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Brown Tide Rising: Metaphors of Latinos in Contemporary American Public Discourse

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Brown Tide Rising is not one of those social science books with a beat. No one will soon convert it to a hit song or into a blockbuster movie. Reading it is tedious without being overly complicated, but didn't all our mothers make us eat our broccoli? Some books need to be read even when we don't want to read them.

Santa Ana walks the reader through his analysis of metaphors utilized in the Los Angeles Times when reporting on three California propositions presented to the electorate in the 1990's. All had direct and potentially adverse repercussions for Latinos. This book carefully deconstructs the ways in which the parameters of the debates were constructed by looking at the language, and metaphors, used in newspaper accounts.

The power in Santa Ana's work lies in his explanation of the idea of public discourse. Public discourse is the imaginal limitation of perspectives. This narrowing of perspectives is accomplished by almost subliminal use of metaphor so that the legitimate contours of an issue are restricted by assumption and adoption of a specific cognitive framework. Because this framework is undeclared and public, it serves to significantly restrict public debate and provides an assumptive, public heuristic that easily substantiates bias, injustice, and discrimination.

Few in America continue to defend ethnic and racial pejoratives. Their demeaning use is without social acceptance or approval. Santa Ana clearly shows that the metaphors utilized in public discourse are substantially more pejorative than the most blatant verbal slur.

I hope that many will read this work. Awareness of the power inherent in the formation of public discourse, a power that is quite subtle and pervasive, can only be controlled by an intelligent and insightful public.

This book received a award of Best Book of 2002 on Ethnic and Racial Political Ideology and/or Political Theory, Organized Section on Race, Ethnicity, and Politics of the American Political Science Association. Book design: Heidi Haeuser.