Story Of A Black Immigrant From A Shithole Country Summary

Despite our founding principle that “all men are created equal” (Jefferson), American life isn’t characterized by equality or fairness. Although we acknowledge that each member of humanity bears equal value, we fail to provide them with such equality in life. Racism and anti-immigrant sentiment are two factors that prevent America from being equal. Frederick Douglass identified this gap between value and reality for Americans when he found himself “not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary” (¶3) of the Fourth of July, “a day that reveals to [the American

As horrifying as it is to think about, comparisons can be made between the situations of current workers in third-world countries and the plight of the African slaves in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In many of the current poverty-stricken places seen around the globe, sweatshops are developed in order to employ laborers. Sweatshops are described as places of abysmal working conditions with low pay and tedious hours. In the article, "Black People in a White People's Country," Gary Nash notes that the African slave trade was originally developed to "fill labor shortages in the economies of its European initiators and their commercial partners." This description is similar to the motive behind the employment of third-world sweatshop workers. Both systems, ancient and modern, include the need for more laborers and disregard the vital needs of their employees/slaves as long as the work is getting done. Workers are harmfully exploited in both

When one thinks of a “citizen”, they often imagine the process of gaining the title of becoming a citizen within a country. But often times people do not think of “citizen” or “citizenship” to be connected to race. In Claudia Rankine’s book “Citizen”, she takes time to discuss and display specific moments that have happened in the lives of African Americans who live in the United States. By doing so, she is investigating in depth of what it means to be a Black American “citizen” today in society. These stories, although reflecting upon minuscule moments, paint a large picture of the true reality of racism in America very prevalent today. In context to Rankine’s Citizen and other supporting documents such as Keywords: “Citizenship”, White Like Me and Cops See it Differently it can be proven that racial bias deprives full Black American citizens of “citizenship” within everyday society.

Simply put, America is the land of opportunity. In the past, immigrants have left most of their family, memories, and familiarities with their homeland in search of a better life in America, where jobs were easy to find and the economy was booming. These immigrants formed almost the entire American population, a demographic anomaly in which people from nationalities separated by land and sea; these people come from countries separated by expansive distances can live within the same neighborhood. Both Anna Quindlen with her essay “A Quilt of a Country” and John F. Kennedy with his essay “The Immigrant Contribution” have documented the story of these immigrants and

Eleanor Roosevelt said, “the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” That statement holds strong for immigrants in America. Equal access to opportunities allows immigrants to achieve the American dream. Their success correlates with America’s success because of the contributions immigrants provide to America. Unfortunately, the current immigration policy in America denies many immigrants the American dream. It is crucial to understand the historical context of immigration in America. Initially, most immigrants were from Europe and were not restricted by any immigration laws. Now, most immigrants come from Latin America but are restricted to severe immigration laws. The Latino/a community is one of the most

Immigrants come from different parts of the world in many shades of white, brown, and black. In extreme cases, some immigrants are stereotyped as rapists, thieves, drug dealers, etc. or at the very least seen as second-class citizens. Depending if they support the issue or not, even the red or blue side of the political party, people tend to blind themselves from the reality of why they actually migrate. Natives tend to deny seeing the humanity in immigrants’ individual stories and lives. They not only migrate to different countries for better opportunities, but to find jobs to support their families and give their children a better education than they would have had in their country. George Saunders’ short story, The Semplica-Girl Diaries, relates to immigration because the SG’s reflect the treatment of immigrant workers in our society. The SG’s display women who have lived in extreme poverty and don’t have a better choice but to sell themselves to the rich as lawn

It is evident that there are still a number of falsehoods that contribute to the adversity many people of color have to overcome in this country. Yale Law School professor, Harlon L. Dalton and Sociologists Naomi Gerstal and Natalia Sarkisian dissect two such falsehoods in their respective essays. In his essay, “Horatio Alger” Dalton takes on the rags-to-riches myth commonly portrayed in Horatio Alger’s works of fiction. Likewise, Gerstal and Sarkisian’s study on Black, White, and Latino families reveals data that debunks the widely held belief that families of color are weaker and more disorganized than their white counterparts. While both essays examine myths that negatively affect Black and Latino people, the authors often use different

Immigrating to America is a process in which many people all across the world entrust as their one way ticket to a better life. Whether they do so legally or illegally, coming to the United States ensures better opportunities, economically, politically, and so on, to people who would have otherwise been worse off in their countries of origin. Even so, the common understanding of being “better off” can be considered a misconstrued concept when it comes to living in the states. Many families that choose to immigrate to the U.S. fail to realize the cultural hardships that newcomers tend to face once on American soil. Anything from racial discrimination or bias at work, in neighborhoods, at school, etc., can all be challenges that people encounter when making a move to the U.S. Such challenges are described by Richard Rodriquez in his autobiography Hunger of Memory. In this passage, he explains how cultural differences between Mexican and American ways of life have shaped him into the person that he is today. He also chooses to highlights the problems that he faces growing up in a predominately white neighborhood, while attending a predominantly white institution. Much of his writing consists of the cultural differences and pressures he feels to assimilate to Western culture and how this process, in turn, changes him into the person that some may find to be unethical, but nonetheless, someone he is proud of.

