3. Method
3.3 Determining the Frames in Cartoons
國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
34
1910 revolution, particularly in Mexico City, a number of new papers started for example, El Universal in 1916 and the Excelsior in 1917. During recent years, the Mexican media system has experienced significant modifications. These may be explained by the strong interdependence between the media and the country’s democratization process since after 71 years of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) dominance, in 2000, Vicente Fox won the presidential election with a new federal political party, the National Action Party (PAN). Nowadays, the government incorporates a mixture of U.S. constitutional theory and civil law system and it also has judicial review of legislative acts. However, with 61 journalists killed and eight missing in the last decade, Mexico is considered the continent’s most dangerous country for freedom of press (RSF, 2009).
3.3 Determining the Frames in Cartoons
Since framing involves selection and salience (Entman, 1993), the cartoons would be classified, after careful analysis according to the frequency of the main frames found in reference to the economic, political or social approach given to the issue. The more editorial cartoons, the more important role they play (Morrison, 1969). But “Content analysis by itself, does not demonstrate how viewers understand or value what they see or hear. Still shows what is given priority and what is not” (Bell, 2001:26). Therefore, the symbolism used to express the main concerns of both nations surrounding the border wall will also be considered. Will the American and Mexican frames’ differ? Which symbols are utilized in cartoons of both countries to portray their interests concerning the U.S.-Mexico border wall?
According to the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) The World Factbook (2009), the ongoing political, economic and social concerns during the last decade in Mexico included low real wages, underemployment for a large segment of the population, inequitable income distribution, and few advancement opportunities for the largely Amerindian population in the impoverished southern states. Also, the war on drugs and the American intensification of security measures to monitor and control legal and illegal personnel, transport, and commodities across
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
35
its border with Mexico. Per capita income remained roughly one-third that of its American neighbor and trade with the US and Canada has nearly tripled since the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. On the other hand, the U.S.
remained the world's most powerful nation state with an economy marked by steady growth, low unemployment and inflation, and rapid advances in technology. The main political issues of the United States in the last decade included the debates on immigration with the increasing enforcement of existing laws with regard to illegal immigrants, the building of the border wall and the controversy of the economic, social, and political aspects of undocumented migrants regarding ethnicity, economic benefits, jobs for non-immigrants, settlement patterns, impact on upward social mobility, crime and voting behavior. Also, the wars against terrorism, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the separation of church and State and health care reforms had been setting the news agenda.
During the last decade, the political, economic and social scenarios in Mexico have been dominated by the problem of migration to the United States, which include the high number of cross-border related deaths and violations of migrant’s human rights. Also, the unsuccessful results in the fight against drug trafficking, the increase of social insecurity including kidnapping and extortion and the failed attempts of political reforms to improve the country’s economy.
Moreover, the economic crisis, the high rates of unemployment and poverty, the high levels of corruption and the lack of good quality programs and institutions of public health and education had been also some principal concerns of the Mexican society.
Among the bilateral issues between Mexico and the United States, most standing are the random migration from the South to the North and the recent programs to jointly combat the drug trafficking in which both countries recognize their responsibility. In one side, the United States is the main consumer and weapon provider for the drug cartels, in the other, Mexico is a significant supplier of marijuana, the primary transshipment country for US-bound cocaine from South America, and for having the major drug trafficking cartels operating on its territory.
‧
Finally, the renegotiation of the NAFTA, which even during his presidential campaign, the actual American President Barack Obama promised to renegotiate it, so far the issue has been postponed in his agenda. (Barceló, 2010).
