There are a lot of misconceptions that are corrected in these readings. For example, I mistakenly believed that illegal immigrants were overrunning our country; mainly because that is the idea that I got from the social media outlets. However, in the first chapter of From Ellis Island to JFK by Nancy Foner, it corrects this highly regarded misconception. In reality, there are not as many illegal immigrants as the media would have you presume.
Not only did I mistakenly believe that there were many illegal immigrants everyone. But I pigheadedly presumed that they were not educated. According to the chapter, immigrants got the reputation of being poor, and uneducated from the last surge of immigrants, the poor Irish, the poor Italians, and some poor Jews (though a few Jews were educated). Now, however, the misconception still stands while the truth has changed. Now many of the immigrants that come from Brazil, or Jamaica or China or India have college degrees, even Masters. What brings them to America is that in their respective countries, they have no jobs available. They are usually forced to have lower jobs than expected with such a high education. I had always wondered why illegal immigration was a problem all of a sudden. Surely this had been a problem since the United States came into being? There are always people who skirt the law. What is so special about it now? Apparently, when we had Ellis Island, it was not as big of a problem. Most of the immigrants came by boat directly to the Ellis Island where the contagious and unwanted were weeded out; and the healthy, determined were allowed entrance. Now, Ellis Island is a fond memory and people are more likely to arrive in JFK “with designer jeans.” But the biggest problem is that people come with work visas, and simply do not go home when they are expired. Another common misconception (again, one that I had as well) was that these were easily acquired. The truth is that people have to wait for years, and pay a lot of money to get these visas. They came here in search of a better life, and when their time was up, they did not want to go back.
