Reference no: EM133727459
Case: Guillermo Gomez-Pena is a performance artist who explores borders and borderlands, those geographical and cultural zones where cultures come together and clash and mingle and interact, forming a new culture that he calls the culture of the borderlands. In the following essay, Gomez-Pena explores white nationalism's othering of immigrants, especially those "south of the border."
Gomez-Pena makes a number of arguments as to why the U.S. sees immigrants as the other.
The U.S. has always needed an enemy to define itself against (see p. 689 para. 7, 10)
The U.S. uses immigrants as scapegoats for the problems that it doesn't want to deal with (see page 689 para. 6, 8 & 9.)
Because the U.S. nation wants to imagine itself "as a fictional extension of Europe" and thus be constituted primarily by Euro-Americans, it excludes cultures and communities that don't fit the norms of Euro-American culture (p. 691, para. 11, 12).
The dominant culture negatively stereotypes immigrants to assert a sense of superiority.
Discussion Prompt
Read the attached essay below, review the arguments that Gomez-Pena makes about why the U.S. sees immigrants as the other (see above notes,) and then address the following question:
Which of the course themes best represents Gomez-Pena's argument about why cultures and communities create the other?