Macaulay Honors College Seminar 2, IDC 3001H
I am now posting a more detailed assignment sheet for the neighborhood visit and will email you each individually to tell you which neighborhood and immigrant group your team will investigate. Please read the assignment sheet carefully.
There is no additional reading assignment for Monday. We will continue discussing Foner, Chapter 2 and 3.
DR
On Monday Professor Rosenberg discussed certain controversial issues regarding how the immigrants were viewed by the natives in America, and one of these issues was the crime and drug brought over by them. I would like to say that while it may be true that the immigrants brought crime and drug with them to America upon their arrivals, the natives were also responsible for the spread of these iniquities. One example would be the Chinese immigrants’ arrival in the late 19th century. At the time the native-born Americans were blaming the Chinese for the increase in corruptions in the society, including the adoption of gambling and opium practices. However, the native-born Americans also indulged themselves in these corrupting activities. According to Rachel G. Shuen’s honor thesis “The Abomination of Mankind”: Anti-Chinese Sentiment and the Borders of Belonging in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Chinatown, the congregation of Chinese immigrants, was “painted as a place of vice: opium smoking and prostitutions; immorality; gambling and joss houses; and mystery”. Many native-born Americans, as it turned out, were “patrons of [these] operations of vice”. In short, it would be wrong to place the entire blame on the Chinese immigrants, as the native-born Americans were also “supporters” of these immoralities as well.
I think that the native-born Americans should not “judge a book by its cover”, and instead conduct a more profound analysis by looking at the surrounding social factors and conditions which played a role in the immigrants’ infamy. In this specific case, the native-born Americans, while criticizing the Chinese immigrants for the corruptions they had brought about, were also simultaneously endorsing these corruptions. Since these corruptions were brought over by the Chinese to their land, the native-born Americans would naturally frown upon the Chinese immigrants’ negative influence, and refuse to castigate the other native-born Americans for their indulgence in these corruptions. Thus, the prevailing “hypocrisy” played a larger role than the immoralities and corruptions in branding the immigrants as a negative influence in the American society.
Sources consulted: Shuen, Rachel G. “The Abomination of Mankind”: Anti-Chinese Sentiment and the Borders of Belonging in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Honors Thesis, Wellesley College, 2012. Web. 8 Mar. 2017
With President Trump’s recent pejorative comments against illegal immigrants and an executive order banning six countries (Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Iran) that have a Muslim majority population from entering the United States, it becomes increasingly transparent of the xenophobic characteristics of policy makers in Washington and their supporters. Often not, these comments and orders are backed up with fallacious comments that the Trump Administration advances as the truth.
In class on Wednesday, we discussed the New York Times article “Here’s the Reality About Illegal Immigrants in the United States.” The article was an interesting read that shed light on the actual facts based on real statistics and data about the current situation with illegal immigrants in America, and not the one purported by the Trump administration.
For example, the article elucidates that only 2.7% of all illegal immigrants have been convicted of a felony. In comparison, based on a Princeton University study, “about 8.6% of the adult population has a felony conviction.” Trump uses phrases such as “rapists” and “murderers” to describe illegal immigrants, but this is clearly not the situation. Furthermore, another interesting fact in the article explained the means of how most immigrants essentially became “illegal.” Rather than furtively crossing the Mexican-US border, most illegal immigrants are illegal due to just overstaying their visas.
The graph above shows that although crossing over the Mexican border may have been the largest cause of illegal immigration during the turn of the century, the most prevalent cause of illegal immigration today is overstaying one’s visa. I was personally most astonished by this fact because the Trump administration so vehemently asserts that a wall needs to be placed in the Mexico-US border to effectively stop illegal immigration. However, this graph shows that border security in the south has been improving and efforts should actually be placed in monitoring visa stays.
I think this article brings about many key points and it was great we got the chance to discuss its importance in class on Wednesday. Moving on, we should monitor more carefully what politicians and people with power say so that “alternative facts” are not accepted as the truth. I think social media sites such as Facebook allows for these “fake news” stories to be shared so frequently and then eventually be accepted as facts by the general population. Facebook has heard of these complaints and had created a new service which starts to flag fake news stories (http://wwlp.com/2017/03/10/facebook-taking-steps-to-stop-the-spread-of-fake-news/). Although this feature is too late because I think these fake news stories played a vital part in swinging the election, it will ultimately be very beneficial and eventually stop false facts from permeating social media.
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