TAKE THE #20MOVIECHALLENGE!
The Migration+Media Network is taking the #20MovieChallenge! We are highlighting one movie per day for 20 days… and all of our movies are by migrants, about migrants, or starring migrants! Join us on Twitter @migrationmappng and let us know what your favorite migration-related films are!
ARGENTINA’S IMMIGRATION MUSEUM
BY: SUMITA CHAKRAVARTY
Of all the types of museums in the world – art museums, science and technology museums, urban history and natural history museums, and a proliferating number of sub-genres – the immigration museum is perhaps the least familiar, and almost never written about. This may be because the inhabitants of a country are nearly always divided in their opinions about those who have come from outside, in a way that they are not about more “universal” subjects such as art or animals or automobiles. Nor is it the first place that a visitor thinks of checking out. On a recent visit to Argentina, and to the city of Buenos Aires where the national museums are located, we stood in line for over an hour just to get into the door of the Museum of Latin American Arts or MALBA, then stood in another long line to get tickets. Not so when I visited the Museo de la Immigracion, which even the very efficient taxi drivers of the city could not recognize by name. When we finally got there, only one group of visitors was present and getting a tour of the premises. We waited another hour before the guide could attend to us and answer our questions.
Argentina is, politically speaking, a very young country whose current inhabitants are only second or third generation settlers from Europe, mostly Spain and Italy. (Its indigenous population was decimated by Spanish conquerors, with few traces left in the demographic mix.) Having gained its independence from Spanish rule in 1816, Argentina had, in the early twentieth century, been considered one of the thriving economies of the world, and attracted immigrants by the thousands. Housed in the hotel that was built originally to accommodate arrivals in the 1870s, the museum overlooks the sea and in sight of ships sailing into the Buenos Aires harbor. On the day I visited, the sky was clear and a bright blue, affording a brilliant view of the waters as they stretched into the distance. Yet there is something mournful about the very remoteness and isolation of the surroundings, accentuated by the fact that the visitor occupies a position of both detachment and surveillance. The museum is located on the third floor of the former hotel, affording this kind of visual and emotional distance from the rest of the city.
The exhibits are a typical mix of immigrant photos, artifacts and possessions, books and papers, and official documents. An interesting feature is a kind of porthole framing of ships packed with people, groups photographed on arrival, and activities undertaken by individuals. Another helpful aspect of the museum is a timeline of Argentina’s political history interlinked with the hundred plus years of immigration. If the museum seems sparse (even a bit forlorn), it is because, as the guide informed me, many of the original objects had been destroyed during the years of military dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983). The beds, for instance, are replicas of the ones that were in the original building. There is also a hospital-like ambience to the hallway, with white tiled walls and a central passageway.
So, what are the characteristics of an immigration museum? Like other migration museums, the Museo de la Immigracion seeks to preserve an important aspect of Argentina’s heritage. Recalling other such museums that I have visited, a clear pattern emerges whereby the ambience is inevitably nostalgic as well as scripted and formulaic. Arrivals by ship, usually of teeming multitudes. Initiation, via a bureaucratic process of checking papers, and a clinical process of checking for disease (there is a doctor’s suitcase in the collection); Acclimation, as suggested by happy group and individual photos taken of the newcomers. I am reminded of the embalming that Roland Barthes writes about in relation to the photograph. The embalming of the past has a stern beauty, of course, but I am left with so many questions: How does this past connect with the present, both at the level of the immigrants themselves and their families today, and at the level of the nation? Isn’t history a flow rather than a static locus of commemoration? While there is something deeply compelling for me in these encounters with the ghostly presences of earlier immigrants and their relics, I found myself wishing for a more robust connection with the present.
At a time when immigration has become a charged political issue in many contemporary societies, including those of Latin America, the main purpose of the museum is instructional, harking back to a time when the country can see itself as welcoming and open-minded. Moreover, museums take resources, something that Argentina is not flush with at the present time. As I end my visit, I have a chance to chat with our guide, a teacher who volunteers his time to help visitors understand this aspect of his country’s past, and whose dedication seemed to breathe life into the inert objects of a bygone era.
THE LANGUAGE OF MIGRATION: POWER AND POLITICS IN THE AMERICAN NEWS MEDIA
BY: JEN EVANS
In studying the intersection of media and migration, I often find myself focused on choices of story and character: Which characters have their stories depicted in media? How and why are these decisions made? And what are the ramifications?
However, as media scholars, we acknowledge that there is more to portrayal than simply which stories are depicted. As I compile our project’s monthly news archives, tracking the coverage of migration and migrants throughout the global news media, I frequently find myself struck by a surprising pattern: More than who or what is depicted, much importance lies in how stories of migration are told.
