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Abstract

This article looks at the coverage US broadcaster Univision provided about the Arizona law, a measure criminalizing undocumented immigrants. Content analysis of Noticiero Univision’s reports on the subject reveals the presence of diasporic public spheres, a notion that is regularly deployed in reference to media from the homeland of transnational communities, but which has rarely been explored at the empirical level in host‐land contexts. This contribution suggests that while the paradigm of cultural assimilation could be adequate to describe the role Univision takes on in synthesizing the Latin American‐origin community as part of a national ethnic minority, an account of Hispanics as a ‘diaspora of diasporas’ productively focuses on the diverse nature of the community in question, and on the national and transnational dynamics that shape contemporary experiences of human displacement.

Keywords: diasporas, diasporic public spheres, ethnic minorities, transnational audiences, Spanish‐language television, post‐national formations