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Essay about the great immigration debate
Essay about the great immigration debate
Essay about the great immigration debate
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Humans rarely change their ways; they stay in their own worlds and always interact with the same types of people. Unfortunately, this habit often creates unseen barriers that divide and alienate human beings from one another. In Luis Alberto Urrea’s book The Devil’s Highway, Urrea provides a personal perspective to immigration by telling the story of 26 illegal immigrants, known as the Wellton 26, who are abandoned as they cross the Mexico-U.S. border. Through their story, Urrea proves there are invisible borders among people that create prejudice, such as language, ethnicity, and economic status. By reading The Devil’s Highway, it is clear that these barriers must be broken down to ensure harmony within society.
In the essay on realclearpolitics.com titled Our Brave New World of Immigration, The author Victor Davis Hanson addresses the issue of illegal immigration. Hanson argues that immigration is without a set pattern and that today compared to migration in the 19th century is different because people can enter the country illegally. Illegal immigration is transgression of Federal Immigration law and costly to the American government also it is leading to an exponential growth in an already densely populated United States. Hanson points out that there is no forethought of whether people enter legally nor if they learn to speak English. The author also mentions that there is an endless number of illegal immigrants that have not assimilated.
Cohen’s fourth thesis talks about the differences among groups of people in areas of race, gender, etc. and how those differences can create monsters in society. Unauthorized immigrants often get placed into a “different” or “unwanted” group and that causes them to face unfairness in society. “How Immigrants Become ‘Other’” correlates to Cohen’s thesis because unauthorized immigrants can be made into monsters due to differences in race and legal status. The group of unauthorized immigrants can become alienated in society, and the people themselves are sometimes referred to as “illegal aliens.”
While it is true that immigrants provoke strong feelings good or bad in the people native the country they have immigrated to,
Immigration is deeply rooted in the American culture, yet it is still an issue that has the country divided. Marcelo and Carola Suarez-Orozco, in their essay, “How Immigrants Became ‘Other’” explore the topic of immigration. They argue that Americans view many immigrants as criminals entering America with the hopes of stealing jobs and taking over, but that this viewpoint is not true. They claim that immigrants give up a lot to even have a chance to come into America and will take whatever they can get when they come. The Suarez-Orozco’s support their argument using authority figures to gain credibility as well as exemplification through immigrant stories.
In, “Not Just (Any) Body Can Be a Citizen”, author M. Jacqui Alexander explores, examines and expounds on the socio-political forces and machinations which have influenced the legislation in Trinidad and Tobago and The Bahamas, regarding specific sexual identities and manifestations. Primarily using the laws of both countries pertaining to sexual offenses, she discusses how homosexuality and other non-reproductive sexual acts and lifestyles have been outlawed in both nations. In her argument, she outlines how persons of such alternative lifestyles (including herself) have been carefully constructed as deviant, immoral and ultimately destructive to the moral and social fiber of the country. They are counterproductive to the state-imagined heteronormative, civilized state and, as such, must be criminalized and prohibited from enacting such “unnatural” behavior within the general society. More specifically, however,
immigration-today-3/ Immigration can be viewed as something that has forever blessed or plagued this country. Perspective plays a big role in the discussion of illegal immigrants that enter America daily. With American society becoming more and more prejudice in each decade since Martin Luther King had his “I Have a Dream” speech Blacks are not the only ones on the discrimination list. This problem has since began to come to a head under President Trump and his term. Unbeknownst to many who support the deportation of illegal immigrants wholeheartedly, immigrants add to the society just as much as people fear they’ve been taking.
“Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists” (Franklin D. Roosevelt). In The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle, Delaney and other characters of the book introduce the racism of most communities by bringing up the topics of coyotes, borders, physically and mentally, and illegal Mexican immigrants. Each topic ties one another together. To most, there shows a problem with the immigrants coming to America, just because they didn’t come legally. T.C. Boyle showed the reaction of people to new people coming to America to try and live the American dream that we are all supposed to be allowed to do.
With the current election raging, illegal immigration has been the hot topic amongst both liberals and conservatives. Many conservatives believe that illegals steal jobs, abuse tax benefits, and, most importantly, threaten their way of life. Liberals, on the other hand, support immigration reform based purely on sympathy. They understand that many Latin Americans go through extreme measures to escape hopeless situations back home. While there’s nothing wrong with sympathy for our fellow humans, it may serve to be beneficial to look at immigration reform through the lens of reason.
Walker’s essay shows the dehumanization and abuse that black women have endured for years. She talks about how their creativity was stifled due to slavery. She also tells how black women were treated more like objects than human beings. They entered loveless marriages and became prostitutes because of the injustice upon them. Walker uses her mother’s garden to express freedom, not only for her but for all the black women who had been wronged.
In “The Dark Side of Human Rights,” Onora O'Neill holds that rights to goods and services require that the good or service is guaranteed, which entails that someone is responsible to supply them. For example, with rights to food and health care the accountable individuals are “the farmer and the physician” (O'Neill 427). These rights contrast liberty rights, which are negative and include rights preventing physical harm and interference. Liberty rights demand that first-order obligations (to respect them) be universal, and second-order obligations (to guarantee they are respected) be particular (428). Until the obligations associated with rights to goods and services are clarified, the question remains: “what is required of the farmer, the physician and others who actually have to provide food and health care?”
For example this quote “Mexican Americans or Afro- Americans were considered dangerous radicals while law- abiding citizens to drop their cultural baggage at the border.” explains that when natives they drop all their ethics and traits to fit in. Image is everything early on, but not fitting into the community again is hard. The author also writes to persuade readers that that she is a true Latina, because she tries to take spanish lessons. Mexican Americans are also seen as people with little education and poor.
“The American story is a story of immigration. I would be the last person who would say immigrants are not important to America.” — Phil Graham, circa 1960. This quote may be from the mid-20th century, but it keeps its significance with the everlasting controversy on immigration and immigration laws. However, this is not the only time that the United States has experienced immigration controversies.
Undocumented immigrants live with fear of deportation every day of their lives. Those with control of state institutions who do not consider undocumented immigrants as worthy American residents in our society, take advantage of their power by instilling fear of deportation. The restrictive federal and state laws towards migration in the U.S. has become a way to keep undocumented immigrants and their families living in the shadows. Arrocha (2013) claims that the paradox of the U.S. migration seems be that our free democratic republicanism is viewed as the land of freedom, equality, and justice. Yet, these undocumented immigrants aren’t treated equally or given the freedom to live in our society without intimidation.
“The Immigrant contribution” and “The Quilt of a Country” are two essays that share a similar focus, however, they cover two drastically different sides of the topic. Both of them share the main idea that America is a country made up almost entirely of immigrants. Kennedy’s essay, “The immigrant Contribution”, focuses on how immigrants have affected our country, whereas Quindlen’s essay discusses how people of many different cultures coexist and work together. The essays both concentrate on immigration in America and how immigration has shaped and molded our culture. The two authors describe the many different aspects of immigration in immensely different ways.
