Mediaboss Marketing

Language has been in the news lately.

Last Tuesday, on April 2, the Associated Press announced it would no longer use "illegal immigrant" to refer to people living in a country without permission.

The previous week, Alaska Republican Congressman Don Young referred workers in his father's farm as " wetbacks ", although he subsequently apologised for the racialised slander.

Why is language so important? What are people so upset about?

The word "wetback" is a reference to the fact that many people who cross into the United States without authorisation must cross the Rio Grande. Mexicans and non-Mexicans use the term colloquially. The US government referred to their 1954 mass repatriation campaigns along the southern border as "Operation Wetback".

In her research with Mexican immigrants, Ruth Gomberg-Munoz found that undocumented Mexicans use the Spanish equivalent (mojados) to describe themselves, even if they had not actually gotten their backs wet in the Rio Grande. Nevertheless, Gomberg-Munoz chooses not to use the word in her own writing, because many people find the word offensive.

It should not be difficult to see why wetback is offensive. It makes light of a dangerous crossing: last year, at least 477 people died attempting to cross over from Mexico to the US. Aside from that, when you call someone a name like wetback, you are making one action they committed into a permanent aspect of who they are. This critique can also be applied to the "i-word".

Living without permission

People who live in the US without permission from the US government are commonly referred to as illegals, illegal immigrants, illegal aliens, undocumented immigrants, or unauthorised migrants. The term you select to describe them has consequences.

The first term "illegal" is grammatically incorrect - as it uses an adjective (illegal) as a noun. A person could have entered the country illegally, but that does not mean it is appropriate to call them an "illegal".

Read more here:
No human being is illegal: It's time to drop the 'i-word'