REPORT: TV Refuses to Shake Xenophobic Stereotypes
Immigrant advocacy group Define American partnered with The Hollywood Reporter and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism's Norman Lear Center for a new report that critiques narrative television for relying on xenophobic character tropes.
We are excited to announce that our study with @LearCenter at @USCAnnenberg & @THR is finished! Be the first to see:
— Define American ?? (@DefineAmerican) October 17, 2018
"IMMIGRATION NATION: Exploring Immigrant Portrayals on Television"
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"Immigration Nation: Exploring Immigrant Portrayals on Television," which the partners published today (October 17), examines 143 episodes of 47 television series that aired in 2017 and 2018. The report evaluates those episodes for how they characterize immigrants and immigration. It also checks the portrayals against data from the Migration Policy Institute and other research organizations that track immigration statistics.
"Immigration Nation" finds that the success of shows like "One Day at a Time" and "Jane the Virgin," which counteract xenophobic stereotypes with nuanced characters, does not make up for the reductive ways most shows still depict immigrants. Consider these key findings from the study:
- Fully 34 percent of immigrant characters were represented as criminals or close to criminal enterprises, despite immigrants committing fewer crimes than those born in the United States.
- Shows depicted only 7 percent of immigrant characters as achieving bachelors degrees, as compared to the 17 percent of immigrants who have attained them.
- Immigrants who identify as Asian or Pacific Islanders are 26 percent of the immigrant population, but only 16 percent of immigrant characters identify as AAPI.
- Immigrants of undocumented status represent an estimated 24 percent of the total immigrant population, while television shows characterize 41 of its immigrant characters as such.
"A lot of the criminal or legal issues are played up for drama and timeliness in our current news climate, but we hope and want to see writers and showrunners move past [immigrant representation as] a news item or checking a box, and instead to create characters that are well-developed, deep and are more than their legal status," Define American entertainment media manager Noelle Lindsay Stewart told The Hollywood Reporter.