Jane The Virgin Thesis

When accepting a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress, Gina Rodriguez, who plays the main character in the TV show "Jane the Virgin", dedicated her award to "a culture that wants to see themselves as heroes." There are a multitude of different ways to represent immigrants in the media. While news articles tend to dehumanize immigrants and lack realistic representation of immigrants, TV shows and movies are able to give immigrants personalities and stories, without generalizing all immigrants into one category. The TV show "Jane the Virgin" follows the life of Jane Villanueva, a Latina woman living in Miami, and her close relationship with her mother and grandmother. Through the analyzation of episode sixty-one's discussion and call to attention

on immigration issues, the TV show is able to illustrate a realistic immigrant modern family's struggle with their negative immigrant experiences in order to humanize immigrants and their experiences in America.
Episode sixty-one of "Jane the Virgin" illustrates multiple negative experiences that the characters experience in their normal, everyday lives in order to portray the real experiences that immigrants can face when they are alienated in society.

This episode of "Jane the Virgin" tackled the extremely prevalent issue of immigration, a naturally reoccurring theme that all three of the Villanueva women have to deal with, Jane, the main character, Xiomara, Jane's mother, and Alba, Jane's grandmother. One of the most shocking statements said in this episode is said when Alba is working at the gift shop of the hotel she works at. She was doing her job like she normally does when all of a sudden, she witnesses a wealthy, older white women yell at a Spanish-speaking woman and forcefully tell this Hispanic woman, "This is America. You should learn how to speak English" (16:24-16:27). Even though America is made up of a wide variety of different cultures and ethnicities and there is no official language of the United States, this white woman felt the need to yell at this woman for speaking Spanish and it is shocking to know that there are still some Americans that treat immigrants this terribly. Just because this Hispanic woman decided to speak a language that she is comfortable with, even if it is not English, she was discriminated against just because of her ethnicity. Speaking a language other than

English gives Americans an opportunity to single immigrants out, similar to how accents are obvious clues to whether people are immigrants or Americans. Manuela Matas Llorente's academic journal on the analysis of the novel How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents by Julia Alvarez explains that skin color and accents "constitute undeniable marks of a person's belonging to and simultaneously being estranged from a given cultural and value system. In the case of immigrants, when speaking the language at all, their accent often contributes to delimit their place in the realm of America's cultural displacement" (69). Even when immigrants are attempting to assimilate into American culture, their accent or language can often isolate them and create a sense of isolation and because of this, many immigrants are terrified of their accents because of the way Americans automatically put the guard up towards people with accents, which hinders their assimilation process.
Episode sixty-one of "Jane the Virgin" portrays the disappointing truth that is a part of the immigrant experience, including the struggle and hardships that immigrants must face to gain citizenship in America and shows a contrasting way to how the media represents immigrants. When telling Jane about the discrimination that a Hispanic woman faced while she was at work, Alba passionately recites the preamble of the constitution and questions Jane, "how much of the preamble do you think she knows?" (16:51-17:05). In this TV show, Alba represents a modern, realistic immigrant experience and illustrates one of the many struggles that immigrants have to face, even after they become legal citizens, which contrasts to how other forms of media portray immigrants. In a study on how the United States mainstream media represents immigrants, Storm and Alcock found that "the mainstream media frequently present majority groups in a positive light and minoritized groups in a negative light, thereby reinforcing social hierarchies that support the dominant position of the majority group and the subordinate position of minoritized groups" (442). Frequently, news media reinforces the subordination of immigrants and continuously illustrates them in a negative way. The study later goes on to say how the study's analysis of U.S. media "yielded three metaphors that shaped the way the American public viewed these immigrants - IMMIGRATION AS DANGEROUS WATERS, IMMIGRATION AS INVASION, and IMMIGRATION AS DISEASE OR BURDEN" (445). The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, which were the two newspapers that were analyzed for this study, frequently use water metaphors to portray the large number of immigrants arriving in the U.S. as a dangerous disaster occurring in the U.S., even though most of these immigrants arriving are helpless children without their parents. Even though these are just children arriving to the U.S. in need of help, the media only represents them as dangerous immigrants that need to be deported immediately. Instead of only focusing on the deportation of immigrants and treating them all as faceless criminals, this TV show brings an immigrant experience to life and illustrates the truth behind the struggle that immigrants must go through to become citizens and even when immigrants become legal citizens of the United States, they are still seen as less America than others. In order to gain citizenship, immigrants must learn every small aspect of U.S. history and government and end up learning more about the history of the U.S. than most Americans know. No matter how much immigrants learn about America and how much they assimilate into the culture, they are never seen the same as Americans.
Episode sixty-one of "Jane the Virgin" illustrates the sad reality for immigrants and how even when the second, third, and fourth generations of a family are born in the U.S.

and are legal citizens, the negative experience that first generation immigrants experience affects them too, especially young children. Alba, even though she has a green card and is legally allowed to live in the U.S., still fears deportation because of the ICE raids. When Jane, her granddaughter, tries to convince her to march for immigration reform with her, Alba tells Jane, "ICE agents, Jane. They are showing up everywhere… They could take away my green card for anything" (17:24-17:34). In response to Trump's ICE raids, this TV show uses it's influence in the media to show the harsh reality for immigrants in the U.S., even legal immigrants. Because of the fear of having her green card taken away and facing deportation, Alba chooses not to march for immigrant reform, even though she feels inspired and tempted to create change. Even people who have studied and worked long and hard to become legal citizens, these innocent people still fear deportation because of the current government system. This sad reality also effects other members of a family, especially young children who do not understand the U.S. government and its leaders. Mateo, Jane's son, asks his parents, "Why do some people not want Bisa in this country" and Jane responds to him by saying, "This country was founded by people who came

from all over, like your great-grandma, because they dreamed of a better life with more opportunity…But some people, well, they just can't see that" (34:12-35:10). Even Mateo, who is only four years old, can sense this country's sense of xenophobia, which shows how negatively this country has been responding to immigrants. No matter who they are, a mother, father, or a child, this country is frequently promoting the deportation of immigrants, no matter where they came from and even if they are legal citizens like Alba. Jane's response to Mateo's question is a valid point in the argument over immigrants and immigration. The U.S. was founded by people who came from all over the world and continuously to receive people from all over the world, but once people that don't look like the normalized white person arrives to the U.S., they are placed in a separate category from everyone else and alienated against, even though they came to the U.S. for the same reason everyone else did.
This episode of "Jane the Virgin" is able to show how the issue of immigration weaves into a part of character's everyday lives and how discrimination, alienation, fear, and other issues are undeniably something that immigrants in America face. While other forms of media just promote the deportation and promotion of dangerous immigrants, this show promotes a call to action for immigrant reform. Positive immigrant representation in the media is a major issue and this deliberately sheds a positive light on immigrants to show the possibilities for the media to represent immigrants and to show that despite what most of the media portrays, immigrants aren't just faceless criminals that need to be deported. Depicting a positive immigrant representation can create empathy for the media's audience and in the future, create a more positive outlook on immigrants, which can create a positive change for immigrant reform and how our country treats immigrants.