So, if you want to really hurt me, talk badly about my language.-Gloria Anzaldiia A s we enter the new millennium, one of the most pressing challenges facing educators in the United States is the specter of an "ethnic and cultural war," which constitutes, in my view, a code phrase that engenders our society's licentiousness toward racism. Central to the idea of an "ethnic and cultural war" is the creation of an ideologically coded language that serves at least two fundamental functions: On the one hand, this language veils the racism that characterizes U.S. society, and on the other hand, it insidiously perpetuates both ethnic and racial stereotypes that devalue identities of resistance and struggle. I posit that, although the present idea of "an ethnic and cultural war" is characterized by a form of racism at the level of language, it is important to differentiate between language as racism and the experience of racism. For example, the presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan's call for the end of illegal immigration constitutes a form of racism at the level of language. This language-based racism has had the effect of licensing institutional discrimination, whereby both documented and undocumented immigrants materially experience the loss of their dignity, the denial of their humanity, and, in many cases, outright violence, as witnessed by the brutal beatings of a Mexican man and woman by the border patrol. This incident was captured on videotape, and outraged the Mexican communities in the United States, as well as in Mexico, leading to a number of demonstrations in Los Angeles. Language such as "border rats," "wetbacks," "aliens," "illegals," welfare queens," and "non-White hordes," used by the popular press not only dehumanizes other cultural beings, but also serves to justify the violence perpetrated against subordinated groups.
