Did immigrants lead to Trump’s victory?

By Roger Waldinger

Trump supporters rally in support of building the wall in San Diego, CA on March 13th, 2018

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign heavily emphasized his anti-immigrant ideologies. Since
he was elected into office in November of 2016, Trump promised to essentially rid the country of
illegal immigrants and to significantly minimize the number of immigrants entering into the
United States. Are his promises what led people to elect him as president? Did immigrants
essentially lead to Trump’s presidential victory?

After reviewing key contributions, immigration is not the sole factor that illuminates Trump’s
success. However, it is important to note that his negativity towards immigrants caused a number
of challenges for them in terms of how people feel towards them and especially in terms of their
rights. Needless to say, Trump’s election day caused a rift between the immigrant population and
Trump supporters.

His success in making his way into the White House, has swayed immigration views politically.
This has essentially led to disintegration in all countries that undertake immigrants, but more
prominently in Trump’s America. Today’s immigration policies have led us to live in a world of
both migration and migration control. Despite migrant networks contributing to both global and
domestic economies as well as social capital, the public’s negativity towards the immigrant
population is further revealed because even the President himself has no problem in sharing how
he himself views immigrants – whether illegal or not, to him they are just people who don’t
belong in this country.

Although immigrants may not always be wanted by the American population, and by the
President for that matter, they are still continuously exploited for their work. Rather than seeing
the inhumanity of that, Americans simply look down on immigrants and instead give themselves
the pleasure of traveling just about anywhere in the world they want. If Americans have that kind
of freedom, why can’t immigrants be seen as having that freedom as well?

Trump hasn’t been the only President to express his own concerns over immigration. Other
Presidents in the past – both Democratic and Republican – have also shared how they’ve felt and
have in some way taken some form of action. This includes Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and
even Barack Obama. What makes Trump stand out however is the fact the anti-immigration was
part of his campaign platform. He made sure everyone knew his opinions and was so persuasive
in his words which allowed him to gain a lot of attention, from immigrants to non-immigrants.
At that point, it is up to the individual to decide if they should or shouldn’t support Trump.

Whether or not people agree or disagree with Donald Trump’s views, sociologists of migration
have learned an important lesson: the history of humanity is a history of migration. As long as
there is politics, conflicts will continue to happen and the politics of immigration will continue to
shape how people view immigrants, no matter if they are illegal or not. Instead of worrying about
what Trump has led this country to, we must focus on what he has taught us about politics and
hope for a better future.
 Metacognitive Reflection

A translation typically entails the translation of a text, a book, or even a movie from one

language to another. This is done so that the piece of work could be understood by readers or

viewers who don’t read or speak the language that the original piece of work was in. However, a

translation of this form is not the only type of translation there is. A genre translation is another

kind of translation in which an academic piece of work is changed into a non-academic genre.

This type of translation involves changing several aspects of the paper, or in other words, its

genre conventions. In the article written by Roger Waldinger, the intended audience is

sociologists. So, when writing his paper, Waldinger made sure to appeal specifically to this

discipline through the way in which he formatted his paper and by using discipline specific

jargon. In the translated version of the text, which is in the form of a newspaper article, the

distinctions between the two is clear; the intended audience is much broader, the style and

formatting of the paper is clearly different, and the diction is much simpler.

The primary text written by Roger Waldinger, Immigration and the Election of Donald

Trump: Why the Sociology of Migration Left us Unprepared…and Why we Should Not Have

Been Surprised, would not be considered an easy read for the average reader. This is because the

article was meant to be read by sociologists, much like the author himself. In his article,

Waldinger explores the topic of immigration from his position as a professional. Essentially, he

did his research and ultimately communicated his findings to his intended audience, who could

possibly build on the information that he provided. In terms of the article’s structure, it is quite

lengthy and has several long paragraphs. Within these paragraphs are complex sentences which

include a significant amount of sociological jargon. For instance, Waldinger writes, “The theory
of cumulative causation contends that migration engenders transformations…”1 Some readers

may be left wondering what the definitions of “cumulative causation” and “engenders” are.

