Assignment #3 (Text)

Emotions permeate all social life including social movement. Without emotions, there would be no social action at all. According to Jasper, “As an integral part of all social action, affective and reactive emotions enter into protest activities at every stage” (G&J, 157).

The primary emotions that encourage anti-immigration members are frustration, anger, dislike and disappointment. These emotions are felt through the protestors because of the current laws we have with immigration. These emotions are related to tactics being deployed by the organization because they seek to enforce current policies. Some organizations such as the Minutemen project want there members to be at the border line and affectively help catch illegal immigrants when crossing the border. On their website they discuss that civil protest, demonstration, and political lobbying are used to achieve their goal. Chris Simcox, co-founder and chairman seeks to influence policy and legislation to secure the borders. Their current focus is on “Electing Borders First, Borders Only, Borders Now, No Amnesty representatives to Congress” (http://www.mcdcpac.com/).

The “face” of the anti-immigration puts forth to its members is not different from that presented to members or potential recruits. The goals of different organizations that are anti-immigration state their goals are all the same, they want to enforce current immigration laws. They want more border control and encourage concerned citizens to join their efforts to secure America's borders.




Identity deployment is a way to contest stigmatized social identities for the purposes of institutional change (G&J, 238). The emotions and tactics that currently are sanctioned in the anti-immigration movement are using identity deployment to simply educate legislators or the public of the growing problem of illegal immigration. Pro-immigration movements do the same; they’ve had successful rallies in the U.S. and very effective tactics such as utilizing posters, songs/chants, to get their point across. This is similar to the rally that took place in Seattle, Washington in 1999, that included 75,000 people to protest against the World Trade Organization. They used many tactics to display their cause. However, the anti or pro immigration movements have not come to violent situations such as the Seattle, Washington protest where they had to be gassed and OC sprayed.