----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
Michael Hoover quoted:
> > [Moderator's Note: No human being should ever be called "illegal" or
> > "illegitimate" either.]
>The word "illegitimate" is pretty repulsive, but "illegal" is a
>statement of fact. Why is it so insulting? Lots of things are illegal
>that shouldn't be, but I don't see how it changes things to call
>someone "undocumented" rather than "illegal." Just seems to me like
>the left variant of the American tendency towards euphemism, which
>gave us "passed away" for "died."
>Doug
It seems more than that, for acts may be illegal but to say a person themselves is illegal is an incredible dehumanization. It is a question of describing action versus describing status, which is where the fight over the terms comes.
As well, it is a politicized term, to highlight not only the dehumanization of the word "illegal" but to push the idea that "undocumented immigrants" differ from other immigrants only in the government papers they may have been issued. In that sense, where "illegal immigrant" focuses on the act of the immigrant and delegitimizes them, the term "undocumented immigrant" focuses on the acts of government and attempts to delegitimate its policies.
Some linguistic fights are marginal games of political correctness, used among activists like any slang to show who is "hip" to up-to-date political lingo, but the "illegal" versus "undocumented" isssue of terminology has real political meaning and is worth emphasizing.
-- Nathan Newman