By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
The way that Donald Trump and Jeb Bush handled the accusation that their use of the term “anchor baby” is hate speech is probably as good a way of dealing with the question as any. Both responded to reporters who made the charge by asking them to provide “a better term,” and then moved on as if the topic were not worth discussion. Neither Trump nor Bush was given an answer.
Which is not surprising. “Anchor baby” is offensive only to those who are looking to take offense. What would be a better term? Birthright baby? Pathway baby? Open-door baby?
We can ask the same question of those who object to the term “illegal alien.” What better term is there for those who are living in the United States, after having entered the country outside proper channels? There is nothing inherently offensive about either term. Those who object to them are either well-meaning people reacting emotionally, who have not thought things through — or people pretending to be offended to disarm their political opponents and promote their political agenda.
It is important for us to distinguish between politically correct objections to words and phrases that are not worth a patient and reasoned response, and those that are more threatening. When we are hit with complaints in the first category, raising our eyebrows, sighing impatiently, and changing the subject makes the most sense. For example, those who protest words such as “jungle,” “secretary,” and “janitor” are caught up in an irrational ideological enthusiasm. It will be fruitless to try to reason with them.
There is nothing more dignified about the alternative terms that they insist upon. If “rain forest,” “administrative assistant,” and “custodian” were the vernacular of our time, the politically correct liberals would be objecting to them.
In fact, I think a good case can be made that there is greater dignity in the words “secretary” (one entrusted with the company’s secrets) and “janitor” (the guardian of the temple in the manner of the Greek god Janus) than in the modern politically correct variants.
And you can bet that if Tarzan had spent his time in the movies chasing natives through the “rain forest,” the politically correct crowd would be demanding that we use the term “jungle” instead.
But there are cases when the demands of the guardians of political correctness need to be met head-on and countered, instances when the demands are calculated to disarm the opposition, usually the country’s white Christian majority. The goal of the self-professed offended parties is to gain an edge that enhances their bargaining power in the political arena by instilling a sense of guilt in their political opponents. The manner in which the civil rights movement insisted that white Americans abandon the use of the terms “colored” and “Negro” is an example.
Generations of white Americans had been instructed that these were the polite terms to use for the descendants of slaves in the United States. Yet, without explanation, in the late 1960s whites were told that they were derogatory terms, even though civil rights organizations such as the National Association of Colored People and the Negro College Fund remained a prominent part of American life. “Black” became the appropriate term — until “African-American” took its place.
The campaign against the terms anchor baby and illegal alien takes things even further. If the groups protesting that these terms are hate speech get their way, it will do far more than make their opponents squirm a bit as the debate over immigration proceeds. If these terms become viewed by the mainstream in this country as examples of hate speech, it will advance the agenda of the immigration activists and their allies in the Democratic Party in a significant way.
Those protesting the terms anchor baby and illegal alien are not searching for a kinder and gentler, less offensive way to refer to those who are looking for a way to live permanently in the United States by circumventing our immigration laws; they are conning us when they make that case.
The protests are designed to change the immigration laws. The goal is to open the borders of the United States to a flow of immigrants from Latin America far beyond the numbers permitted by current law, and in numbers far in excess of what the current citizens of the United States think fair and reasonable.
Consider what takes places when we call anchor babies “just babies,” and illegal aliens “people awaiting amnesty” — as immigration activists and leading Democrats argue we should do. Once that happens, the debate moves to a new ground. The questions of illegality and subterfuge are removed from the equation, thereby establishing as a given the notion that our current border with Latin America is unjust, an obsolete fiction; and that the people of Latin America — in whatever numbers they deem appropriate — have a natural right to better their lives by becoming citizens of the United States. (A right that no Latin American country recognizes, if it needs be said.)
Do I have proof of the political agenda behind the protestations over the terms anchor baby and illegal alien? I do. Consider the case made by Linda Sanchez, the Democrat representative of California’s 38th district in the U.S. House of Representatives, in The Washington Post on August 26. In her column entitled “Calling American citizens ‘anchor babies’ is a disgrace,” she does not devote a single word to explaining why the term is offensive.
Instead, she argues that the term is a “Republican dog-whistle,” meant to “stoke unwarranted fears that too many Americans continue to hold about our country’s changing demographics.” She calls it an “ugly myth” that a “swarm of Mexican women” are “gaming the system,” by “crossing the border to have their children in this country to manipulate the immigration system.”
She says that even though a Pew Research Center study in 2010 estimated 340,000 babies born in 2008 were the offspring of people who entered the country illegally. It is safe to assume that number is considerably higher now.
What Sanchez objects to is not the hateful nature of the term anchor baby, but the way it accurately describes what is taking place. Sanchez is being intellectually dishonest when she asserts that it is a “myth” that women from Mexico are crossing the border to the purpose of giving birth to a child who will become an American citizen. The Pew Research Center study makes it clear that precisely that is going on.
The Chinese have seen the success that Latin American women have had giving birth in the United States. In reaction, Chinese operatives have set up what are known as “maternity hotels” in California cities, boarding houses where Chinese women stay after paying a fee to come to the United States to give birth. The authorities in California closed over 16 of these boarding houses just a few weeks ago.
It can be argued that Sanchez is within her rights to promote the changing demographics that she describes. It is what got her elected and keeps her in office. But it is not hate speech for her fellow citizens to object to the circumvention of our laws that is the vehicle for that change. Sanchez calls those who use the term anchor babies “sinverguenza,” Spanish for shameless. Maybe she should look in the mirror.
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