My Family's Thanksgiving Tradition

Ever since I can remember, my paternal grandmother would always have a very nice, sit-down dinner at her house the night before Thanksgiving. All of our family would come from Vallejo and San Diego to celebrate the holidays with everyone. It is a very special tradition because we don't normally see each other through out the year, except for the holidays and other special occasions. Its nice because my grandparents from my mother's side always attend as well since both my grandparents and my family all live in Sunnyvale. I always loved having this special dinner because i get to have both sides of my family at a dinner table. To make this meal even more special, my paternal grandmother would alway make her famous seafood pasta- her own version of fruitti de mare and her Italian wedding soup. I wait all year long for this meal because we only have it once a year. Although she passed away 8 years ago, our family still keeps the tradition in remembrance of my grandmother.

Here is the recipe for her famous seafood pasta dish:

Ingredients:

clams

mussels

shrimp

crab

scallops

squid

mushrooms

white onion

linguine noodles

Tomato sauce:

• 1 (14 1/2 ounce) can crushed tomatoes 
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1/4 red capiscum, chopped
• 1/2 ground basil
• 1/2 ground thyme
• 1 pinch oregano
• salt and pepper
• 
  

 Directions:

1. Take all the ingredients for the sauce and place them into a pot and boil it for about 20-30 minutes. After the sauce is made, we leave it off to the side on a low temperature or simmer, waiting for the seafood.

2. Begin boiling the noodles as the linguine noodles take a little longer. Then strain the noodles when its done boiling.

3. We clean and cut all the seafood, then we cook it in a pan for a few minutes with some olive oil so that its almost cooked- but not fully cooked as it will cook more in the sauce.

4. After frying the seafood in a pan, place it into the sauce. Then do the same with mushrooms and a small white onion.

5. Once the sauce it put together and the pasta is done boiling, we put some of the sauce without the seafood and mix it with the noodles, then place it on the dinner table and serve ourselves pasta and place the seafood sauce on top (as mixing it all together would be messy with long noodles). 

I found this picture online but it looks very similar to my grandmothers dish!!

Alabama News Article

Demonstrators denounce Alabama illegal immigration law

November 15, 2011 |  2:53 pm

About 100 demonstrators gathered outside the Alabama state Capitol in Montgomery to call for passage of the DREAM Act and to protest the state’s new anti-illegal immigration law, widely regarded as the toughest state law crafted to combat illegal immigration.

Illegal immigration has been a volatile topic in Alabama since the legislation known as HB 56 was signed into law by Republican Gov. Robert J. Bentley in June. Anecdotal evidence suggestions that many illegal immigrants have fled the state. The demonstrators took a far different approach Tuesday.

“Undocumented, unafraid!” they chanted.

Eleven protesters sat down in the middle of a street in hopes of blocking traffic. The location for their sit-in protest: across from the Capitol and the first White House of the Confederacy. The effect on motorists was minimal. Police had already sealed off the street a block away and were rerouting traffic elsewhere.

Two more demonstrators staged a sit-in on the floor of the lobby at the Alabama State House.

In September a federal judge upheld some portions of the law, but temporarily stayed others pending further review in the courts. For example, the judge blocked a section that would have barred illegal immigrants from enrolling in public colleges and universities.

But the 115-page ruling by U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn also upheld a controversial section that requires police to check the residency status of suspected illegal immigrants during traffic stops.

On Tuesday, rows of police officers watched the protest. They had not taken action by midafternoon. The protesters said they expected to be arrested at some point.

“No courage, no change!” they shouted.
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This DREAM Act seems like a way of discrimination towards all of the illegal immigrant within Alabama. It seems as though these people who are undocumented are going to be "witch hunted" in the sense that police would have to be checking places of residency . I think this is taking the whole situation of immigration within this state out of control.  I feel that there are better ways to go about the situation than to make people feel like they are going to be hunted down to basically get rid of them.  There is also a lot of controversial issues that arise from both sides of immigration and putting this Act into Alabama's laws. Much of what we discussed in class about harsh realties, like drugs, gangs, jobs, economy and standard of living could very well be affecting the state of Alabama, which are brought by the immigrants. But there is also controversy with every act, policy or piece of legislation that tries to get passed as well. 