Having roughly reviewed the main social, political and economical issues in the United States and Mexico, after careful inspection of the cartoons and due the frequency of its use, six frames were clearly evidenced. The first one concerns Freedom. This frame utilizes the symbol of the statue of liberty to express the limitation or modification in the border accessibility after the U.S.-Mexico border wall construction. The second refers to Death, based in the concept of the people who might lose their lives in their intent to cross the U.S.-Mexico border fence; these cartoons use the symbol of a skeletal figure carrying a large scythe and clothed in a black cloak with a hood. The third frame is Division, corresponding to the association of the border wall between Mexico and the United States with segregation walls in other countries, as for example Germany or Israel. The fourth frame found refers to Employment, which exhibits the pull and push factors that influence the cross-border movement of illegal migrants from Mexico to the United States. The fifth frame characterizes the Economy, manifesting different ideas of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signed by the governments of the United States, Mexico and Canada. The last frame concerns to the Immigration Reform, in regard to the contemplation of some changes in the current American immigration policy to increase the legalization of immigrants’ hiring by U.S. companies.
Given our understanding of the political and press systems, as well as the cultures in the United States and in Mexico, as outline above, the selected cartoons for analysis are expected to exhibit the geographical or national backgrounds of the newspapers in which the cartoons appear.
As newspapers in both countries are known for their respect for freedom of the press and freedom of expression, there should also be cartoons that are critical of the border wall by taking a non-nationalistic perspective.
On the other hand, we also expect to see most of the symbols used to characterize the border wall representing the respective popular cultural icons. Then, icons that are of “universal”
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
37
recognition may also be used by cartoons from the papers in both countries, although the context in which the icons are used or the meanings they intend to convey can differ. In short, these are the “hypotheses”, so to speak, that this research intends to test. All these will be discussed in detail in Chapter 4 that follows.
Chapter 4 Findings
As discussed in the previous chapter, we want to identify the symbols used in the cartoons of the two countries and the frames these symbols attempt to represent. This chapter reports our findings.
4.1 Symbols
A border wall structure may vary in the materials used and its placement with regard to international borders or topography. It serves as a kind of separation barrier to limit the movement of people across a certain frontier or to separate two populations. During the data analysis, in the case of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, many different symbols are found to represent the physical barrier in the editorial cartoons. Such are the cases of construction supplies such as bricks, fence, barbed wire and steel barriers. In addition, metaphorical resources had also being used to signify a specific meaning like for example human skulls to denote the death of migrants in the border, military agents referring to the U.S. government decision to raise its Border Patrol deployment to 17,399 agents in 2009 from fewer than 4,000 in 1993 (Jeffrey, CNS News, 2009); the statue of liberty inferring to the effect of the border wall in both nations’
freedom and curtains or sand to express the cross-border vulnerability of the U.S. security fence.
‧
Also, American gigantic corporations such as the supermarkets Walmart and the fast-food restaurants Mc Donald’s have been used as symbols to divide the American-Mexican border on behalf of the separation barrier.
Besides, very specific symbols were used to represent each country. In the portrayal of the United States of America, the main icons were the “Stars and Stripes” flag and “Uncle Sam”
which is its national personification and sometimes more specifically, the incarnation of the American government. He is depicted as a stern elderly white man with white hair and a goatee beard, dressed in attire that recalls the U.S. flag with a top hat with red and white stripes and white stars on a blue band, as well as red and white striped trousers. To represent Mexico, we found its tricolor flag and people wearing the typical big hat with a somewhat high pointed crown, an extra-wide brim and a slightly upturned edge and a poncho which is an outer garment designed to keep the body warm made essentially of a single large sheet of fabric with an opening in the center for the head. Also, the Mexican outfit is usually characterized using light colors and wearing sandals referring to that used by indigenous people. Very often, the migrants were represented carrying their luggage in a small clothed bag hanging from a wooden stick on their shoulders.
Only in the Mexican cartoons we found the caricatures of American President George W.
Bush who served from 2001 to 2009, U.S. Secretary State Hillary Clinton and actual American President Barack Obama; Mexican ex-President Vicente Fox who served from 2000 to 2006 and the actual President of Mexico, Felipe Calderon. Moreover, the Mexican cartoons also showed different symbols to represent the death of the migrants in the border with the U.S.A, such like the Latin cross which is a prominent feature of Christian cemeteries and is used in Mexico to mark the place where somebody lost its life. Also, the personification of death as a skeletal figure clothed in a dark cloak with a hood and carrying a large scythe or sickle.
