Defining “ordinary people” in the US as English-speakers and not Spanish-speakers—& explicitly endorsing the view that Spanish-speakers are “them” & non-Spanish-speakers are “us”—is, at its core, white nationalism. /2
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This is especially true now, when Spanish-speaking residents are a near-majority in parts of the country near the border. But also, he’s implying there’s something special about Latinx or Spanish-speaking immigrants that makes them less “American” than other immigrants. /3
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Stephens ignores the vast majority of immigrants came to the US as non-English speakers. There’s no reason Stephens would call out Spanish-speaking as a hallmark of being anything other than an ordinary American—except racism. /4
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And his warning that thinking of today’s immigrants as fully deserving of our care will harm the Democratic Party falls flat. Here in CA, the GOP went into free-fall and hasn’t recovered from its association in the mid-‘90s with the xenophobic, anti-Latinx Proposition 187. /end
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Here’s the op-ed I’m criticizing, for reference. Feel free not to click the link!https://nyti.ms/2NiXXJi
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I guess I’m not done here. Stephens is also wrong on the politics. Read here how nativist, racist action against Latinx immigrants turned CA blue & destroyed the CA GOP for a generation—a fact that certainly now motivates GOP to disenfranchise them.https://www.cato.org/blog/proposition-187-turned-california-blue …
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Finally: Stephens himself is fluent in Spanish. He spent his childhood in Mexico. His posturing about what “ordinary people” in the US think is just that—a posture. And this makes it even more clear that language is simply a stand-in for race/ethnicity here.
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While you’re here: this thread is wonky but related.
@TexasTribune still hasn’t corrected it, as far as I can tell. Fear of a Latinx majority is what is animating@BretStephensNYT or at least those “ordinary [non-Hispanic white] people” he’s writing about.https://twitter.com/seanhecht/status/1142828898582876160?s=21 …Show this thread -
This thread, from a Cornell historian, analyzes the factual claims and presumptions in Stephens's article and shows that many of them are incorrect.https://twitter.com/LarryGlickman/status/1144941860995178497 …
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That is… truly astonishing and has an intellectual disconnect that makes my head spin.
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It’s not a disconnect. It’s malice and mendacity.
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