Legitimating the 'battle': 'Illegality,' authenticity, and language ideologies in the Arizona immigration debate

This study demonstrates the centrality of the legitimation processes of the paradoxical nature of the "battle over immigration" regarding the Senate Bill 1070 in Arizona. Through historical and critical discourse analysis, I illustrate how the language in the immigration debate has been constructed narrowly that facilitated the foregrounding of migrant "illegality" and suppressing the role of dominant interest in the periodic assimilation and marginalization of migrants in the USA. I also analyze the discursive conflation of migrant "illegality" with the "brown" race, "labor" class, and "Mexican" nationality in the context of the Arizona immigration debate. I argue that it is through this parallel construction of a "legal us" and an "immoral them," the bill excludes the migrants from American society while maintaining its commitment to ideals like freedom and equality, thereby maintaining the paradox and legitimating the "battle."...