On the other hand, only the American cartoons brought into play an elephant to represent the U.S. Republican Party in the Mexican border wall cartoons. In fact, the elephant has actually been adopted as their official symbol and was born in the imagination of American cartoonist Thomas Nast who associated the elephant with the Republican vote in a political cartoon that
‧
appeared in Harper's Weekly in 1874. Also, they employ a pig wearing dark business suit, a top hat and smoking a cigar to represent the private industrial sector in the United States.
The complete selection of cartoons made use of a great amount of signs. Next, in table 4.1 we condense the major symbols used in the cartoons by both countries.
Table 4.1 Major Symbols used in the Cartoons
SYMBOLS U.S.A MEXICO
‧
Nevertheless, as we mentioned before, the cartoons yielded an extensive amount of signs, like for example, a gun rifling pointing to the Mexican side of the border, liberty statues covering themselves with shields, a short donkey as symbol of the Democratic party in the U.S. and the
“Immigration Bill” incarnated in the fictitious character of the “Zorro”, a kind of hero who was a nobleman and master living in the Spanish colonial era of California, and is portrayed in the cartoon riding the “Senate” horse asking for amnesty visa. Also, rivers and cactus to differentiate the Mexican from the American land and sweeper denoting the kind of job the migrants need to do in the United States.
In addition, the American cartoons generally made use of more elements in each illustration, specially the incorporation of text in speech balloons, footnotes, backgrounds and labels as a resource to complement their representations in contrast with their Mexican counterpart which rely more in the image and made seldom use of text. When employing the same symbols, Mexican cartoons tend to be more critical and exhibit the negative impact of the border wall on the country’s society, economy and politics while the American cartoons are more satirical minimizing the negative impact by diverting to the finding of the possible culpables of the migration such as their politicians or the American employers.
4.2 Frames
Altogether, the symbols used in the political cartoons from both countries were used to signify economic, political and social frames. After careful inspection, they were categorized according the classifications previously mentioned in the last chapter, in concern to Freedom, Death, Division, Employment, Economy and Immigration Reform. To facilitate their
‧
differentiation and discussion in the text, they were numbered and labeled “M” for Mexican, “A”
for American cartoons. The differences in the amount of frames published in each country are interesting itself since evidently, there was more substantial coverage of certain topics by a nation, as stated in chart 4.1 on next page where it seems clear that the employment frame was the main focus in the American cartoons while interestingly, the immigration reform frame was quite balanced in both countries’ cartoons.
Chart 4.1 Frequency of frames used by country
To answer the first research question concerning how the Mexican press framed the U.S.-Mexico barrier in political cartoons, we examined the samples published in this country. The results show that a social issue such as the death of immigrants in the border with the United States was very significant. Also, besides the same frame, the one concerning the North American Free Trade Agreement were exclusively used by the Mexican newspapers since we did not find any American cartoon boarding these two topics. In addition, the death and the
0
‧
immigration reform frames were the most commonly used in the Mexican cartoons. Next, we will address in detail the frames and the symbols used to signify them, starting with those used exclusively in the Mexican dailies.
4.2.1 Death and Skulls
One of the most visible consequences of the border-focused strategy has been the increase in deaths resulting from clandestine entry. Since the United States began beefing up patrols along the 2,000-mile border, deaths have occurred at a rate of one every 24 hours. Mexico’s foreign ministry informed of at least 5,607 cross-border related deaths between 1994 and 2008 while the Border Patrol from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had reported 4,111 deaths in border areas since 1998, not counting those reported first to local authorities (Hsu, The Washington Post, 2009).
Deaths occurring along the Arizona and Texas segments of the border have increased ten-fold since the implementation of the concentrated border enforcement strategy. Border-wide, the probability of dying versus being apprehended by the Border Patrol has doubled since 1998.
