates wereas contentious as they were outside the courtroom. Latina/o residents provided testi-mony regarding the harms the ordinance had caused. Lopez, for example, testified thathe had received three pieces of hate mail; Latina/o business owners reported dwindlingprofits; and advocates complained of pervasive feelings of fear and intimidation in theLatina/o community.

City officials, on the other hand, stuck to the innocence/abstraction script, belit-tling or denying the accusations of their adversaries, insisting that their motives werenonracial, and continuing to claim that undocumented immigration has harmed Hazle-ton. Ultimately, however, Judge James Munley agreed with the plaintiffs, signaling whatwas at least a temporary victory for Hazleton’s Latina/o community (for an analysis, seeProvine 2009). He declared:

12. Here, Arias is referring to Section 4 of the IIRA, which is designed to sanction anyone who “aidsand abets” undocumented immigrants, part of which specifically forbids “funding or providing goods andservices to illegal aliens” (with the exception of emergency medical care, emergency assistance, or legalassistance).

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The genius of our Constitution is that it provides rights even to those who evokethe least sympathy from the general public. In that way, all in this nation can beconfident of equal justice under its laws. . . . Hazleton, in its zeal to control thepresence of a group deemed undesirable, violated the rights of such people, as wellas others in the community. Since the United States Constitution protects eventhe disfavored, the ordinances cannot be enforced (Lozano v. City of Hazleton,189).13

Up to this point, the story of the Lozano case appears to follow a script suggestedby scholarship on legal mobilization: Turning to law helps progressive activistsreconceptualize their plight in legalistic terms, thus providing them with more tractionto accomplish their goals (McCann 1994). However, in a community in which themajority is in the process of reasserting its dominance, even this newfound rightsconsciousness would not be enough. In fact, the mobilization that ensued in theaftermath of Lozano was a mobilization in opposition to immigrant rights (compare Dudas2008).14

“We’re Not Going to Back Down”

News of the decision was not well received by many Hazletonians. The front pageof the June 27, 2007 edition of the Standard-Speaker was emblazoned with a capitalizeddeclaration written in oversized font: “STRUCK DOWN.” From that moment, it wasclear that the consensus among community “insiders” regarding the decision was that itwas illegitimate, an unfair attack on this small community trying to do what it thoughtwas right. The newspaper story from that day quoted Kris Kobach, the lead attorneyrepresenting the city, who has since ascended into national prominence as a leader ofthe “attrition through enforcement” movement. Kobach insisted that the plaintiffs hada “special” advantage, calling the ruling “the paradigm of judicial activism.” “It is clearwe were not only battling [the plaintiffs in the case],” he complained, “but a hostilecourt as well” (Tarone 2007).

Mayor Barletta followed suit. When spearheading the passage of the IIRA, he haddepicted himself as a small town defender,15 a “local-level general in the war on crime”protecting his city from “undocumented criminals” (Longazel 2013a, 107). After thecourt’s decision, that persona reemerged as Barletta dwelled on his city’s underdog

13. After Judge Munley issued his ruling, the case was appealed and the decision was upheld by the USCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit. That decision was also appealed and, in turn, was remanded by theSupreme Court in light of recent decisions on a pair of Arizona laws. Upon reconsideration, the ThirdCircuit reaffirmed the unconstitutionality of the IIRA, and the Supreme Court has since decided not to hearan appeal of that decision (see Jackson 2014).

14. As Dudas (2008, 7) rightfully notes in his study of Native American treaty rights, “existinglegal-mobilization scholarship is mostly silent about these sorts of rights mobilizations and the resentmentthat inspires them.” Scholars of legal mobilization focus almost exclusively on “how rights claims potentiallyempower egalitarian politics” while neglecting how countermobilizations are frequent and often “inspired byresentment over the rights claims of social marginalized Americans.”

15. The name of the Web site used to solicit funds to support Hazleton’s defense in Lozano goes by thatvery name (see http://www.smalltowndefenders.com).

