Date of Completion

2015

Document Type

Honors College Thesis

Department

English

Thesis Type

Honors College, College of Arts and Science Honors

First Advisor

Hilary Neroni

Second Advisor

John Waldron

Third Advisor

Teresa Mares

Keywords

immigration, Vermont, media studies, Latino/a studies, The Burlington Free Press, critical theory

Abstract

Migrant Latino farmworkers have sustained Vermont's large and iconic dairy industry while facing extreme exclusion, exploitation, and isolation. A critical reading of how Latinos and Latino immigrants--particularly dairy farmworkers--have been represented by Vermont's widest-read newspaper The Burlington Free Press over the past 15 years reveals how the US relies on worker abuse and exploitation and justifies this abuse either by ill-representing its victims or erasing them from the public consciousness. A theoretical reading of the past two centuries of immigrant exclusion and (mis)representation in the US and in Vermont reveals the Free Press to be continuing this derisive tradition, but also that the local farmworker organization Migrant Justice may be seriously changing our state's ideology.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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