More than Bibi, Selena, Juan, and Vicente: Media's Racial Formation of Mexican Immigrants' Gender Identity

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the gendered racialization of identities of Mexican immigrants in the media and focuses on how newspapers in particular provide a significant platform in which to reinforce, transform and/or challenge historic depictions of immigrant identities. Through the use of the Ethnographic Content Analysis protocol, Critical Discourse Analysis, and the intersectional theories composited by Omi and Winant’s Racial formation theory with Patricia Collin’s family social hierarchies, this dissertation provides a connection of racialization from individual gender depictions and family gender-roles to group generalizations. Selecting three Lower Rio Grande Valley, Texas newspapers, this dissertation examines how urban/rural locations along the U.S. and Mexico border portray Mexican immigrants and immigration policy during the 2012 presidential election.

This dissertation recognizes Mexican immigrants’ identity is primarily gender neutral, but once further data is reviewed, women have gained visibility. However, such gendered depictions of both, Mexican immigrant men and women have continued to reinforce the racialized portrayal through their discussed gendered-family and occupational roles. This dissertation explains while men and women are depicted differently, media continues to define Mexican immigrant identity under late capitalism through multi-layered writing techniques (frames, metaphors, and stereotypes), which establish a singular and often one-dimensional identity of minority groups through individual news stories.