Rhetorical Barriers to Mobilizing for Immigrant Rights 11

status. He described the challenge “a small city like Hazleton, Pennsylvania faces whenit chooses to take on the powerful, special interest groups and lobbyists” (Tarone 2007).He also boasted of the small city’s courage, asserting that “the ACLU and their 25lawyers thought that this little city would roll over and back down, but, we’re not goingto back down.”16

Barletta exemplifies White innocence. Evoking the fabled imagery of “SmallTown, USA,” he depicts himself and his city as victimized by the litigants, forced to giveup their cherished way of life. Ignoring particulars of the legal decision and discussingthe ordinance “outside of any real and rich social context” (Ross 1990a, 6), he is “ableto say with a straight face” (Ross 1990a, 6) that he is the underdog. Now the list of“enemies” confronting this “harmonious community” further expands to include notonly “illegal” immigrants and “self-interested” activists but also activist judges andpowerful “special interest” groups.

Mobilizing Race and Law to Defend Hierarchy: Voice of the People, USA

A number of residents of Hazleton and surrounding areas—many of whom, inter-estingly, had no prior experience with activism—were so displeased with the Lozanodecision that they sprang into action. The result was the formation of a grassrootsorganization called the Voice of the People, USA (VOP). Members of this grouprecounted how Judge Munley’s decision and the activism that had surrounded it moti-vated them to act. One VOP member remembers it this way:

Well, Mayor Barletta, I saw him on TV speaking the same language I am. . . . ThenI see where the ACLU is taking him to court. Then this is playing out in the courts,then I hear that during his trial . . . that the ACLU and . . . La Raza and a coupleother militant organizations are going to be staging a protest outside of the court-house in Scranton on Public Square. . . . So I pull over and I go out and here is allthe pro-illegal immigration activists. Not immigration activists, illegal immigrationactivists . . . So . . . I said, “Something has to be done here. There has to be acounter demonstration, a counter show of support for legal immigration and againstillegal.” So, I went ahead and I made a couple of phone calls. . . . I called talk radioand I said, “Look, tomorrow I am going to have a rally in support of Mayor LouBarletta and the IIRA.”

Driven by what they deemed to be an “inappropriate” pro-immigrant mobilization,VOP activists began a mobilization of their own, attracting like-minded citizens withgreat success. They began by writing letters to the local newspaper and calling into localradio shows, announcing their intentions to hold rallies in response to Lozano. The ideatook off, and the group hosted a number of well-attended events in subsequent months.“I got like 100 e-mails from people who agreed with my letter [announcing plans to holda rally], . . . saying that they wanted to do something,” another member of the group

16. Lou Barletta speaking at a Voice of the People, USA rally in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, June 3, 2007.

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recalled. “Next day, 300 e-mails . . . By the end of that week, we had over 1,500, and itkind of just spun. By the time we had our first rally we had 400,000 e-mails. So it’s justlike this big, big thing.”

Whose Law? The Legal Consciousness of VOP

The apparent misuse of law and the conception that Hazleton was somehow“under attack” inspired a countermobilization. It also shaped its content. The rhetoricemployed by VOP was decidedly legalistic, with many activists going so far as to frametheir efforts as part of a larger defense of the rule of law. One member summarized thethrust of the group’s argument: “We are trying to make a point here: US law. That iswhat we are arguing, we are arguing in favor of the law.” However, when we dig deeper,it is apparent that this group is selective in the type of law it deems acceptable. Theseactivists, for example, followed Barletta and Kobach in declaring Judge Munley’s deci-sion illegitimate. One activist accused Munley of falling asleep during testimony at thetrial; another emphasized that his decision was a case study in why term limits areimportant; a third declared that the decision was “legally stupid” and called the restrain-ing order that prohibited the city from enforcing the ordinance “illegal.” One activist’srhetorical stumble during our interview captures this selective acceptance of law quitewell, as he changes his position on the Fourteenth Amendment in the middle of athought:

So if Chinese came across the border illegally, you’d be like, yeah, okay, as long asthey are not Mexican. No. Principle dictates it doesn’t matter who you are. . . . Lawapplies equally to everybody. That’s the 14th Amendment and that’s what JudgeMunley ruled on, 14th Amendment. Which is wrong. . . . Munley is totally,totally—his decision is just ludicrous. I don’t agree with it at all.

