The Suarez-Orozco pair reviews some of the major causes of prejudice against immigrants in the first few chapters of her book. They focus in particular on the economy (page 41), the welfare state (page 45), assimilation concerns (page 49), the legal status of immigrants (page 47), and crime (page 47). In my mind, it is these last two topics that seems to carry the most weight in my own experiences with prejudice. Although the economy is always a major concern, I feel that most of the people I have met during my short lifetime understand that immigrants do the jobs the "rest of us" aren't willing to do--that is, poorly remunerated, manual labor jobs. More people that I have met care about the legal status of immigrants and their association with crime.
There is a strong and probably unjustified association in people's minds between immigrants and crime. Take, for instance, SB 1070 in Arizona. This bill refers to "THE GANG AND IMMIGRATION INTELLIGENCE TEAM ENFORCEMENT MISSION FUND" on line 25. Since when were immigrants automatically associated with gangs? On the other hand, I can see how such a mental connection would instill a fear of immigrants into public perception. At the nearby United Dairy Farmers on Clifton, I found some gang graffiti. I dislike this kind of graffiti because it strikes me as direspectful and reckless. If I associated the following gang sign at right with immigrants, I would be more likely to want tighter immigration control.--Jonathan H.
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