The Great Pet-Eating Panic

Earlier this year, online stories began to circulate that Haitian immigrants in the small city of Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets. Before long, chat forums were rife with outrage over the "petnappings," and schools and government offices were forced to shut down after receiving bomb threats. While local law enforcement has dismissed the claims as fantasy, the story continues to circulate on social media. So where did these tales come from and why have they spread?

Stories of pet-eating migrants are urban legends that can be thought of as living folklore that involves improbable happenings that are repeated as true and embellished with retelling. Such stories serve a function in society because they have hidden meanings. The stories are nothing new. There have long been urban legends about American immigrants eating pets.

These scares don’t appear out of thin air but have a unique context. Over the past five years, there has been an influx of Haitian immigrants settling in Springfield, which has caused concern among long-time residents. The pet-eating story began with a Facebook post that quickly went viral. These stories often have a grain of truth. Yes, there are a lot of Haitian immigrants in Springfield, and this has created headaches for the community, but not because they are eating pets or breaking the law. They were attracted to the city by its availability of work and low living costs, but their presence has placed pressure on the city’s resources and created fears over who these people are.

In the 19^th century, West Coast Chinese immigrants were alleged to be eating cats and dogs, and this was used to justify discriminatory policies like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. It was also a way to dehumanize them as "the Other." After the Vietnam War, there were widespread rumors in America that Vietnamese immigrants were stealing dogs as a food source. There have long been stories across the U.S. that pets have mysteriously gone missing near Chinese restaurants. Urban legends about Haitian migrants eating dogs and cats became prominent in the 1990s and coincided with an influx of people migrating to America from Haiti. These stories spread organically, fueled by the fear of those who are different from us and concerns that they will change the fabric of American society.

The events in Springfield are part of a wider moral panic that is currently in full riot—about the dangers posed by migrants in America today and their demonization as "the evil Other." But we know from the statistics that most immigrants—legal and illegal—are law-abiding people, and they are not eating your neighbor’s cat!