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Ladies and gentlemen, the internet presents to you a new low: Is Dora the Explorer an Illegal Immigrant?
In her police mug shot, the doe-eyed cartoon heroine with the bowl haircut has a black eye, battered lip and bloody nose.
Dora the Explorer's alleged crime? "Illegal Border Crossing Resisting Arrest."
The doctored picture, one of several circulating widely in the aftermath of Arizona's controversial new immigration law, may seem harmless, ridiculous or even tasteless.
But experts say the pictures and the rhetoric surrounding them online, in newspapers and at public rallies, reveal some Americans' attitudes about race, immigrants and where the immigration reform debate may be headed.
"Dora is kind of like a blank screen onto which people can project their thoughts and feelings about Latinos," said Erynn Masi de Casanova, a sociology professor at the University of Cincinnati. "They feel like they can say negative things because she's only a cartoon character."
This really puts a bad taste in my mouth, because I live in a home in which the negative rhetoric about illegal immigrants is constantly being spewed. My parents and one sister both firmly support Arizona's stance on immigration and immigration laws- laws which allow police to arbitrarily stop anyone they perceive as being there illegally. Laws which make me personally feel unsafe, me with only a hint of visible Latina blood, (I'm a light-skinned biracial Puerto Rican born from a light-skinned Puerto Rican mother,) laws that would allow my obviously-Latina family members to be stopped on the street and interrogated. With Arizona legally denying Latina people their freedom, their ability to be seen as US citizens and not as foreign interlopers, firing them from jobs because of their accents, and banishing classes that help people learn more about them and other ethnicities, I am afraid. I am terrified.
I am frightened when people see a Spanish-speaking person of color, even a cartoon character, and automatically think 'illegal immigrant'. I am upset when I go to work, and my boss speaks to me candidly about how my Spanish-speaking fellow employees are 'less intelligent', how their accents make it impossible for them to gain respect, how Latinas are violent and emotional by nature. I am terrified when people honestly advocate the inhumane treatment of immigrants, including setting minefields on the border and microchipping any people they find. I hear people I know and love blaming Mexican immigrants for food poisoning, crime rates, the decline in jobs, anything they find wrong about their lives. It's the kind of sociological warning that makes the back of my neck prickle.
This picture of Dora beaten bloody and in a prison photo is probably funny to some of you, but it can't be to me. It's what a good portion of America wants to see the Hispanic population like, because we can't possibly belong here.
In her police mug shot, the doe-eyed cartoon heroine with the bowl haircut has a black eye, battered lip and bloody nose.
Dora the Explorer's alleged crime? "Illegal Border Crossing Resisting Arrest."
The doctored picture, one of several circulating widely in the aftermath of Arizona's controversial new immigration law, may seem harmless, ridiculous or even tasteless.
But experts say the pictures and the rhetoric surrounding them online, in newspapers and at public rallies, reveal some Americans' attitudes about race, immigrants and where the immigration reform debate may be headed.
"Dora is kind of like a blank screen onto which people can project their thoughts and feelings about Latinos," said Erynn Masi de Casanova, a sociology professor at the University of Cincinnati. "They feel like they can say negative things because she's only a cartoon character."
This really puts a bad taste in my mouth, because I live in a home in which the negative rhetoric about illegal immigrants is constantly being spewed. My parents and one sister both firmly support Arizona's stance on immigration and immigration laws- laws which allow police to arbitrarily stop anyone they perceive as being there illegally. Laws which make me personally feel unsafe, me with only a hint of visible Latina blood, (I'm a light-skinned biracial Puerto Rican born from a light-skinned Puerto Rican mother,) laws that would allow my obviously-Latina family members to be stopped on the street and interrogated. With Arizona legally denying Latina people their freedom, their ability to be seen as US citizens and not as foreign interlopers, firing them from jobs because of their accents, and banishing classes that help people learn more about them and other ethnicities, I am afraid. I am terrified.
I am frightened when people see a Spanish-speaking person of color, even a cartoon character, and automatically think 'illegal immigrant'. I am upset when I go to work, and my boss speaks to me candidly about how my Spanish-speaking fellow employees are 'less intelligent', how their accents make it impossible for them to gain respect, how Latinas are violent and emotional by nature. I am terrified when people honestly advocate the inhumane treatment of immigrants, including setting minefields on the border and microchipping any people they find. I hear people I know and love blaming Mexican immigrants for food poisoning, crime rates, the decline in jobs, anything they find wrong about their lives. It's the kind of sociological warning that makes the back of my neck prickle.
This picture of Dora beaten bloody and in a prison photo is probably funny to some of you, but it can't be to me. It's what a good portion of America wants to see the Hispanic population like, because we can't possibly belong here.