"...awash less than a brown tide...the relentless circulation of immigrants..like waves on a seashore, those human flows are remaking the face of America...." considering 1993, metaphorical language equivalent to this has permeated mainstream media reporting at the usa' becoming Latino inhabitants. during this groundbreaking e-book, Otto Santa Ana argues that faraway from being mere figures of speech, such metaphors produce and maintain unfavorable public perceptions of the Latino group and its position in American society, precluding the view that Latinos are vested with an identical rights and privileges as different citizens.

Applying the insights of cognitive metaphor conception to an intensive common language information set drawn from 1000s of articles within the Los Angeles Times and different media, Santa Ana unearths how metaphorical language portrays Latinos as invaders, outsiders, burdens, parasites, ailments, animals, and weeds. He convincingly demonstrates that 3 anti-Latino referenda handed in California as a result of such imagery, relatively the notorious anti-immigrant degree, Proposition 187. Santa Ana illustrates how Proposition 209 organizers broadcast compelling new metaphors approximately racism to cajole an voters that had formerly supported affirmative motion to prohibit it. He additionally exhibits how Proposition 227 supporters used antiquated metaphors for studying, institution, and language guilty Latino kid's speech—rather than gross structural inequity—for their faculties' failure to teach them. Santa Ana concludes by way of calling for the construction of rebel metaphors to contest oppressive U.S. public discourse approximately minority communities.