Book Review: 'Guarding the Golden Door' by Roger Daniels

The collection “Coming to America” is comprised of journal entries, biographies, and autobiographies that discuss the social and political transformations that arose from immigration. “Of Plymouth Plantation”, “Balboa”, and “‘Blaxicans’ and Other Reinvented Americans” illustrate how immigrants shape America’s direction. The changes that occurred when settlers migrated seriously impacted the nation they were travelling to. The first of these changes pertains to culture. Immigrants brought their religions and languages to their host country, and that caused a great deal of acculturation, usually to the new religion or language. Government is another principle that was implemented into the “inner workings” of the new country. Lastly, the newcomers

Since the dawn of American colonization in the early 1600s, the notion of immigrating to America has long been instilled upon various people as a stimulating opportunity to begin a fresh chapter in their lives. Even now, this possibility has brought many variations of people to America, culminating a society that brims with dreams and aspirations to form the diversified nation of today. When speaking of the current state of immigration, it is easy to conclude that immigration is heavily discussed from political standpoints. Though this current condition is composed of highly controversial perspectives, many of the early-century viewpoints found in literature genuinely embrace reality, for these writers were indeed immigrants themselves, thus adding an authoritative standpoint over immigration. The Americanization of Edward Bok (1921) by Edward Bok and The America I Believe In by Colin Powell, display the perspectives of two authors, who have lived as immigrants, through their own personal anecdotes. Both Edward Bok and Colin Powell convey a sincerely grateful tone and develop the idea of Americanization and the quest for opportunity through the use of connotative diction in contrast to the Immigration Chart and Political Cartoon which have a downright concrete and pessimistic tone and supports the idea that immigration exposes various challenges to incoming immigrants.

In their commentary, “Immigration, America’s Advantage”, Lee Habeeb and Mike Leven make several interesting statements. They spend the first part of

One of the biggest goals for this lesson is give students the opportunity to make the connection between some of the anti-immigration arguments made during the Gilded Age and today. I want my students to be able to see that, although there is a hundred year gap, the only

Guarding the Golden Door by Roger Daniels provides an overall clarification of the immigration system in the United States throughout the past and in latest policies. Ever since 1882, America claimed that the settlement objective was to prevent it from occurring, although it permitted the complete opposite. Thus, the single factual policy that has been realistic to American immigration is that it is on a constant twist of shifting policies, which are changed according to the present nature of inexpensive employment for American manufacturing demands. Almost all of the American immigration policy has been shaped by people that did not comprehend the outcomes of the tactics they badly tried to generate, and who made open door policies simply to close them.

In the late 1800 many people, fleeing religious and political intolerance, from all over the world made the life changing decision to pack up absolutely everything they had to immigrate to the United States of America, known as the “land of economic opportunity”. Between the years of 1870 and 1900, there were around 12 million immigrants that arrived in the United States. Most of these immigrants migrated from European countries including Germany, Ireland, and England (Library of Congress). Over 70 percent of these immigrants entered through the area of what became “the golden door” in New York City (Library of Congress). Since these immigrants were so desperate for jobs, it made it easy for many people to take advantage of them. In today’s time it seems to be clear that immigrants have a much better chance for survival and success than they did a century ago.

The immigration is an important phenomenon that exists throughout human history and the United States of America is not an exception of this “rule”. People leave their motherland to travel to different continent, country, island or state for many different reasons. Among these reasons (business, education, asylum and so on) it is very important to highlight one of the most sensitive: the economic reason or the desire to find a better job/life in order to help their families. The USA is usually considered a country the tradition of immigrants. Due to the fact that The United States of America rank the top five most rich and developed countries in the world, the flow of immigrants has been growing considerably. However, beside the millions of legal immigrants there are millions of illegal immigrants target as a struggle of the economy and a ruin of the middle class.

The United States is known as a free country, and has become a popular destination for many to immigrate to. Along with this immigration, came many problems and controversy since the 1790s and still continues to raise concerns today. The immigration problems in the late 1800s and 1900s are very similar to today. This is evident in the different complications and disputes that occurred in the late 1800s and 1900s all the way to 2015.

