CLIC Speaker Abstracts

Otto Santa Ana (Chicana/o Studies, UCLA): " Did you call in Mexican today? The racial politics of jokes about the 2006 Immigrant Marches. " March 7, 2007, 5pm. Haines Hall 332.

I analyze a set of Jay Leno jokes about immigrants. Joke telling is a discursive genre that stimulates psychosocial processes that in turn reinforce identity and social boundary making practices. Leno delivered his late-night monologues in the spring 2006, when the electorate was focused on the unparalleled national demonstrations that called on citizens to give greater respect and human dignity to undocumented immigrants. Leno is unsympathetic to these claims, so he rejects their claims in various ways. He mocks the proposals of powerful politicians, a classic democratizing practice of comedians. However, Leno also rejects the immigrants' right to protest with jokes that ridicule them, which provide his audience emotional release. To create successful jokes Leno creates greater social distance between his audience and immigrants by resorting to stereotypes, caricature, falsifying facts, and associating immigrants with disreputable people. Leno's image making should be scrutinized since with a few laughs he can steer sentiment about public policy for his 5.9 million audience who, in the words of Leno's official website, "are drifting off to dreamland."