Rhetorical Analysis Of President Obama s Immigration
Speech
In this immigration speech, President Obama uses a series of rhetorical devices.
He mentions several times that there over 11 million undocumented immigrants in
the United States. This a form of repetition. Furthermore, he also uses anaphora.
When speaking about early immigrants and immigrants today he says they faced
hardship, they faced racism and they faced ridicule , He also repeats many other
words consequently in the same sentence of the speech and these include, I m here
because, now is the time to, strengthen our, it keeps our, we have to, and you ll
help us. Another literacy device that is employed in this speech is antithesis.
Examples of these include, holding us back instead of helping us grow , It s not
about the folks who come here illegally... it s about the folks who try to come here
legally , not how you grow new industries in America. That s how you give new
industries to our competitors and not just a debate about policy. It s about people and
it will not be a quick process but it will be a fair one (Skellon 1).
President Obama also uses tricolon. When he was speaking about what he done
regarding immigration reform and what he plans to do, he uses first, second and third
to list his order.
When speaking about the dreamers he says that these youth have grown up here,
built their lives here, have futures here. Also, when giving his story on Alan, he
says that he went to an American school, pledged allegiance to the American flag,
felt American in every way . Moreover, he also integrates anadiplosis into the
speech when he says that . He also uses hydrophora when he asks the question, Do
we have the resolve as a people, as a country, as a government to finally put this
issue behind us? He then proceeds with answering his own question. President
Obama also use an anecdote. He uses the story of Alan, a young immigrant from
Mexico, who faced adversity in his early years, but now is studying at the university
and living the American Dream. He is using human interest stories which is
techniques used by majority of the former Presidents. Last but not least, he also
employs the use of parallelism. Examples of these include the Irish who left behind a
land of famine. The Germans who fled