Comment: The problem with using ‘migrants’ for immigrants

By Frank Barry / Bloomberg Opinion

“What’s in a name?” Shakespeare’s Juliet asks, making the point that what matters is a person’s essence, not what we call them. That’s true in love. In politics, not so much.

People entering the U.S. at our southern border are now routinely called a name — migrant — that is contributing to the nation’s toxic political discourse. The term is used not only by conservative commentators, but also in the pages of The New York Times and most other media outlets, including Bloomberg.

Few names are as central to American identity as the one that migrant has replaced: immigrant. The latter carries a certain national nobleness. It conjures images of the Statue of Liberty, of dreamers and strivers who arrive with nothing but courage and ambition. Many of us proudly tell the stories of our immigrant forebearers.

The word migrant, on the other hand, evokes roaming bands of people, who, like the Roma in Europe and the Travellers in Ireland, have historically faced discrimination and prejudice as a separate and lesser class; one to be wary of, that doesn’t fit in and that can be scapegoated.

Calling today’s arrivals migrants severs their connection to Americans who built the nation. It deprives them of the dignity the term confers on earlier generations. It makes it harder for all of us with immigrant ancestors to recognize our own family stories in theirs. And therein lies the real problem.

Historically, immigrants from virtually every nation have faced hostility upon arriving here, because of their language, religion, customs and colors. They may not have been accused of eating cats and dogs, as Haitian immigrants in Ohio were last year, but they were subject to all sorts of attacks whose echoes we can still hear today: that they were violent criminals and freeloaders, from places with no tradition of democracy, holding religious beliefs that would destroy the country’s foundations. That they were, in short, un-American.

Many of us have ancestors who endured such attacks (and worse: slavery) and fought long and painful battles to overcome them. The more we remember that history, the more we can see our families in the faces of today’s new arrivals. The more we forget it, the more likely we are to end up playing the role of those who viewed our ancestors as threats.

That kind of collective amnesia and role reversal is fostered by replacing “immigrant” with “migrant.” So how did this linguistic shift happen?

It can’t be because people are now entering the U.S. illegally. For many decades, we called such people illegal or undocumented or unauthorized; but still immigrants. Besides, many of the recent “migrants” are here legally, having claimed asylum, passed an initial screening and been granted the right to stay, at least temporarily. They are more refugees than migrants.

Nor can the word be attributed to the idea that these arrivals only plan to be here temporarily. Like every generation of immigrants, some will return to their native lands, but most will put down roots and remain.

Nor can it be the motives of the new arrivals. Most are coming for the same reasons earlier generations did: to escape poverty, danger and political persecution; to find work and freedom; and to build better lives for themselves and their children.

While linguistically neutral, “migrant” can’t be separated from the political context that gave rise to its recent ubiquity. In 2015, it became a frequent term of derision in the United Kingdom as immigration took center stage in the debate over Brexit. It soon jumped across the Atlantic to the U.S., where Donald Trump rode immigration concerns and fears to the White House. But it never belonged here.

Europe does not share the U.S.’s rich history of immigration nor our celebration of it. Over there, the name may seem more neutral and natural. But here, it’s neither.

Migrant became common usage not only because it was adopted by the anti-immigration right, but also because — unlike previous generations — new arrivals are doing less hiding. They are more often traveling to the border openly and seeking asylum legally, all of which is captured on camera. The U.S. media, unaccustomed to covering emigrants on the move, decided to embrace a name for people that does not reflect their essence, or the essence of our shared national heritage.

America can no longer be a nation of open borders, as we were for much of our history. But the language we use, no matter our party, should reflect that we remain a nation of open minds and open hearts.

One can be strongly in favor of tighter border security and a border wall — and strongly opposed to government policies that have given new arrivals free housing and cash — and still insist on using immigrant rather than migrant.

Public anger over a porous border should be directed at elected officials, rather than re-directed at immigrants, because that re-direction does more than fuel hatred and hostility. It also obscures a critical fact: The people who made America great in the past are the same people who will make it great in the future. And for our own sake, if not theirs, we should call them by their proper American name: immigrants.

Frank Barry is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and member of the editorial board covering national affairs.