Los Inmigrantes “Problemáticos”: La Discriminación Religiosa y Lingüística Dirigida a Ciertos Grupos de Inmigrantes en Francia y los Estados Unidos

This paper examines the parallel development of anti-immigrant movements beginning in 1970 that target Maghreb immigrants and Spanish-speaking immigrants in France and the United States, respectively. These movements, such as the sustained popularity of the extreme right-wing populist political party Frente Nacional and the “headscarf affair” (1989) of France and the “English only”, “Official English”, and antibilingual education legislation of the United States, are based on cultural racism.

In each country, the dominant societies have established a national identity based on the formation of a national ethnic community that excludes “new ethnic minorities” such as their Maghreb and Spanish-speaking populations. Both the Islam practiced by the vast majority of people of Maghreb descent and the Spanish spoken by Latinos are perceived within the dominant ideologies as cultural “defects.” These ethnic groups are therefore subjected to an immigrant identity structured by required assimilation, the perception of immigrants as a source of manual labor, and their disposability.

Beginning in the 1970s, these two ethnic groups became markedly more visible, which has resulted in the increased importance of maintaining the immigrant identity. Through the presence of Islam in French public schools and a multilingual environment in the United States, these marginalized ethnic groups have challenged one or more of the principles of the immigrant mentality, and the dominant societies have responded with an even greater oppression, demonstrated in the anti-immigrant movements mentioned above. However, in response to the anti-immigrant movements supported by the dominant cultures, both ethnic groups have in turn established resistance movements, represented in this paper by the Mouvement des Travailleurs Arabes in France and the English-Plus movement and the Puerto Rican resistance to the imposition of the American educational system.

After investigating the anti-immigrant movements that gained momentum in France and the United States during the 1970s, this paper concludes that they represent racist attempts by the dominant societies of both countries to continue to exclude “new ethnic minorities,” such as the Maghreb population in France and the Spanish-speaking population in the United States, from acceptance into national ethnic communities.