Symbols

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立 政 治 大 學

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N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

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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.

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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

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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 

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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.