Journal of Hispanic Policy

The Riddle of Cantinflas is a thick, colorful knot of essays–essays that map where intellectual and immigrant intersect. If readers focus on this junction and avoid searching for kitsch, the book enlightens.

Shifting global demographics continue to produce political discourses on immigration. In the United States, history continues to repeat itself through the forged rhetorical relationship between individuals who speak English and individuals who are considered “American.” As the debate over immigration reform intensifies, so do efforts to regulate/restrict all languages deemed “foreign.” In Arizona, both officeholders and seekers who do not read, write, speak and understand English “sufficiently well” risk having their candidacy revoked. This was the case with former city-council candidate in the southern Arizona border city of San Luis, Alejandrina Cabrera. This essay argues that the political history of Arizona, as it pertains to matters of an English-only society, has historically operated within the restricted parameters of a paranoid style whereby the Cabrera case illustrates its modern metamorphosis.

Abstract: This pilot study uses qualitative content analysis to examine hate speech that targets vulnerable groups, including ethnic, racial, religious, and/or sexual minorities, in commercial broadcasting. The study quantifies a recurring rhetorical pattern for targeting specific vulnerable groups through the systematic use of unsubstantiated claims, divisive language, and nativist code words. For example, Latino immigrants […]

Adequately summarizing the impact of the Latino vote in the United States’ November 2012 elections is a difficult task because, at least as of the time of this writing, the existing data is preliminary. But the postelection news headlines and all available exit polls illustrate the increasingly influential power of Latino voters in American politics […]

Labor projections indicate that over the next decade, a gap of more than a million jobs requiring science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills will develop in the United States. A million more workers with STEM skills than our educational system is on track to prepare will be needed (PCAST 2012). At the same time, […]