Coming to America: Chapter 16 & 17

Chapter 16 mentions a lot about the reforms that were tried to replace the immigration laws and acts of the past prior to 1980. Many of the people in political power still felt that there was a need for a limit or cap on immigration. Especially since most immigration is clustered in certain areas and cities, the text statutes that "immigration is not spread out"(Daniels, 404). Meaning that because immigration is secluded to these certain enclaves or popular immigrant areas it should be restricted since the immigrants aren't scattering themselves among the rest of the states.

But it can bee seen from the text that immigrants will continue to find ways, legally and illegally to get to the United States regardless of the laws and restrictions. The text states and I agree with the notion that immigration has always been on the social agenda. I believe immigration will always be an issue for the government to deal with, but i don't think that immigration is a bad thing. the only thing I would be concerned about is overcrowd or overpopulated areas.

The last chapter talks about immigration continuing to grow as the years progress. Each year the percentages of immigrants in the U.S. is continuing to grow because of push and pull factors. The text states that one of the most problematic issues is the amount of illegal immigrants.

It is almost impossible to control borders that are thousands of miles long and are continually crosses by people who are determined to get in. Although there is deportation, because the number of illegal immigrants is so high and almost untraceable as to where the people are located, deportation is useless until an illegal immigrant gets caught by the law. The system we have in our country isn't very effective since there is too many illegal immigrants to be able to find and deport, which is impossible. And the reason there are so many illegal immigrants is because of our faulty system.

I think there are more important issues to deal with than immigration. Many of the immigrants are accepting low paying jobs that few to no American would take. Some people say that immigrants are taking Americans jobs but in reality they are only doing the jobs that Americans would never do for the little pay.

Coming to America: Chapter 13,14, & 15

     I felt that chapter 13 was somewhat dull compared to other chapters that we read. The text talks about more of the immigration laws and restrictions applied to certain ethnicity's. What I found interesting was the U.S's stance on refugees. it was shocking to see that the number of former Nazi's allowed into America compared to the small number of 140,000 Jewish refugees into the country. I feel that this stance on refugees had to change and the American government and President finally saw the impact of not allowing these refugees.

      I also didn't realized the impact of the number of legal immigrants which was higher than the number limited in the quota system. Because family members were allowed to legally come to America, they were not counted in the government's quota system. This lead to the larger increase in population that the government intended.

     In the next chapter, the Japanese and Chinese immigration grew with their women population. Many Japanese women had come to America to marry non-Japanese soldiers. About 45,000 Japanese women came to America, 40,000 of those women married. 

     The Filipinos also immigrated being American Nationals, but were restricted form becoming citizens. I also didn't realize that the Filipino migration was mostly female at the beginning, which was the opposite of other immigrations. Later, Filipino immigrants got jobs within the medical industry as  nurses, or other medical positions. 

     While many of the immigrants from chapter 15 are form the Caribbean, Central America of Soviet Jews, they have all come to America and worked in agriculture or business. Many of these groups still traveled to common areas so that their culture could strive and have other people with their same religion, values, and background in the same community. Much of  this was seen in the previous chapters as migration areas became popular for certain ethnic groups and formed their own communities. This is partially why there are places like Japan town, China town, Little Saigon for the Vietnamese and more.

I see this  a lot in the area I live in. At first many of the stores and shopping centers became "Asian" markets, restaurants or stores which cater to Korean, Chinese, or Japanese. Now, down the street, there are many Indian restaurants, cash and carry's, markets, clothing stores and etc. to also cater to those different Indian groups. I feel this i a way for the immigrants in any time period to feel comfortable and create their own community within America, which some call their new home. 

