(The following sentence is copied and pasted from an earlier post) So much for Republican Party “rebranding.” Alaska Rep. Don Young has quickly apologized for using the phrase “wetback” to decribe Latino migrant workers.
Yes, definitely, no doubt about it, you can go to the bank on it: Republican establishment types including House Speaker John Boehner and other top GOPers have been falling all over themselves distancing themselves from Young faster than Michele Bachmann grabbing onto a useful exaggeration. Here’s the oops I misspoke apology Young issued:
Rep. Don Young backed away from his use of a derogatory term to describe migrant laborers in an interview with a Southeast Alaska radio station late Thursday, saying he “meant no disrespect.”
During a visit Young made to Ketchikan, KRBD-FM interviewed him on a variety of issues pertaining to the economy and Arctic development. Young mentioned the role technology played in advancing economic development, using an example from his farm days in California.
My father had a ranch; we used to have 50-60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes,” Young said. “It takes two people to pick the same tomatoes now. It’s all done by machine.”
Young issued a statement Thursday night in which he didn’t apologize for the remark, but attempted to place it in the context of vocabulary at the time.
“During a sit down interview with Ketchikan Public Radio this week, I used a term that was commonly used during my days growing up on a farm in Central California,” Young said. “I know that this term is not used in the same way nowadays and I meant no disrespect.”
But the reality is this:
There is absolutely no excuse for using that term.
“Wetbacks” has come to become for some to be almost the same as using the n-word for African Americans, or the old k-word for Jews. No, it’s not a nice word and it’s a word people may use in private and get away with it. But when they say it in public if defines THEM.
When I worked on the Wichita Eagle-Beacon from 1980-1982 I did a special series on many aspects of undocumented migrants. The phrase “illegal aliens” was under hot debate on the paper (they finally used it). Fair enough. But NO ONE every considered the term “wetbacks” up for debate on whether it was a positive term or not. In fact, the term in interviews was only used by interview subjects who hated the Mexicans who had come to Wichita and by one Latino (a Cuban).
Similarly, in my stint covering Reagan’s immigration law during my 1982-1990 time as a staff reporter on the San Diego Union, I heard the word in interviews — usually uttered by people who perceived migrants from Mexico as criminals. It was never used positively. And if someone used the word “wetbacks” they defined themselves.
So it’s no secret it’s not a nice term.
A public official who uses it uses it either because a)he uses it an awful lot in private and he simply can’t stop using it, b)he doesn’t have a clue it’s not a hice word b)he assumes the perception of a Latino migrant worker is the same with their interviewer or audience.
None of this makes it peachy for the GOP. See the last paragraph of THIS column here.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.