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Campaign Aims to Quash Xenophobia With #MoreThanALabel Hashtag

By Megan Dottermusch

When GOP front-runner Donald Trump called for the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, he began the xenophobic churn that has stirred heated discussions about immigration reform in the 2016 election cycle. The additional dynamics of the Syrian migration crisis in Europe — where countries are struggling and divided in attempts to cope with the influx of more than 750,000 estimated migrants — along with the global immigration issues that refugees face fleeing the barbarism of ISIS have only added fuel to the anti-immigrant discourse. And while the GOP would like you to believe these refugees are mostly men, according to Obama the “overwhelming numbers who have been applying are children, women, families — themselves victims of terrorism.”

In the U.S., President Obama plans to allow 10,000 Syrian refugees to enter the country over the course of the next fiscal year. However, on the heels of the Paris terror attacks, and fearing the infiltration of the refugee wave by Islamic extremists, more than 20 governors are refusing to allow that to happen in their states.

 

The result of all of this fear-filled rhetoric is that immigrants, who are the foundation of this country and many of our ancestors, are being reduced to stereotypical labels that serve only to stifle the individual freedoms that Americans cherish. Lady Liberty’s shoulders sag with discouragement.

An Ongoing Issue

Unfortunately, the xenophobia, discrimination, and stigma we’re witnessing are nothing new. Rooted in a fear of those who are different, these destructive dynamics were present when Japanese Americans were locked up in internment camps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and when many Americans wanted to bar entry to Jews fleeing for their lives from the Nazi regime.

While these two examples are notorious, the truth is that America has a long history of showering discriminatory practices upon individuals from a wide swath of ethnic and religious backgrounds. In an op-ed piece published by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Paul Metzger, who has taught in the Georgetown University Graduate School of Foreign Service wrote, “Anti-immigrant protests are an integral part of America’s history. Like a virulent fever they run through our country’s past and into our present. It’s an illness that’s coursed through the nation’s body many times, until it finally passes. Then we shake our heads, bewildered, wondering how it could have happened, what it was all about.”   While we may have repeated this xenophobic pattern many times in the history of our country, we can raise our voices in a united effort to stop it once and for all. We can move beyond our tendencies to label and stereotype, draw a line in the sand of prejudice, and give voice to each individual as #MoreThanALabel.

The #MoreThanALabel Campaign  

To combat these negative dynamics, SocialWork@Simmons launched its #MoreThanALabel: Immigrant Stories campaign in September. #MoreThanALabel is a blog carnival and social campaign with a goal of raising the voices of those within the immigrant community.   Recognizing that immigrant communities across multiple heritages frequently face predjudice, vilification, and the resultant limitations placed on them, SocialWork@Simmons wants to celebrate and empower immigrant communities by giving them a voice to establish their own self-definitions.

As part of the campaign, SocialWork@Simmons is asking bloggers and social advocates to participate by offering their perspectives on how we can transcend labels and celebrate immigrant pride. It has already had a fantastic response from its First Voices.

What Leading Advocates Say

Two leading advocates for immigrant populations highlight the need to increase awareness of xenophobia, and take specific steps toward combating it. The first, Elianne Ramos, is the principal and CEO of Speak Hispanic Communications and founder of the Border Kids Relief Project. She is an award-winning social entrepreneur and Latino community advocate. The second is David Leopold who practices immigration law in Cleveland, Ohio. He is an immigration reform advocate and past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Ramos says that negative dynamics have been heightened in recent years: “It looks like nativism and xenophobia have hit prime time. We see it in the response to refugees in some parts of Europe, in the outcry against Central American children crossing the U.S. border last year, and in the ongoing Haitian-Dominican immigration saga. Our current American political cycle is teeming with an unbelievable amount of hatred.”

Leopold agrees that responses to immigration issues are highly emotional: “In my experience, there is no issue that impassions people more than immigration. Why? Fundamentally, I believe it is because immigration is visceral: It is about our essence as individuals, as a people, as a culture, and as a nation. It is about where we have been and where we are going.”

Both feel that with a united effort, significant progress can be made. As Ramos says, “… [G]iven the complex international realities surrounding migrants and refugees, I can’t help but to think that embracing our common humanity may be the catalyst for the mobilization we’ve been looking for all along.”

Join this united effort to help end discrimination by participating in the #MoreThanALabel: Immigrant Stories campaign. Contribute your own story by visiting our campaign page and learning how you can be part of the solution by celebrating and giving voice to immigrant communities.

 Megan Dottermusch is the community relations manager for Socialwork@Simmons, the MSW program online at Simmons College. She is a wellness advocate, motivating others to incorporate fitness, proper nutrition, and mindfulness into everyday life. She attended the University of Maryland and served as risk manager on her sorority’s executive board, acting as a confidante for members seeking help for personal and emotional issues. She hopes starting a dialogue around mental health will address the misconceptions and end the stigmas associated with mental illness.

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