Similarities Between Pilgrims And Modern Day Middle Eastern Refugees

The “Refugee Crisis” going on in Middle Eastern countries like Syria, and Afghanistan is not a new issue. This Refugee issue has been going on for several years now, with the earliest accounts of fleeing en masse from Syria starting in April of 2011. I think there are many similarities between the pilgrims and other immigrant groups of early American history, and the modern day Middle Eastern refugees. The similarities are not just in the chain of events they followed, but in the interactions between the various groups they experianced.
By definition, a Pilgrim is a person who goes on a long journey often with a religious or moral purpose, and especially to a foreign land (Dictionary.com). Similarly, a refugee is a person who has been forced

A big similarity I see between the Pilgrims and Middle Eastern refugees is in looking at the basic chain of events that occurred. In the beginning of the Pilgrims journey many tried to go to Holland first, america was not the first destination. Similarly the Middle Eastern refugees dispersed to Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey or if they were lucky to European countries. However, many refugees aren't being accepted in society there. This results in many refugees goal, to end up in America, since it is and always has been (since people have know about it) the land of opportunity. America is a mixing pot, a group of multi-racial, ethnic, and cultural people living together. Life for the pilgrims was not easy in the Netherlands was not easy. “The Separatists had to leave their homeland and friends to live in a foreign country without a clear idea of how they would support themselves .Their lives required hard work. Even young children had to work. Some older children were tempted by the Dutch culture and left their families to become soldiers and sailors. Their parents feared that they would lose their identity as English people. To make matters worse, the congregation worried that another war might break out between the Dutch and Spanish. They decided

In many places at least early on, the meeting of Europeans and Native Americans was peaceful. In others, they were far from it, constantly skirmishing and having issues. The different cultures clashed, leading to violence. An unforeseen circumstance from the influx diseases brought by the new settlers from overseas resulted in whole tribes being decimated. Diseases as smallpox, measles, and the plague were brutal. This gave the Native Americans a less than stellar view of the europeans. Now put the modern americans in the place of the Native Americans. similarly to the Native American-European interactions some refugees and countries they go to were initially welcomed by the native populations. Just like the the native Americans experienced but the unforeseen circumstances so do the hosting countries, in this case decimation is because of extremist attacks harming the innocent civilian populations of the countries. Most of this trouble does not occur on our soil but because we see in the media it influences us. It's probably safe to say that 9/11 still affects the view of muslim people to some americans. It is no secret there is a stereotype and a tarnished image of the muslim culture because of such