When I was deliberating topics for my case study ethnography report I was inspired to examine some one very close to me who is "undocumented", someone whose experience I have seen first hand, some one who has affected my life and understanding of immigrants with his situation; my partner, Mario. This class has exposed us to many writings on the subjects of migration, immigration and emigration. I began to compare the concepts and information in the readings to Mario’s personal situation. I was curious if his answer would be "In search of a better life" when asked, "Why did you come here?"
By offering personal insights and experiences regarding his/our situation I would like to discuss issues directly related to the expected learning outcomes that the course Migration and Culture had put forth in the beginning of the semester, including: patterns, transnational events, understanding why people migrate and impacts on the host and home communities of the migrants.
I had crated a semi-formal interview with Mario and asked questions that might help me and others understand the issues and processes involved with being a migrant (the how and why people migrate). I wanted his point of view on why people decide to migrate. I wanted to know what he feels his fears, frustrations, rights and responsibilities are in his role as an undocumented, illegal person. I also wanted to add my specific concerns relating to having a partner of this status.
The how and why of Mario’s journey is probably not that different than other Mexicans who have made the journey north to the United States. He lived in Nayarit, a state in Mexico along the Pacific Ocean about 1,000 miles south of the border. He lived with his mother, father and eleven brother...
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...ven if we were going to the store or the doctors office. The fact that he is listed as my domestic partner with my health, dental and life insurance doesn’t change his legal status. Another big concern of mine is an issue involving insurance. My insurance company accepts him as my dependent and collects the premiums. If we needed to file a claim on his behalf the insurance company may retain the right to deny it if they claim the accident or illness occurred during the commission of a crime. Being in this county illegally is a crime.
Many issues relate to Mario’s status. I have just been exposed to a few. My exposure has made the concepts discussed in class more understandable. I understand the risks they take to be here and when I did ask Mario if the risks were worth it he said that the opportunity for a better life made it worth all of the risks and sacrifices.
In Enrique’s Journey Nazario showed a couple different perspectives on the same family in which the mother migrated from
It involved the analysis of data from 90,000 individual surveys conducted by the Mexican Migration Project to establish the presence of social effects, and the analysis of qualitative data from 120 in-depth interviews with migrants and their family members in Mexico to reveal the underlying mechanisms. Firstly, it confirmed the hypothesis that “having prior migrants in the household or community increases individuals’ likelihood of migrating net of economic and political context effects” (2013:19). Secondly, through its qualitative research, it found that tough immigration policies among other things, reduce communication channels between migrants in the United States and their families in Mexico. The flow on impact of this is a break down in the feedback loop on what is often, a hard life as a migrant in the United States. Within the context of increased restrictions on border crossings, Garip and Asad (2013) argue that restricting these communication channels simply acts to perpetuate the myth of a glamorous life in the United
Immigration has existed around the world for centuries, decades, and included hundreds of cultures. Tired of poverty, a lack of opportunities, unequal treatment, political corruption, and lacking any choice, many decided to emigrate from their country of birth to seek new opportunities and a new and better life in another country, to settle a future for their families, to work hard and earn a place in life. As the nation of the opportunities, land of the dreams, and because of its foundation of a better, more equal world for all, the United States of America has been a point of hope for many of those people. A lot of nationals around the world have ended their research for a place to call home in the United States of America. By analyzing primary sources and the secondary sources to back up the information, one could find out about what Chinese, Italians, Swedish, and Vietnamese immigrants have experienced in the United States in different time periods from 1865 to 1990.
“ Ironically I faced discrimination from other immigrants rather than Americans themselves”, stated Valentina Luma when she was been interviewed. This quote was the most relatable to my experience of being an immigrant to United States of America compares to hers. Valentina Luma was the age of nine when her and her family immigrated from Dominican Republic to the United States. Luma’s journey to the United States wasn’t arduous physically rather mentally where the process to get accepted took almost a decade, she admits to understand why some immigrants would rather come to America illegally than wait almost a decade to come. Some of the positive
When it comes to immigration many things comes to a person mind. There are many things that an immigrant faces when he/she decides to migrate to another country. For instance, for an immigrant moving is not an easy thing to do they will have to leave everything behind and start over again in a whole different country than their own native country. At first is going to be hard because they do not know anyone, they do not speak the language. The parents will have to look for a house and also look for a job to support their family and learn how to survive in what seems like a different world. These are some of the problems that immigrants face when coming to the United States.
