[lg policy] Scrubbing the English Language of Meaning: “Chain Migration” Now an Offensive Term

[Harold Schiffman]

 Scrubbing the English Language of Meaning: “Chain Migration” Now an
Offensive Term
[image: avatar] By Ira Mehlman
<https://immigrationreform.com/author/imehlman/> March 21, 2018 No Comments
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Next to the American public, which has been saddled with enormous costs and
needless tragedies due to our failed immigration policies, the English
language has been the greatest victim of the immigration debate. As all
successful propagandists throughout history have known, controlling
language is key to controlling minds. The rancorous political climate in
general, and the debate about immigration policy in particular, are
examples of how language, rather than ideas, are driving policy.

Terms like “illegal alien” (a proper legal definition of foreign nationals
who are in the country without permission), or “amnesty” (a clear
description of a policy that forgives lawbreakers for their violations), to
name just two, can no longer be used in polite company or appear on the
pages of leading newspapers. The next target of the immigration thought
police is “chain migration” – a term first devised by demographers and
sociologists to describe the phenomenon of family members or neighbors who
follow one another from their place of origin to a new country or a new
city.

Accuracy, of course, is the mortal enemy of propaganda. As such, the people
who want to preserve an immigration system based on having one relative
sponsor the next relative – or, dare we say, chain migration – now want to
scrub that term as well. For the record, a mere 16 percent of American
voters
<http://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Final_HHP_20Feb2018_RegisteredVoters_Xtabs.pdf>
think that chain migration is a good policy, so the only way for them to
prevail over basic commonsense is to make basic commonsense toxic.

Leading the assault on the term “chain migration” is none other than the
Minority Whip of the United States Senate, Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) who has led
a two decade long campaign for amnesty (oops, a pathway to citizenship)
with blatant appeals to emotion
<https://americasvoice.org/blog/sen-durbin-shares-asaels-story-daca-meant-future-worth-fighting/>.
In response to President Trump’s use of clear language on the topic, Durbin
responded, “When it came to the issue of, quote, ‘chain migration,’ I said
to the president: ‘Do you realize how painful that term is to so many
people? African-Americans believe they migrated to America in chains, and
when you talk about chain migration, it hurts them personally.’”

It turns out that African-Americans (who overwhelmingly oppose chain
migration
<http://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Final_HHP_20Feb2018_RegisteredVoters_Xtabs.pdf>)
didn’t even know they were offended by the term until Sen. Durbin told them
they should be. Even The New York Times, which long ago threw in the towel
on “illegal alien” and “amnesty” had to point out the absurdity of Durbin’s
attack on “chain migration.”

“Durbin’s contention was perplexing on several levels. The trans-Atlantic
slave trade is not a matter of belief; it happened. It also is not
typically described as migration, which implies agency and means. Slavers
migrated; slaves were transported. What’s painful is having to spell that
out, especially when there’s no evidence that black people have ever
associated chain migration with slavery,” writes Stephen Kearse in the
paper’s Sunday magazine
<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/magazine/chain-migration-used-to-be-a-benign-term-not-anymore.html>
.

The Times’ resistance to the dictates of the language police is admirable,
but history teaches us that the language police don’t give up easily. It
took years for the mainstream media to succumb to pressure by the
immigration propagandists to drop “illegal alien” from their lexicon, but
eventually they did. Now that Durbin has declared that “chain migration” is
not only offensive, but *racially* offensive its days may be numbered.
That’s how propagandists prevail over 84 percent of American voters.


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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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