The Other Side of Immigration

               I actually enjoyed “The Other Side of Immigration”. I thought it would be like any other documentary, with facts overwhelmingly thrown out at the audience. However, this movie was structured in a way that made it very easy to understand. I like how the stories are told from the primary source because I was able to comprehend the situation from the perspectives of the immigrants. In addition, I also thought it was a great idea to show scenes of the actual towns in Mexico. The clips of an old town and poor children playing in the dirt definitely reached out to the audience. What I learned from watching this movie is that as difficult as it is to cross the border without getting caught, the walk from Mexico to America is even tougher. Immigrants have to pay large amounts of money to smugglers to show them the way to America, and surviving through the trip across the desert is not always guaranteed.But because of the corrupt government in Mexico and the high poverty rate, many are willing to risk it all. This movie made me understand why so many Mexicans are willing to risk their lives and spend large amount of money to walk through a dangerous desert, illegally cross the border, and live a difficult life in hiding. 

Oral History Project

                  I thought the oral history project was a very fun and informative activity. First off, it gave me a chance to speak with my uncle and learn more about him. I've never gotten a chance to actually sit down and listen to the challenges he had encountered. I was surprised with the stories he told me because I never knew that this care-free and fun loving uncle had been through so much. Yet, he goes by life with such a bright smile and great confidence. Aside from learning more about my uncle, listening to the immigration stories of other people was also interesting. I was able to hear compare and contrast the experiences of these immigrants. I came to realize that even though two immigrants might come from the same country, their stories can actually be far from similar. Each of the several experiences told in class had its own ups and downs, which makes the entire topic of immigration so much more intriguing. 

Response to "Turkified" Article

            I thought the essay on racism by Ozlem Gezer was very interesting to read. It made me realize that what this Turkish girl is going through is nothing new in this world. I am sure that individuals of different ethnicities have experienced this racism at one time in their life when their race is a minority in a particular area. Growing up in California, I did go through the whole questioning phase during which I was continuously bombarded with inquiries relating to my ethnicity. I have been asked how Vietnam is like, how the people are, and have heard some stereotypical assumptions towards my culture. However, I think that California is more accepting to different cultures because it is a very diverse state. A city in California usually consists of a wide variety of ethnic groups, thus contributing to people’s willingness to be open-minded and respectful to others. I don’t think I have ever been offended when people ask me about my culture or feel out of place just because people I meet on the street are of different race. In my opinion, the article is very well-written because the author is revealing some truth behind why she can never be a “proper German” while approaching it with a light-hearted and humorous sense.

Blog

            For the past week and a half, we have been listening to the stories of people’s immigration process and their history for the Ancestry Project. I find it very interesting because there were so many different stories and experiences. Also, many people were able to learn new things from their family members by searching through Ancestry.com and analyzing the data. Although the person I researched on was not that interesting, I was able to learn how complicated it is to find data on individuals and try to make sense from various forms of documentations. Looking through the data on the website was very time consuming because there were so many people with the same name and similar information. I had to actually read through all the documents and calculate the dates to see if they matched up. As if that wasn’t hard enough, the handwriting on the censuses were extremely illegible, which made the whole process even worse! What I did enjoy from this project, however, was hearing the unique stories of some of the immigrants and compare their processes with what was described in Roger Daniels’ book.

Chapter 14

                    I found that reading about Asian Immigrants was a bit more interesting since it is something I can relate to. Although I am a first generation, I do not remember much from my immigration process because I came here at a very young age. I remember being on an airplane that took me halfway around the world, and how uncomfortable my first plane ride had been. According to my dad, there wasn’t much complication with the immigration documents and everything went as planned. Since I was only four years old at the time, I didn’t understand what was going on. I did not even know what America was, let alone where it was. Most of the information in this chapter describes the push and pull factors for immigrants in the earlier times. However, because I came in a later time, my push and pull factors were completely different than what was mentioned in the text. However, I do have a few family members who immigrated to the U.S. during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Their reasons for immigrating and the situation they were in were similar to what was described in the book. Being able to make these connections and comparisons made the chapter more fascinating to read.

Chapter 12

            Prior to reading chapter 12, I had absolutely no idea what the repatriation program was. I found that the whole process was very interesting and question whether or not it was really voluntary. Since the U.S. was struggling with the Great Depression, it did seem logical that the government was trying to move people out. Also, it was likely that some Mexican Americans, with or without citizenship, did choose to cross the border because of the lack of job openings. But there’s a part of me that doubts the government’s definition of “voluntary;” it wouldn’t surprise me if they pulled a few strings to force some Mexican Americans towards the south, across the border.

What I also noted was the different ethnic groups that immigrated to America throughout history. There was never a specific group that I felt most sympathy towards because every group had their own stories of hardships. The Chinese, Irish, Mexicans, etc. all had their fair share at working in occupations that were dangerous with low pay. It just shows that all immigrants had to pass through a time of discrimination and suffering before they could gradually be accepted in society.

Blog #5 

            What I thought was interesting from reading Chapter 9 was the distinguishable difference between the lives of Chinese immigrants and Japanese immigrants. Chinese immigrants were rejected immediately and were considered to be aliens who did not have the right to naturalization. The Exclusion Act made the Chinese community stationary since there was a high number of older males and an extreme low number of females. The Japanese, although they did experienced discrimination, had a more fortunate experience than the Chinese. According the the book, this is highly due to Japan’s powerful military, which was noted by Roosevelt. So instead of an Exclusion Act, the Gentlemen’s Agreement still allowed certain relatives of the laborers who had already been in America to immigrate as well. In addition, several Japanese were more successful in their agriculture business and actually became financially stable.

