Labeling Theory and Immigrant Profiling After 9/11

Introduction: Fear and Suspicion After 9/11

Five years after the world watched in horror as the World Trade Center towers fell — taking with them nearly 4,000 innocent people who were in the buildings, on the planes, or on the surrounding streets — the consequences of that day continue to reverberate. The attacks sparked immediate calls to action and, quickly, to war. Few would argue against the anger and full range of emotions that September 11 created in the hearts of most Americans. Yet relatively little attention has been paid to the nation's immigrant communities, who almost immediately found themselves living in fear for their own safety.

News channels broadcast footage of immigrant taxi drivers abandoning their vehicles in the middle of city streets and fleeing as angry, hysterical Americans chased them down. This began before the dust from the collapsed towers had finished settling. In the days and weeks that followed, suspicion of anyone who appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent became commonplace. Imagine what it was like at that time to speak with a Middle Eastern accent — or to be a parent watching Americans eye your children on playgrounds or follow your family members home from the mosque.

The nation's response became an illuminating moment, one that made clear that racism had not disappeared within America's borders. It had simply been repackaged under the label of homeland security.

The Immigrant Experience as Portrayed in We Are All Suspects Now

To be an immigrant of any kind in America has always presented challenges. To be a Middle Eastern immigrant in post-9/11 America can be genuinely dangerous, and it has required tremendous courage for those who continue to navigate the streets and the workforce with their heads held high.

Tram Nguyen's book We Are All Suspects Now: Untold Stories from Immigrant America After 9/11 provides a clear-eyed, ground-level account of what happened to ordinary immigrant families following the attacks. The people in these stories want nothing more than to work, attend school, worship, raise their families, and live their lives. Instead, they have been subjected to fear, racism, and hatred based solely on their backgrounds.

In a condition not unlike what African Americans endured in the early twentieth century, Middle Eastern immigrants now face anger that is unfounded and rooted in fear. But unlike the African Americans of earlier eras, Middle Eastern immigrants carry an additional burden: they are actively labeled as potential terrorists — a word capable of inciting violence without warning. African Americans faced violence based on race; today's Middle Eastern immigrants face similar dangers, compounded by the accusation that their religion, their accent, or even the color of their hair and eyes marks them as threats.

The book contrasts the families' lives before and after 9/11 in striking detail (Nguyen, 2005). Before the attacks, most of these families held steady jobs, were saving money, and planned to bring additional relatives to America — a country they respected and were proud to call home. After 9/11, everything changed. They were forced to live in fear not only of retaliation on the street but also of the very government under whose protection they had sought refuge (Nguyen, 2005). In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the federal government rounded up more than 1,000 Middle Eastern men and held them without access to attorneys, without formal charges, and without any explanation of why they were detained or how long they would remain so. Many were subjected to deportation proceedings. Ultimately, not one of those detained was found to have any connection to terrorism.

Nguyen argues that the American government treated detainees as less than human, and that serious harm was done to people during those experiences. She further implies that this kind of treatment — branding innocent people as enemies — is precisely how you create the very thing you fear. She stops short of predicting that those treated this way will become terrorists, but the suggestion is clear: subjecting people to sustained hostility and injustice plants the seeds of the anti-American sentiment the nation claims to be combating.

Labeling Theory and Its Real-World Consequences

One of the most important cautions for any society is the power of labeling and its long-term effects on those who are labeled. According to experts in the social sciences, people who are labeled are treated differently — and people who are consistently treated differently eventually become what they were labeled as in the first place. This dynamic is at the heart of labeling theory, a foundational concept in sociology and criminology.

Consider the example of juvenile delinquency. If a young person is caught shoplifting on a dare, many experts view it as part of adolescent development — an act of risk-taking as the individual figures out who he is. But if shopkeepers, judges, and authority figures choose to label that young person as a delinquent or a bad person, and if the community begins treating him accordingly, something predictable happens: he starts to believe that label defines him, and he begins acting in ways consistent with it.

This effect is illustrated powerfully in a well-known study described in the sixth edition of Criminology by Adler, Mueller, and Laufer. Eight mentally healthy individuals were coached on how to simulate symptoms sufficient to gain admission to a psychiatric institution as schizophrenics. Once admitted, they reverted immediately to normal, healthy behavior. Yet the staff — convinced these patients were schizophrenic — began interpreting their ordinary actions as symptoms of mental illness. A patient seen writing in a notebook, for instance, was recorded as an "obsessive note-taker." Normal behavior was reframed through the lens of the label already applied.

This study offers a compelling model for understanding what happened to Middle Eastern immigrants after 9/11. The same behaviors that had been entirely unremarkable before the attacks — walking late at night, attending mosque, speaking Arabic — suddenly became evidence of suspicious intent, not because the behaviors had changed, but because the label had.

References

Nguyen, T. (2005). We are all suspects now: Untold stories from immigrant America after 9/11. Beacon Press.

Adler, F., Mueller, G. O. W., & Laufer, W. S. (2006). Criminology (6th ed.). McGraw-Hill.