‘Unassimilable and undesirable’: News elites’ discursive construction of the American immigrant during the Ellis Island years

Abstract

This research examines the historical role news elites have played in shaping public perceptions of immigrants as a distinct social group. To that end, we identify the discursive strategies used by The New York Times to construct the ‘American immigrant’ during the Ellis Island years (1892–1924), a pivotal period when some of the nation’s earliest immigration restriction laws were established. Data were collected from front page newspaper articles and analysis was developed using the techniques of critical discourse analysis. Drawing on Foucault’s (1977) theoretical understanding of the enmeshment of power relations in discourse as well as Blumer’s (1958) group position model, we develop and test five hypotheses about the role of news elites in constructing this social group. Finding support for all hypotheses, we show how the article’s discursive choices dehumanized immigrants, trivialized their experiences, silenced their voices and helped legitimate an unequal social hierarchy that positions immigrants beneath non-immigrants.