Date of Award
Spring 5-7-2013
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Women's Studies
First Advisor
Dr. Amira Jarmakani
Second Advisor
Dr. Susan Talburt
Third Advisor
Dr. Julie Kubala
Abstract
The right wing anti-immigration movement’s recent surge in racial panic and paranoia concerning the specter of the overly fertile Mexican migrant mother and her US-born child points to a discursive struggle over the meaning of citizenship and illegality. Starting from the assumption that both citizenship and illegality are highly contested and fluid political and moral categories, this project examines how white supremacist and heteronormative ideologies and political emotions like love and fear construct both Mexican migrants and their children as “illegal,” while simultaneously shrinking the meaning and enactment of citizenship for everyone. I argue that citizens of Mexican descent are racialized and sexualized as “illegal,” in order to warrant their exclusion, though not their expulsion, from the biopolitical fold of the nation-state.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/4050109
Recommended Citation
Franz, Margaret E., "Mexican/migrant Mothers and 'Anchor Babies" in Anti-Immigration Discourses: Meanings of Citizenship and Illegality in the United States." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2013.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/4050109