It is quite clear that race also shapes VOP’s selective acceptance of law. VOPactivist Dennis, for example, brought up the legal response to a high-profile homicidethat occurred in neighboring Shenandoah soon after the IIRA was passed. In this case,a group of White teenage boys had beaten to death Luis Ramirez, an undocumentedMexican immigrant, hurling racial slurs as they committed the crime (see López 2012).In response to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF)seeking justice for Ramirez in the case, Dennis questioned whether such groups evenhave legal standing in the United States:

It was just unbelievable; they wanted to lynch these kids—MALDEF and all ofthem. First of all, MALDEF has no right in our legal system. This is our country,not the Spanish country. You know what I mean? What right does MALDEF haveto put their nose in our legal system?

Others were less explicitly xenophobic, but equally selective in choosing whichforms of law they deemed appropriate. “If we would just enforce our laws, then of coursestuff like this wouldn’t be happening,” VOP activist Heather told me in reference to the

Rhetorical Barriers to Mobilizing for Immigrant Rights 13

supposed problems Hazleton was experiencing with undocumented immigration. At thesame time, she was quick to dismiss efforts to enforce antidiscrimination law as “special”rights, suggesting that, as a White person, she is victimized by not being afforded theseapparent privileges:

There is a gentleman in Mountaintop, he is a lawyer. . . . He had a big large sign up[that one can see when] going into Hazleton. [It said] something to the fact that,if you don’t speak English and you have a problem, it could be . . . discrimination.Call me. And then it had it all in Spanish. . . . He was telling them if theycommitted a crime, he could get them out of it. That is basically what he wassaying on the billboard. Now nobody tells me if I commit a crime they will get meout of it.

The remarks of Dennis and Heather draw heavily on the rhetoric of “special” rightsand White innocence/Latina/o abstraction. Dennis’s selective acceptance of law isexplicit (i.e., “our legal system”), and the inversion he accomplishes is perhaps theepitome of innocence/abstraction as he makes a mockery of past racial oppression bydepicting a group of racially motivated Whites who beat to death a person of color asthe victims of a lynching. Heather likewise denies the possibility that Spanish speakersliving in Hazleton may actually face discrimination at the same time that she presentsherself as an innocent “victim” of this particular attorney’s so-called excessive efforts toassist a marginalized population.

Amplified Resentment and the Constitutive Power of WhiteInnocence/Latina/o Abstraction

The fervor exhibited by VOP is also noteworthy. Its members took the conflictover Hazleton’s ordinance to a whole new level by presenting their efforts as a muchgrander defense of America under attack (see also Dudas 2008). Undocumented immi-grants, according to many VOP members, are not causing problems only on the streetsof Hazleton. In the words of one VOP member, they are also “taking advantage of oursystem, depriving our veterans, depriving our elderly, depriving the other millions oflegal immigrants that built this country, that made this country what it is. They aretarnishing a name; they are tarnishing a reputation; they are tarnishing a legacy.”

These activists also stood committed to the idea that “excessive” pro-immigrantactivism had run rampant across the United States, amounting to racism againstWhites, which must be overcome (see also Romero 2008). This is especially the case, inone member’s words, for “racist groups . . . such as La Raza and MALDEF . . . [that] tryto be very intimidating.” In contrast, this VOP activist noted: “Real Americans knowit has nothing to do with the color of their skin or the accent that comes out of thevoice. But the Hispanics are the ones who are racist. They are the ones who are racist.They see everything in color, and if you are not brown then you don’t count.”

VOP members relished the idea of standing up for themselves amidst this per-ceived threat to “White Americans,” taking on a countersubversive persona (Rogin1987; Dudas 2008). Mimicking the tone of a civil rights activist and building on the

LAW & SOCIAL INQUIRY14

oppressor-as-underdog theme, one activist at a rally congratulated attendees for showingup: “You overcame fear. You overcame condemnation. You are standing up for yourtown, your state, for your country, and for yourself.”17 According to this narrative, thedual threat of an “illegal alien invasion” and “reverse racism” requires bold, courageousaction if the nation is to be saved. As one VOP activist put it, group members seethemselves as “patriots trying to do what’s right, trying to preserve this country for ourchildren and grandchildren.”

