Chicago Debate League 2013/14 Core Files
AC: Critical Immigration Affirmative 168
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1AC: Critical Immigration Affirmative 1684) Whiteness is only possible via the creation of a racialized Other, and Mexican-Americans create an ordered hierarchy of White. MARTINEZ, 97 [George, Associate Professor of Law, Southern Methodist University; “The Legal Construction of Race: Mexican-Americans and Whiteness;" 2 2 Harv. Latino L. Rev. 321] The legal construction of Mexican-Americans as white is ironic. It is at odds with the colonial discourses - i.e., the discursive repertoires associated with the process of colonial exploration and ruling - that developed in the American Southwest. There are close ties in the United States between racist and colonial discourses as well as between constructions of whiteness and Westernness."' Scholars of the era of West European colonial expansion have documented the centrality of the production of knowledge - i.e., the discourses on the colonized that the colonizer produced - to the success of colonial rule. The colonizers engaged in epistemic violence - i.e., produced modes of knowing that enabled and rationalized colonial domination from the standpoint of the West, and produced ways of viewing "Other" societies and cultures whose legacies endure into the present." Central to colonial discourses is the notion of the colonized subject irreducibly Other from the standpoint of a white self. One can view the history of Mexican-Americans in the United States as part of the larger history of western colonialism. The Anglo colonizers in the American Southwest produced discourses regarding the Mexican-Americans. In sharp contrast to their legal construction as white, these discourses plainly construed MexicanAmericans as irreducibly Other from the standpoint of the white Anglo. A few examples will suffice. The historian David Weber writes: Anglo Americans found an additional element to despise in Mexicans: racial mixture. American visitors to the Mexican frontier were nearly unanimous in commenting on the dark skin of Mexican mestizos, who, it was generally agreed had inherited the worst qualities of Spaniards and Indians to produce a 'race' still more despicable than that of either parent. Similarly, another commentator described how Anglo Americans drew a racial distinction between themselves and MexicanAmericans: Racial myths about Mexicans appeared as soon as Mexicans began to meet Anglo American settlers in the early nineteenth century. The differences in attitudes, temperament, and behavior were supposed to be genetic. It is hard now to imagine the normal Mexican mixture of Spanish and Indian as constituting a distinct 'race,' but the Anglo Americans of the Southwest defined it as such. Likewise, the dean of Texas historians, Walter Prescott Webb wrote: Without disparagement it may be said that there is a cruel streak in the Mexican nature, or so the history of Texas would lead one to believe. This cruelty may be a heritage from the Spanish of the Inquisition; it may, and doubtless should, be attributed partly to the Indian blood. One effect of this colonial discourse was to generate a racial Other - the Mexican-American - in contrast to an unmarked white/Anglo self. Through this discourse on the Mexican-American, Anglo Americans also reformulated their white selves. Analysts of colonial expansion have recognized that while discursively generating and marking a range of racial Others as different from an apparently stable white self, the unmarked, apparently autonomous white self is itself produced as an effect of colonial discourse. The white self and the racial Other are coconstructed as discursive products. Thus, whiteness seems comprehensible to many only by reference to racial Others.' Perhaps surprisingly, then, it is precisely by means of a construction of a range of racial Others that the white self constitutes itself." Thus, through colonial discourse regarding Mexican-Americans, Anglos were able to construct themselves. 1AC: Critical Immigration Affirmative 1695) Whiteness thrives by splitting races while making discrimination a universal policy. Latinas/os must resist racial segregation by directly challenging the foundations of Whiteness. TRUCIOS-HAYNES, 1 [Enid, Professor of Law, Brandeis School of Law of the University of Louisville; “Why "Race Matters:" LatCrit Theory and Latina/o Racial Identity,” La Raza Law Journal, 12:1] In 1944, Gunnar Myrdal described the "American Dilemma.” The ideal of all persons being created equal and the "basic characteristic of race prejudice - a hierarchicalized sense of group position." This contradiction continues today. Latinas/os6 occupy a position within the entrenched racial hierarchy that Myrdal described, and this is an issue that must be addressed by scholars developing LatCrit Theory. This hierarchical order applies to all groups perceived in racial terms, including Latinas/os, and reflects more than a simple Black-White divide. Racial hierarchy today incorporates what Neil Gotanda has described as "racial Stratification," which accepts the model of a "hierarchical structure between minorities," instead of a model that "emphasizes the subordinate position of all racial and ethnic minorities." The Latina/o community has reached a critical mass in the U.S,, and we can no longer afford to be silent regarding race-related issues. Latinas/os have been on the sidelines m the racial discourse within the U. S. for numerous reasons, stemming both from within the community and from external influences~ However, Latinas/os must not only directly address how race has defined our group in U.S. socio-political discourse, but also become active participants in disassembling racial hierarchy in all its forms throughout the United States. The racial hierarchy in the United States is part of the system of White supremacy that organizes racial discourse using a strict Black-White racial divide. White supremacy embodies a White-over-Non-White/Black construct or a racial hierarchy, which has been defined differently by various critical race scholars. However, it is commonly agreed that white supremacy creates and reinforces the existing economic, political and social structures, and convinces the dominated classes that the existing order is inevitable. We, as Latinas/os, must acknowledge and investigate the ways in which the dominant culture defines our group as a Non-White, White or non-racial group that is outside of the race discourse, in order to suit its convenience, depending upon the interest that exists at a particular time. 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