By Noquel A. Matos
Among the many distasteful costumes that sale prior to Halloween there’s a particular one causing disdain among the immigrant population: the “illegal immigrant.”
The custom that appeared in Targets online sale this last week with the following description: “He’s got his green card, but is from another planet! Sure to get some laughs, the Illegal Alien Adult Costume includes an orange prison-style jumpsuit with 'Illegal Alien' printed on the front, an alien mask and a 'green card," has alarmed immigration rights groups.
Angelica Salas from the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights of Los Angeles has asked Minneapolis-based group to remove the “distasteful, mean-spirited and ignorant of social stigma” costume. Other social action groups as United Farm Workers have also urge their supporters to send complaints to the stores that sale the dehumanizing costumes.
Although Target has responded positively to the complaints and has agreed to remove the costume from its online offers, this is just represents a small triumph.
There is at least five other online stores of the size of Target that sale the costume. The costume can be found in toyrus.com, amazon.com, meijer.com, Walgreens.com, and buycostumes.com.
The illegal alien costume aims at stigmatizing undocumented immigrants. Most like minstrel shows, it aims to ridicule an underrepresented community to further marginalize it. In times where this country chooses to look at the other side when it comes to the immigration debate or bluntly enforce overly inflexible immigration law, this costume stands as a retreating step from a desired fair immigration reform; it perpetuates the already existent xenophobic feelings present at the core of the immigrant debate and it slows it down.
By any way or principle this costume should not have a place in the America market. It negates the humanity of 12, 000 people that help run this economy.
To me the connotation of this costume is doubly-offensive: not only is the label "illegal alien" at odds with the sympathy all Americans should have for a hugely under-appreciated and ostracized subset of our workforce, but the fact that the costume is a neon orange jumpsuit calls to mind an image of a Guantanamo Bay prisoner. America's inability to productively address illegal immigration and understand how it holds up our economy, coupled with America's (embarrassing) approach to counterterrorism vis a vis an indefinite detention center should not be the butt of a Halloween joke. The costume is offensive and shouldn't be sold.
ReplyDelete-Sue
Preach it girl!
ReplyDelete-Noquel