Despite its fervent rhetoric, VOP was able to maintain momentum only for a shorttime. Not long after its mobilization in the summer of 2007, its influence began to wane.As one member recounts, “[r]allies started to get smaller” and “the Web site wentdown.” Additionally, Mayor Barletta, in his commitment to colorblindness, had a staffmember ask the group—considered by some members to be “the mayor’s unofficial streetteam”—to stop displaying his political insignia at their rallies out of concern thatadmitted White supremacists may have been in attendance.

Despite their eventual demise, VOP left its mark. By recasting what would other-wise have been a defense of hierarchy as a defense of the US, its cherished values, andthe rule of law, VOP helped further normalize White innocence and Latina/o abstrac-tion and thus contributed to the collective reassertion of White superiority. To opposethe IIRA now means more than it did when the conflict first arose. Retractors are notsimply “self-interested.” They are now also “un-American,” and defenders of the law arenot only engaged in a struggle to “save their city” but, more broadly, to “save theircountry.”

Out of this context emerged the final wave of mobilization I document. Here, theconstitutive effects of White innocence and Latina/o abstraction are perhaps mostevident. As hardships for Hazleton’s Latina/o community persisted and pro-immigrantactivists sought to mobilize again, it became apparent that they would have to do so onthe terms that VOP and others had set—terms that portray Hazleton’s majority inno-cently, depict the Latina/o community as troublesome, and stigmatize any explicitlypro-Latina/o efforts.

Concerned Parents, Impenetrable Community

“We Don’t Want to Separate”

Two years after passage of the IIRA, in the summer of 2008, the idea arose to createthe Concerned Parents of the Hazleton Area (CPH). The group came into existenceafter concerned citizens noticed a lack of infrastructure in Hazleton to support recentimmigrants. Often describing themselves as existing to “build a bridge” between estab-lished local institutions and residents and Hazleton’s new immigrants, this conglomer-ate of Latina/o and White activists and volunteers has worked tirelessly ever since,providing a variety of social services to the community, most often translating andworking with students and parents during and after school.

17. Text from a speech given at the “Pro-America and Immigration Enforcement Rally,” Shenandoah,Pennsylvania, August 30, 2008.

Rhetorical Barriers to Mobilizing for Immigrant Rights 15

In contrast to the prior waves of activism already discussed, CPH strives to beapolitical. When it comes to the IIRA, members admit: “We all disagree, all of us.”However, they rarely discuss the ordinance in public, seeking to avoid mixing politicswith volunteer work. Instead, CPH works toward Latina/o inclusion through craftingpositive impressions. “When the mayor sees we are making progress,” one member toldme in a manner that more or less summarized the general sentiments of the group, “hewill probably change his mind and take out the immigration act. Let’s show him we arebetter.” Statements such as this demonstrate the extent to which prior waves of activismhave shaped CPH, thereby—as I will argue—limiting what this group of advocates and,by implication, Hazleton’s Latina/o community more generally can and cannot do andsay.

In the wake of the vilification of the Latina/o Leaders and the subsequent conser-vative mobilization, CPH members have gone out of their way to adopt a colorblindapproach to their activism. Although they did not question the motives of the Latina/oLeaders—the two groups seem to agree on many issues and they do work together attimes—they did second-guess some of their strategies. One CPH member referred to theLatina/o Leaders as “more militant that we are.” “We want to be the people who bridgethe gap,” another member told me, “where like Anna Arias and Dr. Lopez I think theylook more at the Hispanics.”

