Pedro Meerbaum
September
"In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating, they're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country, and it's a shame."
Former American President Donald Trump uttered these words during the 2024 presidential debate on Sept. 10 2024. In this jarring comment, the Republican candidate referred to a recent viral claim that illegal immigrants from Haiti who had settled in a small city in Ohio had eaten domestic pets. The assertions originally stated that the Haitians were slaughtering ducks and geese, and the discourse online "reports" that the city is a locus for the settling of illegal immigrants. The reports mainly originate from social media platforms, such as Reddit and Facebook groups, and were confirmed as not credible by BBC Verify.
Trump's comment was followed by immediate laughter from the Democratic candidate and current Vice President, Kamala Harris. It was clear to Harris—and the viewers—that Trump's remark was preposterous. Most of the former president's campaign, both recently and in his other electoral years, has surrounded the topic of immigration to the U.S. His coining of the term "Illegal Aliens" is consonant to his aggressive approach to migration and border control. He is particular in his use and emphasis of language; he differentiates the people that came in from the people that live there. Trump actively constructs a narrative of “othering,” one where the "American" people are endangered by the "alien" and "undesired" foreigners.
While viewers might think Trump has exhausted the myriad anti-immigration rhetoric, his comment at the most recent debate appeared to be a particularly bizarre innovation. The idea of immigrants eating residents' pet animals encapsulates both the image of invasion of property and barbarity. But this myth of foreigners feeding off domestic or protected animals is not new, and it has long been used to fuel xenophobic feelings.
20 years ago, Nick Medic, a Serbian ex-patriate and journalist, published an investigation into a dubious article from the British tabloid newspaper The Sun: "Swan Bake - Asylum Seekers Steal the Queen's Birds for Barbecues." The Sun’s article consisted of an exposé of East European asylum seekers poaching, stealing, and eating protected royal birds. It went on to assert that "To these people [Eastern Europeans], they [protected royal birds] are a perfectly acceptable delicacy."
As one of "these people," an Eastern European former asylum seeker, Medic reminded his audience in the Telegraph that Swans and Geese are not a part of their cultural diet, nor is it considered a "perfectly acceptable delicacy." It does not come as a surprise that 20 years later, the streets of Britain would be occupied by far-right protesters who scream their hatred towards the "barbaric" immigrants. The anti-immigration feeling has dated roots that fed under this precise rhetoric of barbarity and invasion present in sensational faulty stories.
But this issue did not begin 20 years ago. In 1904, soon after the US victory in the Philippine-American war, a "world fair" was hosted in St. Louis, Missouri, "exposing" different cultures and customs of the public, carnival-style. The main attraction of the circus-like event was a replica of a village with "authentic" Igorot people, an indigenous Filipino group. The Igorot people were instructed to grill and feed off dogs to an international audience during the fair. The exhibition aimed to celebrate the "civilizing" effect the U.S. would have in the Philippines post-victory. 120 years later, the dog-eating stereotype is still the most ubiquitous form of anti-Asian discrimination in the U.S.
The East Asian dog-eating discourse took on a new shape during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the outbreak's initial locus in Wuhan, China and its association with the consumption of bats in local markets. According to the Pew Research Center, "about one-third of U.S. Asians know another Asian person who's been threatened or attacked since COVID-19." Additionally, federal-recognized hate crime incidents of anti-Asian bias increased by 372.15 percent from 2019 to 2021. It was former president Donald Trump himself who coined the term "Chinese Virus" to refer to COVID-19, fostering a hostile environment amidst the global crisis.
Trump's language use during the COVID-19 pandemic is a prelude to his comment during the debate. The attempts to antagonize immigrants as "the people that came in" and position them against "the people that live there" is a dangerous narrative. History is stained by moments where groups of people who were labeled as “others” and dehumanized fell victim to unprecedented violence. The narrative that "pets are being eaten" is an indiscrete and dissonant effort to, through significant international broadcasting, degrade and generalize a group of individuals who are already at a high level of vulnerability. None of the Haitians were illegal immigrants or savages, and the pets were safe and sound. The truth is barbarity is not found in Ohio. Instead, it knocks on the doors of the White House and asks to reinstall itself again.