Terms Used in the US

“Calls for stopping the use of “illegals” as a noun, curbing the phrase “illegal alien””

““Aliens” is a bureaucratic term that should be avoided unless used in a quote.”

There are various terms used both in legislation and in the day to day vernacular of the United States, that could be construed as politically incorrect. One particular term that is used in reference to immigration is the word ‘alien’. This is a word that dates back to the 14th Century AD and comes from the Latin, alienus, meaning ‘foreign’ or ‘strange’. However, more recently, in around 1944 it began to be used in terms of extra-terrestrial beings and has now become a very prominent definition of the word. The National Association of Hispanic Journalists have deemed the term alien, and particularly ‘illegal alien’ as “offensive and dehumanizing”. In place of ‘alien’, they suggest the use of ‘immigrant’, and rather than ‘illegal alien’, ‘undocumented immigrant’ or ‘worker’. This is something that could either be a necessary step to prevent people being offended, or it could be an oversensitive reaction to a term that is not meant in an offensive way.

While for some people this clearly is an offensive term, it depends greatly on your interpretation of the word itself. As it is a word with such a long history of being used to mean someone who is not native to a country with no offensive overtones to it, it seems reasonable that it should remain a politically correct term as this should be the more widely recognised definition. This is particularly true in the US, as it has been used for centuries and is a common word to be used by all people usually not as a derogatory term, more an official government term that is used within legislation to specify immigrants. Its use in conjunction with the word ‘illegal’ then would seem to be similarly suitable governmental terminology, as opposed to a phrase that aims to dehumanise people by labelling them with a negative term.

However, as the more recent definition of the word ‘alien’ is used very commonly, especially in sci-fi films and books, it is becoming at least as recognised as the previous definition and this places it in question. Thinking about how aliens are portrayed in films and other such media, they are shown as being non-humanoid characters with strange features, incomprehensible methods of communication and often as a threat to human civilisation. With this as a meaning that is becoming ever more apparent, it is necessary to understand how this affects its use as a term for people, as it begins to make it sound like anyone who is not a native citizen of that country is strange, unnatural and potentially threatening which is negative and promotes ideas of segregation and not harmonious coexistence.

The terms ‘illegal alien’ and ‘illegals’ then accentuates this idea of the person being a foreigner that is outside the law and ergo someone who poses a huge threat to the native population of the country. They also immediately paint an image of a dangerous criminal, when statistics show that approximately two fifths of illegal immigrants are people who have overstayed their visa rather than people who illegally crossed the border to obtain access to the country. In this sense, the word ‘illegal’ is somewhat unhelpful, as while they are illegitimately staying in the country, they were at one time permitted entry and have been living legally in the country for some time.

Another thing that seemingly compounds this idea of an inhuman outsider is that in order to gain US citizenship, one must take a ‘Naturalization test’ that requires knowledge of the country, things such as civics and the governmental structure. The word natural means ordinary, native, established, and an antonym of this is abnormal which makes it seem as though the people who have not taken the test are unnatural and again, foreign. Upon the successful completion of this test, the person will gain permanent citizenship and a ‘Green Card’ complete with a unique ‘alien number’ as proof of this. Until relatively recently (approximately 1989) this card was called a ‘Resident Alien Card’ which subsequently became the ‘United States Permanent Citizen Card’. This may too have been a move in the spirit of political correctness as the altered name is one that has a feeling of inclusion and involvement in the US society, whereas ‘resident alien’ sounds as though the person is still unnatural and abnormal and they have merely been granted permission to live alongside the US culture rather than be involved in it.

In order to assess whether this seems like a reasonable change in terms or an oversensitive remark, I feel it is necessary to refer back to the idea of political correctness as a whole. If we take the definition of ‘political correctness’ to be, at least in part, “avoiding vocabulary that is considered offensive, discriminatory, or judgmental” then this is a necessary step that would prevent people from being labelled with a term that portrays them in a negative or unfounded light. Based on this it seems that it is necessary to find whether it is a term that others find offensive too or whether it is confined to the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ). I have found that it is something that is more widely spread than just this one group. The NAHJ released a statement in conjunction with the Asian American Journalists Association, Native American Journalists Association and National Association of Black Journalists saying, "Except in direct quotations, do not use the phrase illegal alien or the word alien... to refer to citizens of a foreign country who have come to the U.S. with no documents.” In addition to this a state legislator, Sen. Frederica Wilson, has been quoted as saying “I personally find the word 'alien' offensive when applied to individuals, especially to children... An alien to me is someone from out of space.” This goes to show that it is not simply that we are looking at these terms from a culture external to the US where the word alien is not used in quite the same way and thusly the word takes on a different significance. Instead it is an issue that is very real and demands that people take care over the words they use to describe immigrants.

I feel in this case that is unfortunate that the word has these two interpretations, one which is very suitable as a way of referring to immigrants in legislative material amongst other circumstances and one which, though similar, gives a completely different and much more negative impression. Due to these circumstances, I do not feel that it is unreasonable that people might think that it projects an unfortunate image of immigrants and thusly wish for people to avoid it as a term where possible