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.

African-American's: Enslavement, Racial Violence & Civil Rights

After reading through the posted articles and websites for this weeks reading, it was shocking to read about lynching or racial segregation during the 18th and 19th century, which isn't too long ago. While some of the passages were a slave narrative, and others were abolitionists like Angelina Grimke or a civil rights leader like Ida B Wells, all have some things at least one common characteristic: discrimination against African-American, mainly because of their "skin color" and rose from the birth of slavery between the 15th-16th Century.

While much of these first few readings was not really "new" information as most of it is learned through out general schooling. What was very interesting to me was the more recent occurrences of forms of lynching. Although lynching is a felony, it seems that in some towns or places where there is still racial tension and a form of segregation, hate crime occur.

While reading the article about Brandon McClelland in 2008, was shocking as it was one of the more recent incidents. By reading the article and developing my own opinion on the article I feel as though there was some type of racial tension even though the article states,"they were friends".

I was also shocked to hear that a defense attorney in Texas had previously let Mr. Finley "off" by believing his story.

The article states:

"In 2003, Lamar County D.A. Gary Young served as Mr. Finley’s court-appointed defense attorney when Mr. Finley pleaded guilty to manslaughter for shooting a friend to death.
The victim in the Finley manslaughter case was White and Mr. Finely told police he was sitting in a truck with his friend when two Black men tried to rob them. Mr. Finley said he fired at the robbers but accidentally shot his friend. An autopsy determined the victim suffered three gunshot wounds to the head, but the district attorney at the time accepted Mr. Finley’s story that the shooting was an accident. He was offered a plea bargain on a reduced manslaughter charge and eventually served a little over a year of a four-year prison sentence. The alleged robbers were never found."

This quote from the article sound like the story given, wasn't the complete truth. it seems as though the killer, Mr Finley,  got off "free" with barely a "slap on the wrist".

It seems as though the views of these people in these parts where its still racially divided have swayed decisions when it come to"hate crimes" and it doesn't seem like there is a fair neutral way for African Americas to get equal justice to the "whites" in those areas.

Coming to America: Chapters 7 & 8

While both chapters were very interesting to see the push, pull, means, and types of jobs many of these immigrant had. Another thing that i found interesting was the little communities each group made for themselves as a way to become comfortable to their new surrounding in America with familiar languages, traditions and even familiar people.

I was especially interested in the story about the Italian immigrants since I am half Japanese and half Italian. I am very close with my grandparents on my mothers side (Japanese) but was only able to know my grandmother on my fathers side (Italian) since my grandfather passed away when my father was only 20 years old. Since my father's mother passed away a little over 7 years ago, I was still very young and didn't know that they had an amazing immigration story as well. Although I will never know the entire immigration story from either of my grandparents there are a few detail of their story that I have heard from my great-grandmother since she lived until she was 95 years old.

My great-grandfather and great-grandmother were married and both came from Sicily. They moved to New Jersey then eventually moved to Pennsylvania because of the Italian community there and their friends had moved there a few years prior.  Once settled in in PA, my great-grandfather was a tailor and a shoemaker and had his own shop. My great-grandmother helped him run the family business which was in a building in which they lived on top of their shop. The eventually had son, which was my grandfather and raised him there since their business was a success.When my grandfather got old enough he helped in the shop before and after school. My great-grandmother Jenny also told me about a story when she was at the shop alone one day preparing food for dinner in the afternoon and my great-grandfather and grandfather were both out running an errand. Since their business was successful they were very wealthy and was the only shop with and "open" sign in their window. That day a police officer showed up to the shop and told my great-grandmother, "you know, those signs aren't allowed to be posted without paying a fee.. its gonna cost ya!". So my great-grandmother, with her spunky attitude tells the officer to, "Come around the back". As she met the officer she handed him a white envelope. I was eager to hear how much money she gave him but the response I got was, "I only gave him $5... its not like he was gonna tell anyone... I know that officer was tryin' to trick me so I sent him on his way and never heard back from him!"

Remembering this story makes me think of how many other officers around America might have been doing the same thing to "newer" immigrants to find ways to take advantage of them or try to scare them. This seems like it would have been a common practice for "old" immigrants or people in high job positions maybe of British decent.