Perhaps catering to the demands made in prior mobilizations, CPH on someoccasions even found common ground with those who mobilized in support of theIIRA. My interviews with members of CPH reveal a nearly unanimous understandingof race-cognizant activism as amounting to “special” rights, even “reverse discrimi-nation.” One CPH member, for example, distanced himself from a race-cognizantapproach, telling me that he was involved because he is concerned about what isgood “not just for the Latino community, but for the whole community.” To that end,he questioned: “If we [do] not open the door for the whole community, why would weexpect the whole community to open the door for us?” Statements like “[w]e don’twant special attention; we don’t want special consideration” and “[w]e are notlooking for special privileges” were likewise quite common among CPH members.Representative of this defensive position was a member who explained the title“Concerned Parents” (as opposed to the Latin Parents Association, the auspiceunder which the group was originally founded) in these terms: “Oh, my goodness, wedon’t want to separate.” Another member likewise declared, “if it was only forLatinos, it wouldn’t be fair; then the Concerned Parents discriminates [against] Whitepeople.”

In these respects, CPH was catering to rather than resisting the majority’s power-mobilizing demands. Whereas pro-immigrant activism in Hazleton began with adirect challenge to officials’ claims that immigrants “refused” to learn English andwere crime-prone, CPH has expended much of its effort teaching English and com-bating crime, going so far as to help bring a branch of the Guardian Angels toHazleton. The comments of another CPH member perhaps most clearly attest to thisapproach:

The Hispanic community has to learn that we are here, and this is not our house.We have to learn to accept this country, accept its language, accept its customs. If

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we help these Hispanic people learn about what is the rule—not in the Hispaniccommunity, what is the rule in the Hazleton community—all the community isgoing to benefit.

The Triumph of White Innocence

With the majority’s power-mobilizing rhetorical techniques no longer being chal-lenged, it can be said that White innocence has triumphed in Hazleton. Although CPHdoes not deny the existence of racial oppression, the discourse it employs does concedeto claims that abstract away Latina/o suffering and exonerate Whites for any wrongdo-ing in passing a discriminatory law. Trying to “impress” the mayor and others in thecommunity majority takes assertions about “equality” and “community harmony” atface value. However, as I have shown, such claims are merely a “smooth veneer” (Ross1990a, 2) that protects what is otherwise a “cracked surface of tragic reality” (Ross1990a, 19) in which real equality remains evasive. CPH’s activism on behalf of immi-grants, in this way, winds up being “not about reimagining the nature of community asmuch as it [is] about reinforcing community” (Goldberg-Hiller and Milner 2003, 1098,emphasis added; see also Greenhouse, Yngvesson, and Engel 1994, 132; Haney López2003, 6)—a community that is at once imaginary, exclusionary, and racialized.

This is not to belittle the importance of CPH’s work; after all, they used the tacticsthat were possible under the circumstances they faced. Without their help, manymembers of the Latina/o community would likely have suffered additional harm. Thepoint of a critical examination of the tactics and rhetoric of CPH is instead to drawattention to the constitutive power of White innocence and Latina/o abstraction. Amajority-defined conception of equality reigns supreme in Hazleton and, as a result,CPH has limited options. If it was to be more forthright in demanding immigrant rights,it would likely encounter resistance. However, the majority permits and at times evensupports the group’s efforts so long as the approach fits the prevailing colorblindideology and, thus, does not threaten the existing social order.

Indeed, officials who otherwise spout exclusionary discourse have on occasionspoken favorably in public about CPH. Mayor Barletta was in attendance and offeredpositive remarks when the organization celebrated its first anniversary with a largepublic gathering in 2008. More recently, CPH has formed a partnership with MajorLeague Baseball manager and former Hazleton resident Joe Maddon. Relying on hissocial capital and local celebrity, Maddon has helped bring a community center to thecity and formed what has become CPH’s parent organization, the Hazleton IntegrationProject (see Echegaray and Eaton 2013). Officials have also heralded these efforts. Atthe same time, however, support is lacking from community leadership for the enact-ment of visible, meaningful change. No Latina/os hold public office in Hazleton, forexample, and as of September 2013, 99.6 percent of the teachers employed by theHazleton Area School District are White, a number that would reflect a disparity evenbefore Latina/o immigrants began arriving in Hazleton.18 The majority, in other words,

18. I received this figure through a Freedom of Information Act request. The percentage of teachers inthe district who identify as Hispanic is 0.3 percent.