David Cole's "Five Myths about Immigration," while not a persuasive argument, is obviously a personal issue for the author who believes Americans treat immigrants poorly. He introduces the reader to "Know Nothings," or "Native Americans," who blame every problem in America on the immigrants (Cole 189-90). In the introductory paragraph, Cole attempts to obtain the reader's sympathetic feelings as he writes with great passion when he describes the mistreatment his Irish Catholic immigrant ancestors endured (190). This in turn raises the question of how objective he could remain when presenting his arguments. Coles' attempts to disprove the five

The main takeaway from Shari Robertson and Michael Camerini’s documentary “Immigration Battle,” is that the United States’ immigration policy is decidedly flawed. The policy facilitates the separation of families in which some members are U.S. citizens as well as the deportation of immigrants whose work benefits the nation’s economy. Taking into consideration the problems that immigrants have had to endure, the solution to the immigration crisis should not be to limit the number of immigrants allowed into the country, but rather to install an open border policy. This recommendation is based on a moral and economic justification. Helping immigrants escape poverty is the right thing to do and these individuals often inject valuable skills into the American economy. Arguably, one could also conclude that America’s prosperity lies in its diversity.

The chapter begins by explaining how Cecilia Munoz, an immigration advocate was working towards immigration reform in the White House in the early 2000’s. The author notes that news had broken that President Bush had met with Mexican President Vicente Fox to collaborate on plans to provide status to 3 million undocumented immigrants who were living in the U.S. Views from the White House put a stop to immigration reform plans and geared their focus on decreasing immigration patterns. After the terroristic attacks of 9/11 the topic of immigration took a different turn. Immigrants had yet another target on their backs, being labeled as potential terrorists. A shift in immigration had taken place after the attacks. Many people and organizations

The U.S found itself confronted to new challenges that they didn’t think of before. This new challenges led to a shift of American attitudes towards immigration. This was due to the high influx of the immigrants coming from Europe and of the liberal paradox related to immigration (Tichenor 2002, 51). The United States found itself caught between two stools where immigration benefited the economy but the on the other side its obligation to set limits regarding social and publics welfare available to the new wave of immigrants.

Immigration is currently a hot topic within in the United States government. Currently the United States Congress is fighting to decide the fate of the Dreamers, and the Immigration bill DACA. Like many controversial issues within the government, the Democrats and Republicans are in a disagreement on what to do. Each article, examines a different take on the current immigration reform. Bier’s main argument is that individuals who are contributing to immigration reform are ignorant, that Immigrants are not hurting the American Labor market. The next article, I examined, was written by Eric Cantor; Cantor states that although the parties each have a high stake on the decision Congress makes on DACA, there must be a decision otherwise, the law will remain status quo. Next, we look at Gessen’s article, the main argument is that immigrants should not be looked at valuable or illegal, they should not have to be talented in order to be welcome within the United States. Lastly, Vargas, an undocumented Immigrant, discusses the difficulties of being illegal within the United States, yet still shines light on the positive influences he had throughout his childhood and time in America.

In the article “The Next Immigration Challenge”, Dowell Myers tells us that the illegal immigration crisis is becoming less of problem in the present and that we need to focus on the next challenge concerning immigration. Myers believes that there needs to be a shift in this policy by giving the migrants a chance to meld with society. Myers has spent majority of his life studying and researching which guided him to a PhD in urban planning and a Master of Planning from the University of California (Myers 188). In “The Next Immigration Challenge” Myers begins his article with facts on immigration levels and states that we need to shift from an immigration policy to an immigrant policy, and instead of saying “Show me your papers” it should be replaced with “Welcome to English class” (Myers 188).  Myers article towards the end remains solid and his arguments remain effective shaping our minds for new reform to the challenge.

Simon Derderian Major Assignment: Response English Enrichment Course 102 Section 3 Rodriguez, R. (2010). The Great Wall of America. The Short Prose Reader (13th edition). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Pp.