Fig. 4.

Relative usage frequency for each of 14 frames in speeches mentioning Chinese vs. European immigrants in the late 19th/early 20th century (Left) and those mentioning Mexican vs. European immigrants in the 21st century (Right). Farther to the left on each plot represents greater usage in speeches mentioning European groups. Circle size represents the overall frequency of the frame in the relevant speeches relative to all speeches. Horizontal lines show the minimum and maximum values of the log ratio obtained when leaving out each term in the corresponding lexicon in turn. “Dehumanization” is an aggregation of the six metaphorical categories. There is a strong correlation between how Mexican immigrants are framed today and how Chinese immigrants were framed a century earlier, relative to European immigrants of the corresponding time period, in terms of both the explicit frames emphasized and a significantly higher usage of dehumanizing metaphors for mentions of the non-European groups.