These are terms that are not generally known by the average person. It takes some level of

education as well as background knowledge about both the topic of immigration and especially

about the academic discipline to fully understand what these words mean. In a broader context, it

takes a significant degree of knowledge to fully grasp the message that Waldinger is trying to

convey, whether you belong in this academic discipline or not. Due to the complexities of the

primary article, from its format to the language and diction used, readers can infer that the

sociological discourse community could also be quite complex.

The main study of sociologists is the development and functions of human society. They

study humans and how they work within a society across all regions of the world. Generally

speaking, when sociologists write scholarly articles they critically analyze and investigate

peoples’ actions and the way people communicate within a society to come up with conclusions

or theories that concern the issues that they are researching. When writing about the topic of

immigration, specifically in the United States, Roger Waldinger focuses on three main

components: reasons for migration, relationships between immigrants and the American

population, and interactions between the two. In his article, it is evident that these three

components were taken into consideration and incorporated into his academic paper. While

explaining why immigrants migrate into the United States, Waldinger writes, “The sociological

literature insists that assimilation is driven by the search for the good life…”2 In saying this, the
1
Roger Waldinger, “Immigration and the Election of Donald Trump: Why the Sociology of
Migration Left Us Unprepared ... and Why We Should Not Have Been Surprised,” Ethnic and
Racial Studies 8, no. 41 (2018): 1412.

2
Waldinger, “Immigration and the Election of Donald Trump,” 1415
author is trying to convey that immigrants don’t just migrate out of nowhere and without any

particular motive. Over the years however, it seems as if much of the country’s citizens have

started to believe that immigrants migrate to this country to take jobs away from citizens and to

pose a variety of threats. This ideology became especially prevalent in the year 2016, which is

the same year in which Donald Trump rose to victory in the presidential election. Since then, the

relationship between Americans and the immigrant population has been strained. In his article,

Waldinger emphasizes how Trump’s opinions about immigration have led people to identify

with another political party. He writes, “…anti-immigrant appeals have been sufficiently potent

so as to change partisan identities among whites, transforming erstwhile Democrats into

Republicans.”3 In other words, former Democrats have turned Republican since Trump began his

presidential campaign. A significant portion of the population has listened to Trump’s anti-

immigrant appeals over the years and seem to be agreeing with what he has said about them.

This further suggests that the divide between Americans and the immigrant population is even

more evident.

For the translation from the primary to the secondary text, which in this case was from a

scholarly article to a newspaper article, there were many factors that had to be taken into

consideration. This included having a good understanding of the primary text, knowing which

information to translate, and being aware of the genre conventions that were to be changed. So

essentially, the translation began by first reading the academic text and making it seem as if it

was a social activity.4According to Rosenburg, doing this allows for reading through articles to

be much less of hassle and it also sparks a much greater understanding of the overall text. This is

especially true if articles are both long and dense like in the case of Roger Waldinger’s scholarly
3
Waldinger, “Immigration and the Election of Donald Trump,” 1423
4
Karen Rosenburg, “Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources,” Writing
Spaces: Readings on Writing 2: 210-220
article. Once there was a good idea of what Waldinger’s main message and points were, it was

just a matter of choosing which information to be translated because after all, the entire article is

not meant to be translated. Ultimately, the process of translation was relatively simple and done

with ease by just looking at each section of the article and essentially translating only the main

ideas within each section.

