Representations of labor migration in Guatemalan and American media

We suggest that these representations play a role in mobilizing the departure of migrants from Guatemala and in legitimating the social and economic subordination of the same migrants in the United States. [...] The results of a media content analysis reveal different ideological underpinnings of the representations of migrants and the migration process in the United States and in Guatemala. [...] The different representations, we argue, facilitate the departure of migrants from the place of origin, while they legitimate the subordination the same migrants at the place of destination. [...] People previously involved in subsistence work witnessed the disruption of their traditional source of livelihood, the commodification of their land and the ‘Westernization’ of their lifestyle and consumption habits.9 Globalization and economic restructuring led to the migration of landless peasants and workers in search for the means for survival and to quench their increasing thirst for consumpt [...] The movement of capital and ideology from the ‘First World’ to the ‘Third World’ is intimately connected to the movement of labor in the opposite direction.10.