05/24/2010
Reader John Pershing writes
I believe that this article: Dora The Explorer, Illegal Immigrant? [May 21, 2010] is the second article by AP reporter Sophia Tareen in the last few days about the abuse of children’s cartoon character Dora The Explorer. (Dora Marquez) These pieces bear the ersatz premise that the re-caricaturization (by independent outsider Debbie Groben) of Dora as a physically abused lovable character is somehow much like The Bible in that it is open to large range of multiple interpretations. Tareen then limits herself to just two interpretations of the matter.
The one that suggests that it represents sick sarcasm on the part of immigration restrictionists is dealt with in a somewhat perfunctory manner with little more than:
The interpretation that practically deifies Dora is dealt with at length with generous sprinklings of expansive pontifications from multiple Hispanic liberal arts academicians throughout the article.
One academic nugget in this article that set me to thinking of alternative interpretations of a beat up and bruised Dora is from Angharad Valdivia.
"She’s always been ambiguously constructed," said Angharad Valdivia, who teaches media studies at the University of Illinois and has explored the issue. "In the U.S. the way we understand race is about putting people in categories and we're uncomfortable with people we can’t put into categories."
Dora lives in an unidentified location with pyramids that suggest Mexico, but also tropical elements such as palm trees and her friends, Isa the iguana and Boots the monkey. Does that mean she’s from South America or Florida?
And arrive, I did … at some more interpretations of Dora La Abusadita (Dora The Little Abused One).
Maybe Dora is from Guatemala and her new depiction is representative of the treatment she would have received had she been caught "sin papeles" by some lowly Mexican constable in Michoacan. (Too bad Tom McClintock, in his response to Calderon, didn’t take 10 minutes at the dais to talk about one of Mexico’s dirty little secrets.
Or maybe Dora is from Honduras and all those bruises were the result of her making a bad choice of coyotes from her own country.
There is practically no limit to the abuse the children of illegal aliens, dragged through the desert by their parents, can experience at the hands of other Hispanics, either parents, gangsters, or the Mexican police.
See also Is Dora The Explorer An Illegal Alien?, by Athena Kerry, July 15, 2007 about a Facebook group that postulates "Dora the Explorer is soo an Illegal Immigrant.."
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