Running Head: RHETORICAL/VISUAL ANALYSIS

Rhetorical/Visual Analysis on Immigration Reform Clara I. Martinez University of Texas at El Paso

RHETORICAL/VISUAL ANALYSIS Rhetorical/Visual Analysis on Immigration Reform This short article, is a blog with no known author from an organizations website whose name is Reform Immigration for America. This organization is trying to persuade its audience

that its time to demand action and push the House of Republicans for an immigration reform, in order to stop separating families. An immigration reform would be a pathway to legal status or citizenship for approximately the 11 million unauthorized immigrants that are currently in the US. With an immigration reform the undocumented immigrants will no longer have to be deported back to their country and also they wont have to be separated from their families. The illegal immigrants are being deported regardless if they have a fully American family. Having and immigration reform will help to put a stop to separating families. Nevertheless, I will try to show if they were really successful trying to persuade its audience by showing you examples of ethos, pathos, logos given and by also backing it up by the argument presented in the two images included in their article. This is article is mostly geared to the illegal immigrants and their families and the proimmigrant groups but at the end they want to hopefully cause and impact on the House of Republicans. The addressees which are the illegal immigrants and their families plus the proimmigrant groups are likely to agree with the article because they already know they want an immigration reform to happen. These addressees might not even be aware of how credible the article is due to lack of knowledge on the entire picture of the issue. Even though this article probably wont reach the target or the House of Republicans, the organization Reform Immigration for America encourages the people to demand action from the House of Republicans by calling the Republican National Committee Headquarters to pass an immigration

RHETORICAL/VISUAL ANALYSIS reform. Then maybe the House will be the respondents if they accept the message and most likely then theyll allow an immigration reform to become a law. First I will present to you the ethos appeal, which over all wasnt really effective. One of

the examples that is credible, is when they say Demand action from House leadership by calling the Republican National Committee Headquarters at 888-845-2087. By providing a number I was able to call and prove that it does exist and that it is meant for what they said. They also present to us Kica Matos who is a spokeswoman of Fair Immigration Reform Movement making it credible due to the fact that her job tells us that she has expertise on the issue. She tells us that since the Senate passed its bill in late June, over 100,000 families have been torn apart Aside from being a spokeswoman how are we supposed to believe her of the number that 100,000 families have been torn apart, in other words she doesnt provide as to where did she get this data. Besides what Ive mentioned they do not provide quotes from other experts on this issue, or show that they have interviewed families that have experienced this first-hand at least not in this specific article. In fact you can basically tell them your story just by sending them an email to an address they provide, and they dont guarantee or say that your story will be put up. Technically anyone can just make up a story and get pictures from unknown people and send them to them, not to mention they might even do the same thing. Which leads me to my second appeal. Secondly I will talk about the pathos appeal, in this appeal like the first it is more false because they like to use the magical power of a personal narrative for most of their article. To enforce the power of a personal narrative the author presents the reader with the story of Shannon family. The author says that Shannons husband was given a five year ban from returning to the US, it didnt matter if he is married to an American citizen, has American citizen

RHETORICAL/VISUAL ANALYSIS children, that he has no criminal record speaks English and has paid all of his taxes. The reason that I decided to mention the story of the Shannon family is because almost half of the article is

about this story and it is the only story of an illegal immigrant family. Not all of the story for the Shannon family was necessary because it does not help us understand why we should have an immigration reform. Just by saying that a 7 year old shouldnt see his dad trough Skype for his birthday is wrong because people that serve our country sometimes cant even communicate with their family at all. Not only that but they use emotive language like for example; Our families are hurting in the process House of Republicans have held our families hostage in their political theater. A word such as hostage is really not supported by evidence making it a false appeal to pathos because how does one know the numbers of hostages that exist without actually having a number to see and clarify it. Because of this examples I really didnt see any strengths at all. With this said I will present to you the appeal to logos. The appeal to logic did exist, by providing to us a syllogism but they lacked true evidence to back it up with. They achieved this by saying that if A) Families will be protected by B) implementing an immigration reform, C) The US government should care about A) families being protected. Thus, C) the US government should care about B) implementing an immigration reform. This goes to show on how the argument they are trying to make is correct making this appeal the only true effective appeal. This syllogism ties in to my two images because you are able to see families. The only numbers that they is used was the spokeswoman from Fair Immigration Reform Movement mentioned and we established that she did not provide us information as to where she got the number from. Even though they followed the correct way of a syllogism they didnt have any concrete evidence to back it up with but maybe they could back it up with the two images given.

RHETORICAL/VISUAL ANALYSIS The two images really show persuasive themes, which were unity and family. Unity and Family is important because they show a picture of Shannon family and how they are actually communicating with each other at their sons birthday trough Skype. Even if they are far apart

they are in it together as a family, of course not the way they wanted to but for now something is better than nothing at all. But their true argument is that the US are weakening the illegal immigrant families by such a thing like deportation that it creates a lack of unity for them. The second it is also a powerful image demonstrating how important unity and family are because they show two little girls in a march and they have dont deport my mom written in their shirt. Overall, this essay in my part was persuasive if you just read it not considering the three appeals: ethos, pathos, and logos, because they give you this allusion of a torn apart family. But since we did need to analyze the appeals it seemed like they used less credible methods to try and persuade its audience. This happened because they really didnt provide enough evidence to back up what they mentioned for example they only gave us one example of a family that was affected due to deportation because we have no immigration reform, but half of the article was about that story. The article also was very short, only a page long so really they couldnt be really detailed. To prove their point they tried to throw in a short example and give you a number to call, therefore it makes you feel uneasy about the article.

RHETORICAL/VISUAL ANALYSIS Reference Reform Immigration of America., (n.d.). House Democrats introduce immigration reform legislation. Republican leaders stand in the way. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://reformimmigrationforamerica.org/blog/item/1387-house-dem-bill.html