Markel and Stern- The persistent association of immigrants and disease in american society

This article focuses on a common metaphorical trope in American rhetoric throughout modern American history: relating immigrants to disease. The article focuses on "three periods of immigration history" 1880-1924 (when the National Origins Act was passed and racially based quotas were enacted, the "era of retrenchment and exclusion from 1924 to 1965 when far fewer immigrants entered" and "1965 to the present, when family reunification laws became the centerpiece of immigration policy" (Markel and Stern 757). During all these periods, immigrants were associated with the invasive destruction of disease, both physically and metaphorically, and this association affected their time in America from the moment they landed. Stories from Ellis Island abound where immigrants "passed through an elaborate set of medical and psychological criteria that were quite real and frightening" (762). All of this happened on a racial basis in line with the stereotypes and prejudices of the day, despite the widespread discrediting of racially motivated pseudoscience like phrenology that was popularized right before and around this time. Further, the advent of bacteriology as a field in the early 1900s forced the use of metaphor to relate immigrants to disease, since they could no longer be directly associated. Nevertheless, the place people came from often affected how they were perceived. Merkel and Stern note that "Mexican and Chinese laborers, who donned work clothes and did not display the more fashionable dress of more affluent immigrants, were subjected to harsher medical scrutiny, more frequently poked for blood and urine samples, and disinfected with chemical agents" (762). Mexicans at the southern border first described as "transient" began to be "categorized as diseased and dirty" (765).
Moving into the post-WWII and anti-communist period, disinfection and prevention of invasive disease became increasingly more difficult "with the advent of air travel, [because] it was now possible for an asymptomatic yet highly infectious person to set foot in the United States, and in less than 48 hours, become deathly ill and spread germs" (770). The post WWII period was already a period of intense fear-mongering, and this only added fuel to the McCarthyist fire. This was the language of exclusion that permeated the American consciousness during the Cold War era, and immigrants often bore the brunt of its consequences. Markel and Stern create a formula for the metaphor: disease = criminal behavior = poverty = addiction = immoral behavior = communism. Therefore, communism is a disease, QED. Obviously this was faulty logic, and the US wised up to this in the 60s when the National Origins system was relaxed and more immigrants were welcomed. There wasn't universal immigration, but the US did welcome a disproportionate number of those with family ties. Airports became the main ports of entry, as opposed to the Ellis or Angel Island Harbors.
Moving toward the present day, anti-immigrant metaphors still exist. Our current president refers to Latin American immigrants as drug and sex traffickers, rapists, murderers, and all-around "bad hombres," to invoke some "Spanglish." However, amid increasing economic and cultural globalization, the free flow of goods, labor and ideas is the new normal. Therefore, we need to embrace immigrants for what they are: a cultural, economic and human advantage. They are people with motivation and drive to make this world a better place, if we will let them. Therefore, we should use words and metaphors to build them up for the world's benefit.