Immigration
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The greatest nations are defined by how they treat their weakest inhabitants. ~Jorge Ramos
Creating and Developing Awareness
Immigrants are people who come to live in a different country permanently. Typically people emigrate for one or more of the following reasons:
• Forced to move
• Better opportunities whether those be for more freedoms, economic or social
• Conflicts or to escape persecutions or prejudices
• To join family members
• Natural or man made disasters
• Freedom to practice faith
Immigrants are at the heart of the formation of many countries, including the United States. In the US, immigration started with peoples crossing the land bridge that connected Asia and North America thousands of years ago. Then the country saw the influx of people from Spain, France and other European countries in the 1500. Along with those peoples, people from Africa were involuntarily brought into the country.
People from northern and western Europe, which included the Irish and the Germans, begin arriving in the country in the early 1800’s. During the mid 1800’s, the country received an influx of people from Asia. During the later part of the 1800’s, people from central, eastern and southern Europe begin arriving.
From the 1900 to present day, the country became the destination for people from Central and South America, the Middle East, Asia, Caribbean, Africa as well as Europe.
However, as each set of new immigrants arrive in a country, new and sometimes old conflicts and misconceptions arrive with them. People are most weary of new immigrants who are different from them in religious practice, ethnicity and cultural practices. Immigrants are seen as a threat to a country’s well-being when it is going through an economic crisis or a politicians use it as a fear tactic to win elections.
Educate, Inform and Create Inspiration
What This Looks Like in Real Life (Stories and Case Studies)
Immigration issues are directing the outcome of many nations and thereby changing the very fabric of the countries.
In the United States, Donald Trump was able to win the White House by using immigration as one of his key platform issues. He promised to build a wall between the US and Mexican border to keep Central and South Americans from migrating to the US. He promised to keep Muslims out of the country and effectively associated that group of people with the terrorism. All which appears in stark contrast to the history of how the country came to be as great as it, which was allowing immigrants into the country.
In the United Kingdom, the issue of immigration was used as an issue that caused voters to vote to have the UK exit the European Union, known as BRIXIT. That election set in motion a series of events in order to separate the UK from decades of integration in the EU, As of the publication of this guidebook, the outcome has not revealed itself, but the country will be a different country after it completes the process.
The elections of France and Italy both elevated the issue of immigration. Even when the candidate who was not in favor of restricting immigration won, the elections revealed a larger issue within the people of those countries. Because politicians, the media and others have been so successful in associating immigrants to terrorism, a floundering economy as well as painting immigrants as the other, politicians who are more conservation and more isolationist are being elected and more restrictive laws are being implemented to discourage immigration of those who do not look and act live the dominate culture of the country.
Skills Development and Activities How to Implement or Put into Action
https://www.welcomingamerica.org/engage/take-action?gclid=CJWXgoWk3tQCFU65wAodaOEL5w
Source Links:
http://www.globalissues.org/article/537/immigration
