Why we don't take Rep. Steve King's ridiculous comments about immigrants lightly

Rep. Steve King — the congressman who's made his renown in Latino circles through his derogatory comments about immigrants — is at it again. This time, in discussing DREAM-Act eligible children of undocumented immigrants, he said: " For every one who's a valedictorian, there's another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds — and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they've been hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert."  

Despite King's unusual choice of imagery, the idea that young immigrants are drug-dealing criminals who slipped across the border and have now made their way to far-flung cities and states, is neither original nor unique. It is a staple of crime procedurals on television, and contributes to the disproportionate percentage of young Latino men profiled in Stop and Frisk programs (85 percent of those stopped in New York City are African-American and Latino; in Philadelphia, an ACLU report alleges 76 percent of all police stops are of African-Americans and Latinos and 85 percent of them get frisked). Since no city's police department admits racial profiling in stop-and-frisk programs, perhaps they've been sizing up their targets by eyeballing cantaloupe legs?

All sarcasm aside, King's latest remark, along with his earlier ones, gives evidence of a perception of young immigrants of color as profoundly "other" — even the many Dreamers who were brought to the U.S. so young they are thoroughly Americanized and are graduating their high schools with all the same cultural markers as other U.S. kids. 

In a recent interview with Univision's Jorge Ramos, King claimed earlier remarks were actually complimentary — remarks that use animal analogies to describe immigrants — then waved away further questioning by saying he's not responsible for immigrants, nor for fixing the tangled mess immigration policy has become. 

But King is certainly responsible for having broadened the rhetoric from authorization to be in the U.S. to deserving to be in the U.S. He, like many other public figures, has cast his immigration stance as "protection" of some idealized image of American culture — and the mostly lower-income Latino immigrants who come through the border he's so preoccupied with don't fit that image. In 2006 they were livestock to be kept in their place through electric fences. In 2010, they were to be profiled by their accent, footwear and a "sixth sense." In 2012, they would not be the pick of his litter of dogs. 

In the dog litter comment we see, truly King's vision of immigration in America: "We've got the pick of every donor civilization on the planet," he says, and implicit in that is his disregard for the "civilizations" that have been immigrating. 

Us.

He is not alone in this way of thinking. 

How many of you have experienced that conversation about immigration that devolves into a rant about the proliferation of Spanish-language options in everything from automated bill payment to electoral ballots? Can you count the times the immigration discussion has gone from whys and wherefores of policy to expressions of impatience that Latinos haven't shed their customs or music or language and fully assimilated? 

According to the Pew Hispanic Center more than a third of non-Latino Americans think that the majority of the Latinos in the U.S. are undocumented immigrants. A poll by the National Hispanic Media Coalition further indicates half non-Latino Americans see the majority of us as less educated and "refusing to learn English." More to the point, it also shows negative portrayals of Latinos in the media have a huge effect on how we are perceived: 70 percent of non-Latinos say they see us most frequently portrayed as criminals and gang members.

And if you see it on TV, or hear it from enough congressmen with an ax to grind, you come to believe it.

Last week Latino singer Marc Anthony was excoriated on twitter for his audacity in singing "God Bless America" at the All Star Game — never mind that the singer was born in New York City of parents who, as Puerto Ricans, are American citizens. 

The day before that, at the Home Run Derby, when bilingual ESPN reporter Pedro Gomez translated winner Yoenis Céspedes' answers from Spanish on air, the twitterverse exploded with racist slings about "spics" ruining the All-American pasttime. 

In June, Sebastian de la Cruz, a Mexican-American born and raised in San Antonio, faced a barrage of ugly "illegal immigrant" tweets when he sang the National Anthem at a Spurs basketball game.

As Latinos — even those rare anti-immigrant Latinos (we're looking at you, Rep. Ted Cruz) — the consequences of letting commentary like King's pass are real world ones. The majority of us are not drug traffickers, but a third of our fellow Americans — if the Pew stats hold true — will hear King's poisonous message and think that we are. Cantaloupe legs and all.