Sarah Willen, assistant professor of anthropology at Southern Methodist University, continued this panel’s theme of deservingness by applying it to unauthorized immigrants through what she called “the lens of my own field”: medical anthropology.
“This is a group we are trained not to see,” she said. “There wouldn’t be so many unauthorized immigrants if there weren’t so many people benefiting from their illegality in so many ways.”
After pointing out the low prices of produce and building labor, Willen added that the jobs most often filled by undocumented workers often carry many health risks. She addressed the contradictory attitudes that many legal citizens take toward their presence, benefiting from their work yet vehemently denying them rights to health care.
Meanwhile, for these people, “home can be a place of vulnerability and risk.” While people tend to blame the presence of illegal immigrants for the less-than-desirable nature of the places they often live, she said simply, “Quite frequently it’s the opposite. People are drawn to places where rent is cheap.”
Willen asked those in attendance to think deeply about their own morals and the question of who deserves what. She concluded with some questions for the audience to consider.
“How is illegality produced in the first place?” she asked. “Who benefits? If they’re members of our social and economic communities, shouldn’t they be members of our moral community as well? If they are, what do they deserve?”
The Clifford Symposium: “Do Unauthorized Immigrants Have a Right to Health? Ethnographic Reflections on Contemporary ‘Deservingness’ Debates”
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