            What was also surprising was the slow pace of assimilation of the French Canadians. I thought that French Canadian immigrants were more likely to be accepted by society because they were more “white” than Asians. However, most of them practiced constant cultural reinforcement and many also returned to their homeland freely, thus enabling them to hold on to their culture. Their strong ability to maintain their language and customs made the process of acculturation slower than other groups.

Blog #4

            Chapter seven was quite an interesting chapter to read. What immediately took my interest were the development of steam-powered transportation and the upgrade of the immigration process. From the earlier readings, I have grasped the idea that immigrating to another country was very difficult and costly. As if gathering enough money for the whole family to make the trip wasn’t hard enough, one also had to consider the dilemma of actually finding a ship that would be making the trip to America, as well as the long duration of the journey. But by the end of the 19^th  century, new technological developments made it more efficient to travel and even shortened the time to a few days. It was also very clever of the European passenger companies to create the shipping lines, which allowed immigrant passengers to live in dormitory enclave, where they were housed, fed, and medically examined. These companies were able to make a profit while reducing the amount of diseases that would accompany these passengers on board. In addition, what was most helpful to these immigrants was the decrease in ticket prices, which made traveling less financially challenging.

            I also enjoyed reading about the development of the motion picture industry. I never knew that the Greeks were the first entrepreneurs that came up with such a brilliant idea!  Since going to the movies is one of my favorite things to do, I was very intrigued upon reading about its origin.

Blog #3

From this week’s reading, I have concluded that African Americans were not the only ones that suffered the cruel fate of discrimination. Although African Americans were forced into slavery and had to endure a lot of horrifying treatments, the group of Irish immigrants did not go through the process without any scars either. What was heartbreaking was the passage about the famine years in Ireland and how many of those people had to eat only potatoes. As an individual growing in this century, I cannot imagine what it would be like to worry about whether or not I would have anything to eat the next day.  Some Americans in the South actually prefer risking the lives of Irish by employing them in high mortality jobs than to “risk the loss of valuable Negro slaves” (Daniels, 137). I also found it sad that the women found the occupation of being a servant was actually better than working conditions back in Ireland, when they were only getting paid about $1 to $2 a week. It makes me question how bad the conditions in Ireland must have been and what a day in the life of an Irish immigrant was like. It also raises the question of why did "Americans" have so much hate for these immigrants when their ancestors immigrated to this new land as well?

Blog #2

To be honest, chapter 4 was a bit difficult for me to get through, although chapter 5 was alright. There was so much information on every single page that I turned to. What was surprising to me, however, was the diversity of cultures that developed in America. Everyone wanted to be a part of America and several groups of people migrated, some benefitting from new gains more than others. It was clever of the author to break down the chapters into smaller sections, with each being dedicated to a particular ethnicity. But overall, I found myself having to reread a few sections multiple times in order to differentiate one ethnic group from another.

            The piece of information on who were the people who founded the first successful European colony in America was new to me. I have always thought of Jamestown as the first settlement. It was definitely  eye-opening info to read that the Spanish explorers were actually the first Europeans that navigated across the United States. I’m not sure if I have been taught this before or it might’ve somehow slipped my mind.

            Something else that surprised me was reading the paragraph that claimed Benjamin Franklin to be racist. He was one of “Pennsylvania’s non-German majority” (Daniels, 109). Apparently, one of the reasons for his dislike of the Germans was because they had upset him by supporting his enemies in several elections. It’s hard to believe that such a memorable figure in history was associated with racism! All his ambitious works and brilliant inventions were all spoken of in elementary and middle school, yet the negative side of this man was rarely unveiled. It just makes me realize that humans are humans after all, and that written history can sometimes be quite biased.

Blog #1

One of the most interesting topics of history for me has to be the story of immigration. It is amazing how the human mind and its determination can lead to discoveries of new land and the establishment of rules and society in order to thrive on this land. It is very intriguing to read about the origin of the New World and the sufferings that people went through in order to get to where we are today. What stood out to me most was the number of deaths that appeared. I felt like the early settlers were similar to lab rats. They were persuaded by propagandas to immigrate and to try to make a home. However, many things went wrong. For instance, people who resided in Jamestown, Virginia suffered from disease and as many as two-thirds of the 108 colonists died. Winters brought many hardships and led to starvation, resulting in the death of about eighty percent of the immigrants that were left. Surprisingly, this data is small compared to some of the more terrifying numbers of death that happened throughout history. It was upsetting to come across this topic, and what angered me most were the propagandas that were created to raise the hopes and dreams of the people whose only goal was to seek new opportunity for a better economy and life.

            Another thing that shocked me was the indentured servants. From my perspective, these people (aside from those who were forced) were crazy to risk their lives and agreed to work for someone they do not know just for a passage to America!  There were a few fortunate individuals who got land by the end of their terms and were actually able to make a decent living. However, many were mistreated and had to result to escaping. Many of the owners would put up ads in newspaper in search of these missing servants. It seemed very dehumanizing to me because these ads reminded me of the missing pets or objects that people put up in today’s society. 

            While I was reading about New England’s immigrants, what amused me was the list of what immigrants should bring with them on their journey. I imagined it to be like one of the instruction manuals or books that we can find in the library today that will probably be titled How to Immigrate for Dummies. But I have to agree that this method is quite helpful for first-time travelers or families who have no idea what to bring for them and their children. What I learned from this was that one trip to America was definitely expensive. I always thought that the poor would make up most of the passengers on these trips. The truth is that an individual had to be somewhat well-off in order or pay for his own passage and manage all the food and other items that were needed to immigrate.