In translating between genres, genre conventions from the primary text are bound to change

when translated to the secondary text. For instance, when comparing newspaper articles to

scholarly articles, newspaper articles present themselves to be much more informal than

scholarly articles. That is to say, newspaper articles are much easier to understand than scholarly

articles because they avoid complex words, phrases, and sentences. Authors of newspaper

articles tend to not use discipline specific jargon and instead use simpler diction because they

want to reach out to a broader audience rather than to readers pertaining to only one specific

discipline. Another noticeable convention of newspaper articles is that a certain level of

knowledge is not always necessary to gain an understanding out of it and to make sense out of

the message that the author is trying to convey. The point isn’t to confuse the public, but rather to

inform them on current issues and news. In the examples of the secondary text, all three shared

several common conventions which are universal in almost all newspaper articles; they had a

title that grabbed one’s attention and an accompanying image that emphasized what the article

was about. The three example newspaper articles are titled: “Zoos are Closed because of

Coronavirus, but Animals Still Need Care,” “Dreamer’s risk lives on the Pandemics Front Lines

While They Await a Decision on their Own Futures,” and “An Early Warning System for

Coronavirus Infections Could be Found in Your Toilet.” In the example newspaper titled “Zoos

are Closed because of Coronavirus, but Animals Still Need Care,” there is an interesting title and
alongside it is an image of a panda in its enclosure. Seeing the image of the saddened panda

along with the harsh reality of Coronavirus, readers feel some sense of emotion and they want to

become informed. Thus, the use of an attention-grabbing title and image essentially set the tone

for the newspaper article and serve the purpose of making readers interested. In terms of the

format of newspaper articles, they are typically not long, and they tend to have short paragraphs,

opposite of what was is seen in scholarly articles. Staying away from long paragraphs minimizes

reader fatigue and having instead short paragraphs makes readers feel as if they could quickly

read through an article. Despite being much shorter than scholarly articles, readers may not

always want to stay until the end which is why newspaper articles typically have the most

important information within the first few paragraphs. Everything that follows is considered

either background or supporting information.

Ultimately, a number of genre conventions changed throughout the translation process. This

includes thing such as the form in which it was delivered, the use of simpler diction and

omittance of discipline jargon, the intended audience, and the length and organization of the

article. Changing many of these conventions was a choice which ultimately allowed for the main

points of the article to be much clearer to readers in the secondary text.5 Considering that many

conventions did change, no conventions of the non-academic genre were broken. However, some

could be bent such as having a primary audience because occasionally, certain newspaper articles

fall under certain categories which do have intended audiences, but anyone can read it if they

want. In further analyzing the conventions, what remained the same was the tone of the article.

In both the primary and secondary texts, the tone was casual, but occasionally serious. All in all,

translating between genres can pose some varying levels of difficulty. There are many factors

that need to be taken into consideration, but ultimately it is up to one’s own knowledge and
5
Jessie Szalay, “Making Choices in Writing.” Pressbooks, n.d.
 opinions when it comes to deciding exactly what information to translate. In translating

Waldinger’s scholarly article into a newspaper article, major differences in conventions stood

out. This included, a much broader audience, a different format, and simpler diction.

Bibliography

Bittel, Jason. “Zoos Are Closed Because of Coronavirus, but Animals Still Need Care.” The
Washington Post, March 27, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2020/03/27/zoos-
are-closed-due-coronavirus-animals-still-need-care/.
Dennis, Brady. “An Early Warning System for Coronavirus Infections Could Be Found in Your
Toilet.” The Washington Post, May 1, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-
environment/2020/05/01/coronavirus-sewage-wastewater/.

McNew, David. Photograph. San Diego, March 13, 2018. Getty Images File.

Rosenburg, Karen. “Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources.” Writing

Spaces: Readings on Writing 2 (n.d.): 210–20. https:/writingspaces.org/essays.

Sacchetti, Maria. “'Dreamers' Risk Lives on the Pandemic's Front Lines While They Await a
Decision on Their Own Futures.” The Washington Post, April 11, 2020.
https://www.washingtonpost.com.

Szalay, Jessie. “Making Choices in Writing.” Pressbooks, n.d.

https://openenglishatslcc.pressbooks.com/chapter/making-choices-in-writing/.

Waldinger, Roger. “Immigration and the Election of Donald Trump: Why the Sociology of
Migration Left Us Unprepared ... and Why We Should Not Have Been Surprised.” Ethnic and
Racial Studies, (March 21, 2018): 1411-1426.
https://wwwcom.proxy.library.ucsb.edu:9443/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2018.1442014.