These statistics understate the number of fatalities, since they include only those migrants whose bodies have been recovered by the Border Patrol or the Mexican police. Most migrant deaths in the last ten years have been due to “environmental causes”: freezing to death in the mountains of San Diego County, succumbing to dehydration or heat stroke in the deserts of California and Arizona, or being asphyxiated in sealed trucks and railroad cars as migrants are being transported away from the border area. There has also been sharp increase in deaths due to drowning, mostly in the All-American Canal, an irrigation ditch that parallels the U.S.-Mexico border for long stretches in California and Arizona. Federal officials routinely blame these deaths on the tactics of professional people-smugglers. But the smugglers are only satisfying a demand that has been created largely by the strategy of concentrated border enforcement. The strategy has also provoked an upsurge in organized, anti-immigrant vigilante activity on the U.S. side of the border. Vigilante groups now operate in all four southwestern Border States, and they have been acquiring increasingly sophisticated technology like night-vision cameras and unmanned aerial
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
43
drones. They make extra-official apprehensions and turn their captives over to the Border Patrol.
While only a few cases of migrant injuries or deaths resulting from vigilante activities have been documented to date, the potential for greater loss of life is evident (Cornelius, 2001, 2004, 2007).
From the two frames found exclusively portrayed in Mexican newspapers’ cartoons, Death was the more salient, like for example the cartoon M1 is called “Frontier” shows in first plane the icon of the “Death” representation seated on one of many wood crosses with the “Migratory agreement” hanging from his sickle covered by blood. In the back part we can see the border fence while the Mexican and the American flags are waving with the wind. The death is seated in the American side of the border waiting for more migrants to cross, more migrants to kill. It denotes that the lack of a migratory agreement to authorize American companies to legally hire the migrants have not stop them in their intention to cross the border searching for a job, carrying as a consequence as many deaths as we can count with every wood cross.
The second image is called “Technology in the border” as sarcasm of the “Virtual” fence, a high-tech system to control the U.S.-Mexico border with cameras, ground sensors and radars.
M3. “U.S. Mexican Border”
Credit: Obi
January 25 2006, “El Norte”
M2. “Technology in the Wall”
Credit: Dario Castillejos
November 8 2006, “El Imparcial”
M1. “Frontier”
Credit: Angel Boligan June 5, 2003 “El Universal”
‧
The program was launched by the Bush administration in 2005, as for March 2010 covers the Arizona-Mexico border and is supposed to be in operation along the 2,000 mile border by 2011.
The cartoon shows the stereotypical image of the Mexicans, wearing a big hat and sandals, jumping over the wall to cross into the American side of the border and coming back to the country inside their coffins through a kind of mechanical transmission belt installed directly in the wall, evidencing the wall as a sort of “death device”.
Cartoon M3 shows again the icon of the Death building by itself the border wall with human skulls as a substitute of bricks. In one hand is holding a trowel while in the other is placing a new skull in the wall. Written on its sickle we can read “U.S. Mexican border”, inferring the large amount of immigrant deceases, lost in their intent to cross that frontier. The complete collection of images depicting death is included in Appendix A at end of this thesis.
4.2.2 Economy and NAFTA
In 1994, Mexico, the United States and Canada created a trilateral trade bloc in North America.
The objectives of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) were only economic, eliminating tariffs to facilitate the movement of goods, services and increase the investment within the three countries. However, even that the exports from Mexico to the U.S. and Canada increased, the results were not favorable because the American imports grew faster than exports, poverty remained at the same levels and the agreement did not help to generate new or better
The objectives of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) were only economic, eliminating tariffs to facilitate the movement of goods, services and increase the investment within the three countries. However, even that the exports from Mexico to the U.S. and Canada increased, the results were not favorable because the American imports grew faster than exports, poverty remained at the same levels and the agreement did not help to generate new or better