The Daily Show is an American late night satirical television program. Although the show discusses a variety of news headlines, it's main focus is comedy and humor. Jon Stewart is the host of the show and he is an American political satirist, writer, producer, director, television host and stand up comedian. In the "Daily Show,"Stewart often pokes fun at politicians while producing news at the same time.
In this episode of 'The Daily Show," the issue of illegality in Texas is discussed. Al Madrigal is sent to Texas to explore how the growing population of Latinos is often stereotyped. This episode actually discusses immigration and illegality focusing on the Latino population but it found it interesting to see how all these stereotypes of illegals are portrayed.
When Madrigal is interviewing the four white women, one of them states that Koreans are fine because they are like the Chinese, and although they are illegal, you often don't have any issues with them. Her naive comment made me reflect to the issues we are studying about the Chinese and the Japanese. She is enforcing the stereotypical believe that the Japanese are the model minority.
Madrigal then interviews law enforcement officer Richard Jones who thinks that the issue with immigration and illegality is that Latinos receive free stuff. Madrigal mocks him asking him where he can get some free computers and healthcare as well since all the illegals are getting them. Jones mentions how illegals always take advantage of the free things such as welfare, computers and apparently car payments.
Although this show is based on satire and they are merely making fun of the strong views some people have, it does address the issue of illegality. The media always depicts minorities in negative ways and stereotypes are difficult to get rid of. Madrigal gathers a group of Latinos only to discover that they are really born in Texas and therefor are not illegal. In this way he is dissecting the belief that all Latinos are usually judged as somehow being illegal.
Really great find, Leslie, and rich analysis. The final point that you make reminds me of Mae Ngai's term, "alien citizen," which she suggests applies to groups like Latinos and Chicanos who, even if born in the United States, are stigmatized as somehow alien.
ReplyDelete