Main Points of "Asian Americans and World War II"

Daniels Pages: 302-306


Main Points:

1) Japanese Americans- sent to concentration camps placed in cities that were in "the middle of nowhere"

• U.S fought against totalitarianism and racism in WWII
• On the home front, people were adapting to one of its most feared opponent- concentration camps- against the Japanese Americans
• Japanese were seen as enemy aliens instead of citizens
• Many Japanese faced anti-Japanese sentiment and discrimination
• 120,000 Japanese were sent to these camps-- two-thirds of them were native born citizens 
• In 1988, six years later, Congress-passed- and President Ronald W. Reagan signed a bill containing an apology to the Japanese American people for the injustice done to them and authorized the payment of twenty-thouand dollars  in "redress" to each of the 60,000 survivors who had been in a camp 

2) Chinese Americans- legal position changed as they were shunned off like other immigrant with their naturalization and immigration

• Since Japan and America had a "falling out" from WWII, America became a supporter of China
• This support didn't help the Chinese American in anyway
• In 1943, Congress and the President repelled any and all Chinese exclusion
• This also allowed for the naturalization of Chinese immigrants but limited to the 105 quota slots
• because of the limited Chinese immigrants and un-welcomed Japanese, there was a labor shortage which the government had to make an agreement with Mexico's government for a bracero program- manual labor.  

Coming to America: Chapters 11 & 12

It was shocking to realize how directly correlated each historic event had triggered some type of immigration to a new country or back to a homeland. The chapter specifically talks about the The Great Depression in the 1930's , war and Hitler coming to power which have created changes in the immigration patterns that were seen in earlier migration years. 

I was surprised when I found out that the number of of people leaving the United States exceeded the number entering during the 1930's (p. 294). Obviously this was a direct correlation due to the Depression in the United States which isn't hard to imagine but I didn't realize that it impacted people's lives so much that they moved elsewhere.

The text continues to mention World War II which I am very familiar with as I have relatives who were placed in concentration camps and forced out of the United States because they couldn't handle the anti-Japanese sentiment that occurred as a result of the war. What was shocking was that many of the Japanese Americans, like my relatives, were native-born  American citizens. The book states that more than two-third of the Japanese Americans were native born citizens and placed into internment camps.

I have always wondered why my relatives aren't politically involved within their home and community in the United States. Almost none of them vote or talk about politics and if they do some of it isn't too positive.  Much of their reason has to do with that fact that they don't agree with American politics but mainly the way the government dealt with the result of World War II.

I have always thought that there were many Natives within America prior to the "discovering of the New World".  It was surprising to see that the there were only 80,000 between the three states of California, Texas and New Mexico prior to becoming part of North America. It doesn't make sense that some Mexicans feel a sense of entitlement or feel like somethings been taken away when their population was somewhat small. But I do understand how and why they would feel like that way. 

Coming To America: Chapter 9 & 10

I really enjoyed these two chapters because it was so relevant to my families history. Being half Japanese I know my grandparents and their families have gone through some of the things described in the text. For one, my grandmother was a so called "picture bride". She gave a really nice, professional picture to the parents of my grandfather who then sent my grandfather a letter with the picture to America where he was living in San Mateo. The letter described my grandmother and stated there will be an arranged marriage if he complies. He eventually went to Japan to meet my grandmother and arranged a date for their wedding. In the meantime my grandfather came back to America to buy a home and prepare for my grandmothers arrival after their wedding. He went back to Japan for the wedding and paid for her ticket to come to America a week after once she packed her belongiings and said her goodbyes.

What I found shocking in the text about the Chinese was that most of their migration was during the gold rush and they came with a lot of other Chinese immigrants as well. I knew they worked in mines and began coming to America a long time ago but not a large number of them. I was also surprised at the treatment of the French Canadians. I thought because of their european, superior background they would be treated as equals but they were treated just as bad as the other immigrants.