Media Construction and Representations of Legitimate/Illegitimate Citizens.

摘要

Media representations tell the citizenry the story of who they are. Who they are is often determined by who they are not and who they do not want to be. This dissertation takes up questions about how media help us understand who belongs in this nation and who is represented as outsiders. I examine these relationships first through the particular cases of Haiti and Cuba. The differences in U.S. immigration policy toward the groups serve as a fruitful starting point in discussing citizenship because it reveals that legislation and policies are not neutral, but ideological. Their creation and application are ideological. In Chapter 1 and throughout this dissertation I offer a comparative analysis of Cuban and Haiti. I do not wish to polarize Cuba and Haiti, but I compare them to reveal the ideological mechanisms at work in how they are represented. Cubans are often presented as a privileged group, but I hope the nuances of the group, including the virtual absence of Afro-Cubans in U.S. mainstream media, are evident in this dissertation principally through my analysis of Celia Cruz. I analyze representations of icons Cruz, Gloria Estefan, and Wyclef Jean to discuss media representation, citizenship and belonging, particularly as these icons potentially impact how group members negotiate mainstream representations of their groups. I articulate an acknowledgement that legal citizenship does not guarantee acceptance or foster a feeling of belonging and that all citizens are not treated the same way. Representations of pop star Beyonce Knowles enable me to unpack a citizenship that has fewer restrictions. Citizenship is a hegemonic construction, one that involves power and a struggle for power. The struggle is to define citizenship, which manifests in how it is represented, which is what I examine. In articulating a citizenship spectrum where blackness negates legal citizenship, I call for a Black Immigration Studies that pays attention to the in between, where the struggle for legal citizenship ends and the struggle for social legitimacy begins.