In the United States, the cliché of a nation of immigrants is often invoked. Indeed, very few Americans can trace their ancestry to what is now the United States, and the origins of its immigrants have changed many times in American history. Despite the identity of an immigrant nation, changes in the origins of immigrants have often been met with resistance. What began with white, western European settlers fleeing religious persecution morphed into a multicultural nation as immigrants from countries across the globe came to the U.S. in increasing numbers. Like the colonial immigrants before them, these new immigrants sailed to the Americas to gain freedom, flee poverty and

In America, it is believed that anyone, regardless of race, gender and religion, can achieve the American Dream, if they work hard enough. However, throughout history it can be seen how the criminal justice system and institutions set up roadblocks for people of color to achieve this dream. People of color suffer from racial oppression, colorism, and white supremacy. In reading Fortgang’s article, he justifies his successes and privileges with his grandfather and parents’ struggle that they overcame. Privilege can be defined as a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a certain person or group of people. This narrative of how his family overcame the odds and became successful in America can show how being white in America, is a privilege that can allow you to gain access to resources and power, even though Fortgang does not want to admit it. His family succeeded due to the color of their skin and benefitted from that privilege because they did not face institutional restrictions that many people of color had to endure in the U.S.

Immigration makes up of the United States. The life of an immigrant faces many struggles. Coming to the United States is a very difficult time for immigrant, especially when English is not their first language. In Oscar Handlin’s essay, Uprooted and Trapped: The One-Way Route to Modernity and Mark Wyman’s Coming and Going: Round Trip to America, both these essays describes the life of immigrants living in America and how they are able to make a decent amount of money to support their families. Handlin’s essay Uprooted and Trapped: The One - Way Route to Modernity explains how unskilled immigrants came to adapt to the American life working in factories to make a living. In the essay, Coming and Going: Round Trip to America, this essay describes the reality of many immigrants migrating to the United States in the midst of the Industrial Revolution. Many were living and adjusting to being transnational families. Both these essays show how the influx of immigration and industrialization contributed to the making of the United States. With the support from documents 3 and 7, Thomas O’ Donnell, Immigrant Thomas O’Donnell Laments the Worker’s Plight, 1883 and A Slovenian Boy Remembers Tales of the Golden Country, 1909, these documents will explain the life of an immigrant worker in the United States. Although, the United States was portrayed as the country for a better life and a new beginning, in reality, the United

In the book Proud Shoes, Pauli Murray writes about her family’s mixed race history and how the history of the United States with racism, specifically the south, affected her family’s history. She writes about the struggle with identity a lot of her family members faced. The book highlights how the time period and the history of the country that someone lives in has a great deal of impact on their lives. My family moved to the United States in 2002; a great time for immigrants because of the recent passing of the Immigration Act of 1990. The passage of this law created the Diversity Visa program, which is a lottery that allows immigrants into the United States from underrepresented countries.

When most people think about immigration to the United States, they think of the U.S. as being the “land of opportunity,” where they will be able to make all of their dreams come true. For some people, immigration made their lives richer and more fulfilled. This however, was not always the case. A place that is supposed to be a “Golden Land” (Marcus 116) did not always welcome people with open arms. Even after people became legal citizens of the United States, often times the natural born Americans did not treat the immigrants as equals but rather as outsiders who were beneath them in some way. In some situations, people’s lives were made worse by coming to the “land of opportunity.” Often times people were living no better than they

Along with its economic classes, American is known for its freedom, its liberty, and the melting pot of ethnicity. This ethnic diversity comes form the immigrant population in the country. However this perfect country is a major falsehood. These untrue ideals of harmony, freedom, success, and equality are deceptive and do not show the struggles that immigrants face when coming to this class dominated country. The immigrants of today do not come from just Europe, but overwhelmingly from Asia and Latin America. “They are driving a demographic shift so rapid that within the lifetimes of today 's teenagers, no one ethnic group – including whites of European descent – will comprise a majority of the nation 's population’ (Colombo, Cullen, Lisle). These immigrants challenge the social myth that everyone has an equal chance in life. They

Since the start of American history, immigrants came here and brought their traditions and cultures with them. The United States is a country of immigrants. It is a place where people from all over the world come to build a better life. Some immigrants bring their families. Others come alone with nothing but determination. Racial discrimination against minorities and immigrants is an underlying problem here in America today. Racism is seen in our daily lives when people are discriminated against because of their race and ethnicity. Racism attacks the right to a person’s well-being on the basis of something they have no control over. They cannot change nor should want to change who they are. Racial discrimination is not as bad as it was fifty years ago, but it still a problem here in our country today. Our country has advanced tremendously as far as modernization and technology, but has not improved on the way we treat minorities and immigrants. From African-Americans, Asians, Hispanics, and Arabs there is a form of discrimination against these group of minorities.