Immigration from the Early 1990's still affects America today. The people who came to America from different countries brought their traditions, their families, and their culture. These three things stuck with them through thick and thin and are still thriving parts of what America is today. Many immigrants came with literally nothing in their pockets and had to work their way to success. The Immigrant Experience by Thomas Wheeler tells the story of nine different immigrants' trials and tribulations of coming and living in America. Each immigrant went through different experiences of becoming American but they also had their similarities. Four things that attributed to the assimilation of the immigrants are: language, money, religion, and ambition.
As an attempt to escape the possible tragic proceedings following cultural conflicts, Latin American immigrants seek refuge in America. Once in America, immigrants seek to gain new opportunities that can enable them to essentially achieve a better quality of life. Additionally, Henderson argues that immigrants from Latin America migrate to the United States for roughly the same reasons as other immigrants: “they might wish to join family members, have a lust for adventure, or need to escape something in their home country; but mostly they need jobs, which are scarce back home”
In conclusion, the lives of immigrants have had an all over transformation over the last century and will continue to change throughout the years. Through the hardships of being accepted into America and being invaded by personal means, immigrants are given a chance to succeed. Then to the family life of the immigrants, which tended to be split and torn, it built an inner strength in each individual immigrant. Lastly, to the living conditions and job opportunities that put the immigrants to the ultimate test, they were the make or break point for the better half of the new citizens. The transformation of immigration over the years has been incredible and should be widely recognized.
A. Economic success is not the only kind of success- for the purpose of this paper, prosperity is being isolated to economic success
Jose Antonio Vargas’s article on My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant is a writing about his childhood journey from the Philippines to the United States as an Undocumented Immigrant. Vargas writes this article to emphasize the topic of immigrant and undocumented immigrant in the United States. He uses all three appeals: pathos, ethos, and logic in his writing, in specific, he mostly uses pathos throughout of his entire article with a purpose for the reader to sympathize and to feel compassion for him. The use of these appeals attract many readers, they can feel and understand his purpose is to ask for others to join and support other people who undocumented immigrant like himself. In addition, it gives other undocumented immigrant people courage
Immigration is undoubtedly the root cause for our diverse population. There are factors that contribute to the act of immigration from one’s native country to a foreign country. Factors that contribute to this consist of obtaining a better life for one’s family and acquiring better living circumstances. My family’ immigration story is based on just that. My personal immigration story dates back to the mid 1900’s. A section of my family immigrated to this country as a result of the bracero program. The term bracero can be defined as manual laborer. Author Schaefer (2015) notes that more than 80,000 Mexican nationals were brought in as braceros to grow and harvest crops. My great-grandfather on my father’s side of the family took part in the
What is the vision of the “American Dream” Hispanic immigrants believe is waiting across the border? What kind of discrimination does the Hispanic public face in their daily lives in the U.S? What kinds of social mobility do Hispanics have in store after crossing the borders of the U.S? These questions define the lives of Hispanic immigrants. The importance of finding out how exactly these topics influence their lives however, is pertinent to finding the hardships and daily boundaries Hispanics face in their day-to-day routines in the United States.
Furthermore, Vargas faced many personal and career obstacles in his story. For example, at the age of 12 his mother sent him thousands of miles away to live with Vargas’s grandparents in America who were both naturalized citizens because she wanted to give him a better life. After Vargas arrived in San Francisco, he fell in love with the area and loved living with his grandparents. As years went by, Vargas, who was 16 at this time, went to the D.M.V. to get his driver’s permit, but fortunately the clerk working at the office told Vargas that his Green Card was fake and never to come back. After questioning his grandparents, Vargas finds out that he was smuggled into the United States of America and all his documents were fraudulent. In Vargas’s essay, “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant”, his story fiddles with the readers emotions and makes the reader ponder the issue of immigration in the United States of
The changing environments throughout the ages have caused the movement of thousands of families out of their homelands. Whether forced to make such decisions or doing so by their own desires, all immigrants have had to survive the physical and psychological challenges encountered along the way. To speak about the experiences of all these different people using the same ideas and examples would be quite inaccurate. They all, however, had to live through similar situations and deal with similar problems. Many of them succeeded and found the better future they were looking for. Many others found only hardship and experienced the destruction of their hopes and dreams. All of them were transformed.
When the class was first asked to think of a topic for our reflective paper, this scenario was one that I could vividly remember as if it had just occurred yesterday. After I read Jose Antonio Vargas’s “Life as an Undocumented Immigrant” and Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue”, I noticed a common theme across these two pieces that I could very much relate to. Jose Antonio Vargas’s mother reminded him to fit into the American way of living by saying “If anyone asked why I was coming to America, I should say I was