Rhetorical Barriers to Mobilizing for Immigrant Rights 17

may be willing to bend, but they are not willing to break. In this sense, under CPH’sleadership, the Latina/o community is right where the majority wants it: given theircolorblind approach, the community no longer perceives a threat to the existing racialorder that would require an amplified mobilization to quell; at the same time, itsexistence symbolically serves the majority by creating a façade of inclusivity.

CONCLUSION

Although the IIRA may never be enforced, I have shown that the politics thatemerged in the wake of its passage contributed to Latina/o subordination and themaintenance of White dominance in Hazleton. While this outcome is all too commonin the United States today (Chavez 2008; Provine and Doty 2011; Kubrin, Zatz, andMartínez 2012; Longazel 2013b), my study is distinctive in drawing attention to the roleplayed by on-the-ground rhetoric regarding race and rights in enabling Latina/o subju-gation. By extending Thomas Ross’s notion of White innocence/Black abstractionbeyond the confines of the formal legal oppression of African Americans, I havedemonstrated how these deeply rooted rhetorical structures play an important role inmaintaining White dominance over Latina/o immigrants. Specifically, in the wake ofthe passage of a discriminatory law, White innocence and Latina/o abstraction permit-ted the White majority in Hazleton to retain its idyllic, Whitened self-image; claimrace-neutrality; blur any harms caused by the IIRA; and ultimately assure that existingarrangements emerged from the conflict unchanged.

This research has implications for both scholars and activists. Beyond immigrationpolitics, it is likely that innocence and abstraction are mainstays in all sorts of legalbattles, both those that involve the justification for oppressive laws (Provine 2007) aswell as those that mirror the situation I have described here, in which a majority thwartsthe resistance efforts of oppressed groups. Scholars of law and inequality should be awareof the presence of this rhetoric, and studies of legal mobilization should recognizeinnocence/abstraction as a key determinant of the success of conservative movementsand as a significant obstacle for progressives.

For social justice activists, what I have presented here is, indeed, a dilemma: callattention to racial discrimination and risk enflaming the opposition on one hand orsuccumb to power-mobilizing demands and work toward small gains via a politics ofaccommodation on the other. One strategy for cracking this catch-22 may be to drawattention to oppression as it is experienced in multiple forms. In the case of Hazleton,one of the additional implications of the anti-immigrant backlash is that it has drawnattention away from the broader structural shifts responsible for bringing immigrants toHazleton and from the anxiety such shifts induced among working-class Whites(Fleury-Steiner and Longazel 2010; Longazel and Fleury-Steiner 2011). In this sense,the rhetorical tapestry of race works not only to mobilize distraught Whites in defenseof racial hierarchies but also to conceal the power of corporate and political elites. MittRomney’s gibe about the disadvantage of not being Latina/o, from this perspective, ismore than just an embodiment of White innocence and Latina/o abstraction. It alsoendorses a politics of divide and conquer, wherein working-class Whites are urged—asthey have been throughout much of US history—to embrace the “wages of whiteness”

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and overlook their own class-based oppression (Roediger 1991). As was the case duringreconstruction (Du Bois 1935) and more recently in the implementation of the “South-ern Strategy” (Beckett 1997, 40–43), this type of rhetoric does more than keep peopleof color down, it also mobilizes the support of White workers who would otherwiseposition themselves as political foes of the corporate and political elite.

It may be more fruitful, then, to challenge Latina/o oppression and class-basedsubjugation, thereby severing the alliances that enable the ugly politics of immigrationwe have seen across the United States. Equipped with an understanding of their ownplight that takes economic realities into consideration, distraught White workers maybe willing to let go of myth and abstraction and join a movement for economic andracial justice. However, as long as they conceptualize the hardships they experience intimes of demanufacturing and economic change as rooted in harms caused by “illegalalien criminals,” “self-interested activists,” and “special interest groups,” the rhetoric ofWhite innocence and Latina/o abstraction will prevail.

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CASES CITED

The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883).Lozano v. City of Hazleton, 496 F. Supp. 2d 477 (2007).

STATUTES CITED

Illegal Immigration Relief Act, Hazleton, PA, Ordinance 2006–18 (2006).

Rhetorical Barriers to Mobilizing for Immigrant Rights 21