With His Ballot in His Hand

Anthropologist Margaret Dorsey on music, marketing, and Texas politics

Jesse Walker | March 3, 2008

(Page 5 of 5)

So while they're stumping, people from inside the Beltway are finally hearing what people on the border have been saying forever. It doesn't matter if you're Republican or Democrat, if your skin is light or dark, if your first language is English or Spanish—almost everyone is against the wall. So people like Hillary are saying that we're going to build it in spots, but first we have to listen to the people. She's trying to do both.

Obama's not that much different. He even said, in this debate, that they "almost entirely agree." Obama has three talking points on immigration, and he does a good job in sticking to those three points. But one thing he's added—and Hillary Clinton has mentioned this too—is that we need to work with Mexico and the governments of Central America to fix their economies so that we don't have as many people coming in. Then he shifts attention to—this is his number—the "12 million undocumented workers" in the U.S.

reason: How did you get drawn into this world? Was this around you already, or did you decide as an academic that you wanted to take a closer look?

Dorsey: I was raised in Texas politics. When I went to grad school I was interested in studying the relationship between music and politics, but I didn't know where they came together. I was constantly going back and forth between studying music and studying politics, and the convergence just wasn't there. Then, in 1998, I was reading the Corpus Christi paper, and I saw this photo of Bush stumping with [Tejano star] Emilio Navaira. And he just swept the largely Mexicano counties, the first time a Republican had done that since Reconstruction. That's what brought it all together.

Jesse Walker is managing editor of reason.

Comments

D.A. Ridgely|3.3.08 @ 4:15PM|#

Thank you, Mr. Walker, that was very interesting, especially to a recent transplant to Texas like me.

|3.3.08 @ 4:18PM|#

I don't trust anthropologists named Margaret.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Rigoberto (el cubano)|3.3.08 @ 8:44PM|#

Obama: Le ronca los cojones.