Date of Award

6-2017

Document Type

Open Access

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Modern Languages and Literatures

First Advisor

Stephanie Mueller

Language

Spanish

Keywords

undocumented immigration, children's literature

Abstract

In both the United States and Spain both of which have higher rates of immigration than emigration the media and many government officials promote anti- immigrant sentiment as part of a nationalistic ideology. Nationalism which uses xenophobic rhetoric to unify and advance the citizens of one country at the expense of all others allows governments businesses other institutions and individuals to discriminate against "inferior" foreigners who are seen as a threat to national identity security and prosperity. The opposing ideology cosmopolitanism views all of humanity as one entity arguing that man-made borders between countries irrelevantly divide people who are in reality more similar than different. This thesis analyzes three picture books for children; Sin agua y sin pan (Without Water and Without Bread) by Luis Amavisca (2016) Dos conejos blancos or Two White Rabbits by Jairo Buitrago (2016) and Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote by Duncan Tonatiuh (2013). The first book from Spain tells of two groups of people who live on either side of a chain-link fence and a group of refugees who move into the area. The other two published in Canada and the United States deal with the topic of undocumented immigration from Latin America to the United States. All three books seek to humanize immigrants and show children that we can all benefit from cooperation between people of different nationalities thus encouraging a more cosmopolitan worldview.

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