Week 9 -- Rethinking Immigration -- Sarah Arriola

Growing up, my only real experience with immigration was listening to the adults in my town complaining about the immigrants that were coming over and stealing their jobs. My hometown obviously wasn't alone in this thinking. As it says in Children of Immigration, "A 1993 New York Times survey indicated that nearly 50 percent of all respondents believed that new immigrants are 'taking jobs from citizens'" (Suarez-Orozco x2 p. 37). At the time, I didn't know any differently, but now I realize that what so many people believe doesn't seem to be true. 

People claim that immigrants, usually referring to those who they believe to be illegal, are taking all of their jobs. This issue with this claim is that most of the jobs that immigrants are doing are the ones that many Americans, especially the ones that I would hear complaining, would never dream of doing.

View from the top of Monk's Mound in Collinsville, IL, a predominantly Hispanic town where many people are probably presumed to be immigrants.

Another issue with the people complaining about immigrants is that they seem to believe that all people who are of a different race, lately Hispanics in particular, are illegal immigrants. Many Americans fail to realize that just because someone is of  a different race, doesn't mean they didn't come to be in this country completely legally. This thinking is so backward to me, and something said in Children of Immigration explains why: "The United States was founded on the travails of immigrants" (Suarez-Orozco x2 p.36). Had it not been for immigrants, many who traveled to the U.S. illegally, this country would not be what it is today.

There are some people who are more accepting of immigrants...sort of. They see immigrants as people with potential, as long as they work hard and become true Americans, separating themselves from their old cultures and old lives. Suarez-Orozco x2 said it well: "They require...that immigrants become just like us. True differences must be erased, and cultural diversity must only be celebrated in superficial, 'folkloristic' forms" (Suarez-Orozco x2 p.37). So, although they aren't as negative about immigrants as the people I mentioned earlier, the way they act isn't really the right way to handle immigration issues either. There needs to be a third option.

My high school band in front of the Capitol building in D.C.

Instead of people either despising immigrants or demanding that they change who they are, they need to be more accepting of immigrants and realize that those immigrants, if given the opportunity, can make this county better than it has ever been. This idea needs to start with the people and spread all the way to Washington, D.C. where a stop can be put to all the anti-immigration laws and instead, new laws can be written that will help immigrants be treated more fairly when they come to the United States.