Construction of the “Immigrant Hero” as a Way of Belonging
“Some see in the myth a positive visibility in the dissemination of acts of overcoming that would end stigmas. But for others, it has another side: the individualization of the social, necessary for the functioning and reproduction of the capitalist system.”
By Denise Cogo and Rodrigo Borges Delfim (Lationamerica21)
HAVANA TIMES – In June 2022, the collapse of a building in the town of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, in the province of Barcelona, resulted in one death, seven injuries, and two others buried. Two young immigrants of Moroccan origin, who lived in an adjacent building, helped rescue the two buried individuals. Spanish media began referring to one of the immigrants, Abdeslam Amamir, as the immigrant hero.
In May 2018, Malian immigrant Mamadou Gassam, 22 years old, climbed a building in Paris to save a child hanging from the fourth floor. The spontaneous act of the “Spider-Man,” as he came to be called by the media, mobilized the French public opinion. After the episode, Mamadou, an undocumented immigrant, received French nationality in September 2018 from President Emmanuel Macron, along with a job in the French Fire Department.
On November 23, 2023, Brazilian Caio Benício, 43 years old, a former bar owner in Niterói working as a delivery driver in Dublin (Ireland), used his own helmet against a man committing a knife attack at a school in the Irish capital, saving a five-year-old child and a teacher. The tragedy left five wounded, including three children. The episode prompted an online fundraising initiative by the Irish, gathering the equivalent of 2 million reais to give to the Brazilian immigrant. Caio Benício was also received by the Irish Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar, and honored with a medal for his act of bravery. In an interview with the media, Caio Benício said he didn’t consider himself a hero and would donate the raised money to pay for the treatment of the saved girl.
In 2015, the #MigrantHeroes campaign, launched by the International Organization for Migration, invited people worldwide to identify and tell the stories of individuals who risked their lives to seek a better life in another country. The campaign aimed to counteract the rise of xenophobia and negative images of immigration, reinforcing the myth of the immigrant hero, which has become recurrent in media coverage of notable acts of courage by foreigners in various countries.
Different Heroes
In Brazil, the myth of the immigrant hero focuses on past European migrations, especially Italians and Germans in southern Brazil in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These immigrants are remembered as the “disadvantaged who, with the sweat of their labor, made a fortune in Brazil,” according to historian Carla Menegat, erasing the cooperation processes and previous experiences of these immigrants, who often arrived in Brazil with support networks and repeated the practices of their home countries. The myth also suggests that some people are more deserving of success than others, such as enslaved blacks or non-European immigrant groups who settled in Brazil.
Visibility and Belonging
Researchers and activists approach the myth of the immigrant hero. Some see positive visibility in the disclosure of acts of valor or overcoming, which would end stigmas and stereotypes linked to immigration. This visibility also contributes to removing immigrants from the vulnerable or victim position they often occupy in the social imaginary. However, this visibility has another side, the individualization of the social, necessary for the functioning and reproduction of the capitalist system.
The mobilization of smpathy and emotions driven by neoliberal capitalism and the visibility regime imposed by digital platforms deepen these processes of subjectivation based increasingly on “self-management” (of health, work, leisure, etc.). As a consequence, immigrants are also forced to make their experiences public to negotiate a sense of belonging in the destination society.
According to Sofia Zanforlin and Julia Lyra, these negotiations are based on performance, “where personal history can be configured as a way to mobilize sympathy, gain attention on social networks, and shape one’s own belonging to the country, through being a good worker, entrepreneur, not a burden to the state.”
“His words made me feel that I belong to this society, and I no longer feel invisible,” wrote Brazilian Caio Benício in an open letter of thanks to Irish society. An invisibility that was interrupted by the public recognition that the heroic act received in the media. According to reports, the immigrant’s heroic act also contributed to weakening a series of xenophobic demonstrations that took place in the streets of Dublin against the presence of foreigners in Ireland after the episode.
The deterioration of the public arena as a mobilization space for immigrant rights and the state as an actor in the formulation and management of migration policies have contributed to reinforcing the figure of the immigrant hero as an individual capable of facing adversity and overcoming structural difficulties imposed by capitalism. It is worth questioning the impact of the consolidation of narratives about the immigrant hero on the overall dimension of migration struggles, materialized in experiences of solidarity and efforts for broader changes in citizenship and immigrant rights.