Language is a powerful tool because it is largely implicit in our everyday lives. It has become second nature to us, with our own manners of speaking functioning as little more than personal eccentricities to those around us. But in politically-charged media portrayals, such as those related to current controversies in American migration, language is much more than an expression of information: It is a reflection of intent; of bias; and, all too often, of power among media makers.
Much research and discussion focus on the apparent political agendas of American media. A range of criteria lead news outlets to be deemed, to varying degrees, ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’, ‘credible’ or ‘not’. In many ways, though, rhetoric surrounding media bias has become as politically charged as the media itself. Indeed, the notion of media bias has been simplified and weaponized in our nation’s ongoing controversies surrounding migration. We need look no further than modern buzzwords such as “Fake News” for examples of important political and social issues being lost amid debates of honest and fair portrayal.
And so, in our search for clarity on these issues, we as media scholars must continue to ask the questions we always have: How? Why? And what are the ramifications? Independent of political beliefs and personal values, we must seek to understand the complexities of our modern news media and its impacts on our world.
One method of exploring the usage and power of language in migration-focused media is through comparative study. As news outlets at various points of the political spectrum report on identical factual events, the language used in such media offers insight into each producer—its audience, its agenda, its influence.
For example, in reporting on the recent death of a migrant in U.S. custody, conservative news outlets The Hill and Fox News focused their respective introductory paragraphs on the deceased’s status as an undocumented, or ‘illegal,’ migrant.
In comparison, liberal news outlet The New York Times ignored the deceased migrant’s immigration status, instead focusing its introductory paragraph on the “overwhelmed” United States Customs and Border Protection.
The language in these sample paragraphs is powerful. On one side of America’s immigration debate—that which promotes closed borders and stricter immigration criteria—media focuses on the ‘illegality’ of migrants, arguably minimizing sympathy and mitigating criticism of U.S. immigration policy. Then there is the other side of the debate; that which advocates for open borders and leniency towards migrants. On this liberal side of the debate, media focuses on perceived shortcomings of government and policy; perhaps stressing the human cost of conservative, ‘closed border’ immigration practices.
Though not covering the same event, the power of language is starkly displayed by news outlets which lean more significantly to the political left or right. Highly conservative Breitbart notes in “New York Times: Trump’s Border Reforms Are Working“: “The article by the establishment outlet is important because it validates Trump’s analysis and proposed fixes for the growing problem of cheap-labor migration.” Note the undermining of The New York Times through the use of the pronoun “establishment outlet,” which implies an inherent bias and corruption within the liberal news outlet. Meanwhile, Breitbart‘s article, written by Neil Munro, also claims that The New York Times “validates” Donald Trump’s solutions for the “problem” of specific migrations. Such decisive word choices ultimately serve to reaffirm the conservative rhetoric, highlighting the ‘correctness’ of right-wing President Donald Trump while confirming the otherwise subjective declaration of a migration “problem.”
Journalists and other media producers on the far left can be similarly observed using such definitive language. In “Trump’s Immigration Offer Shows The White House Isn’t Even Trying To Cut A Deal,” The Huffington Post‘s Roque Planas writes:
“When Senate Republicans released a draft bill on Monday night with a wall funding-for-Dreamer protections deal, it quickly became clear that this wasn’t the compromise to end the partial government shutdown that President Donald Trump had touted… Perhaps most galling, it didn’t even offer a better deal for Dreamers than the status quo, even though concessions on that issue were hyped as the compromise that would bring Democrats to the shutdown negotiating table.”
Like Breitbart, The Huffington Post utilizes language which reaffirms its social and political views—and, perhaps more importantly, those of its audience. Strong word choices such as “galling” and “hyped” serve to sensationalize the actions of the nation’s conservative leaders, arguably adding to the polarization in today’s political discussions. Likewise, through phrases such as “it quickly became clear,” The Huffington Post implies an obviousness to the supposed ‘corruption’ and/or ‘incompetence’ of the conservative-led government.
So what does this all mean?
Our daily communications are not limited by the ‘big picture.’ As I type this, countless individuals the world over are engaged in arguments regarding gesture, body language, and tone of voice. In our daily interpersonal communications, we consider the implicit messages of our colleagues, our friends, and our partners. We protest being lied to, taken advantage of, and patronized.
But what are our expectations of our media? Our journalists? Those who are charged with providing information on which we base some of our most important decisions: our votes, our ideals, our ethics. We are quick to dismiss the views of our opponents on the basis of media bias, but what about our own media sources?
Do we not deserve the honest, objective truth?
And, perhaps more importantly, who decided we didn’t?