Final Research draft : Racism, ethnic and immigration in the United States

Yihao Sun
ID:11415843
English 191
2012/12/10

  After I come to the United States, I know that the racism, ethnic and immigration are large issues in the United States. Due to the history of the United States, there are lots of different races of people like Indians, the locals sometimes have the conflict with people from other places. And also about the ethnics, the blacks and whites, the issues appear always. Because the United States is the most developed countries in the world and the large chance to develop a person, more and more immigration come to the United States from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the central America. I want to talk about these topics and find more information from the internet and the books to fulfill the lost knowledge of this part and they will help me know this society better and join them better.

   Racism is a problem of all mankind, but also affects a developing country’s national development. It is also a key factor in social stability. Colonialism is the cause of the inequality and an important reason for the situation. Colonialism and racism have a link that can not be separated.

   
  Racism is formed in the early human in physical form to have on the genetic characteristics of some common signs of a community of people. Usually we divide  skin color and other physical characteristics or difference of race. By race, there is a problem, usually between blacks and whites into two kinds of inequalities.

  Colonialism is always discrimination, extinction of different ethnic colonization.

   
  Today in America, the racial discrimination is everywhere, the racial conflict often happen, the black people are treated as slaves by white people, they often have the lowest salary, insurance and many unfair treatment. Nowadays, the racial discrimination isn’t just between the white and the black, many other races in American are discriminated by the local people and they don’t have right to protect themselves. The mind of racial discrimination exist in many white people’s minds. They always treat the black people as slaves or think them as criminals.  The essence of the problem is that the competition between the race and other race, it is like the regional protectionism. Obama ,the first black president in the history of United States ,said that  ‘of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time’. Martin Luther King said that ‘I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed - we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers’.

   
   In a video I see that almost every child chooses the white toy as their favorite. The sense of difference between different skin color, white is beautiful black is ugly, is formed when they were children. We can not stop them to think about the race, the color but we should lead them to know that the black is not ugly black is also beautiful.

   
   I think any race, regardless of the number of people , how about the cultural composition, degree of social development level, should not differ from other races and they should be treated equally.

To talk about the immigration, I want to first have a research about the effect from the immigration.

   
    1. The migration brings more and more Latinos into America. The Latinos population grows fastest. Latinos constitute 16.3% of the total United States population, or 50.5 million people forming the second largest ethnic group. The lager population contributes to the political power. And because of their large population, they want more Latinos to participate in the government and have more political power to make political status has improved significantly.

Due to the historical factor, in the era of racial discrimination, the Americans see them as people of color and Latinos are the part which under the racial discrimination. Some of it still remains. It limits the political power of Latinos. Another factor that limits their political power is the economy of the Latinos. Low wealth is characteristic of Latinos households. Poverty rate of the Latinos is very high. And the youth can not get enough education. These factors all affect the political status of Latinos.

    
    2. When Asian Americans came to America in the past, they choose to make themselves become into the local Americans. They do not use their first language and do not keep the tradition. Also they change their historical and cultural values. They want to do all things just like an American. But finally they found that they still could not participate in the American society. Most Americans still look down on the Asians because of many reasons. For example, in the Second World War, the Japanese attacked the Pearl Harbor. As Yuji Ichioka said, although Asian Americans dress them like Americans, do the same thing, speak the same words, copy them in all aspects. It is just a fake, a dream and never come true.

After this, the majority of Asian Americans persist in looking at their own social status and identity in the United States property and then advocate to give up the pursuit of mainstream American culture, to establish the true status of Asian American culture in American society. It was the first show put on the broad social and political stage of America by Asian American activism after a silent period of over 100 years. The activism inspired awareness of political participation. The sense of Asian Americans strengthened them to develop their own community.

    
     3.  Migration, the new races coming

There are 40 million foreign-born populations in the United States, most of them from Central American countries, followed by Asian countries, about one fifth of students in American schools have a foreign-born parent. One fifth of Americans do not use the English at home.

    
    The migration brings the different culture from all over the world. It impacts the local American culture and mix with it. For example, after the Chinese came to the United States, many cities have their own Chinatown. Some Americans like the traditional Chinese culture, and celebrate the Chinese festival with local Chinese Americans. When the migration comes, also different races of people come to the United States. The conflict appears between the different races. The best example is the racial discrimination between the whites and blacks. The superiority of the American makes some whites look down on the blacks and do not show any respect. And it causes many activisms that the victims want to protect their own rights. One of the most famous people is Martin Luther King.

    
    Here is my comparison that I choose the example of the immigration of Cubans and Mexicans.

    
    Cubans and Mexicans are the largest immigrant groups in the United States. Due to the different culture and history, it led to the different situations they encounter in the United States. They have a lot of the same point in time and process of the immigrants. But the immigrants themselves and the concept has a lot of difference.

    
    Cubans who immigrated to the United States has a long history, and prompting them to leave Cuba is usually due to political reasons. Starting from the first half of the nineteenth century, the Cubans came to the United States in order to seek political stability and economic development, especially the economic problems of Cuba twice the War of Independence and the beginning of the twentieth century, the government's radical regime change, so that a large number of Cubans to leave their homes, out migration, Cuba entered the United States the number of people tends to go up, to become the largest U.S. ethnic groups of one, the first large-scale to the U.S. asylum, Cuban immigrants in the decades of war, the war many of Cuba's high society officials of the U.S. falter, and then in the late 1920s, Cuba in the attacks of the world economic crisis, the Government's rule, social unrest during this period, many Cuban businessman emigrated to the United States to seek protection and development of Cuban immigrants to the characteristics of the United States mostly upper class people, long duration, the total number of small.

    
    Given the closeness of Cuba to the United States—both geographical and, before the 1959 revolution, economic—it is no surprise that there has always been movement of people between the countries. The 1910 census showed that there were officially 15,133 Cubans living in the United States, and a report on immigration to Congress at the time included data on 44,211 Cubans. In 1959, an estimated 124,000 Cubans were living in the United States. In the early years of the revolutionary government, an additional 215,000 moved here, and now the Cuban community is well over a million. As we mentioned above, the center of that community is in Miami, but there are sizable communities in other cities in Florida and in New York, Illinois, and California as well.

    
    The existence and size of the Cuban community in the United States is a result of both "push" and "pull" factors. The revolutionary government's inflexible attitude toward dissent, and its imperviousness to demands that dissenters make, probably constitute the greatest push factors: Cubans who are unhappy have had no reason to believe that they can effect changes in their lives. Another strong push factor for the recent wave of newcomers is the economic situation and scarcity of crucially necessary goods like medicine.

    
     The "pull" factor has been the United States' policy with regard to Cuban emigres, which has effectively been, until recently, an unqualified welcome for both documented (Cubans entering the United States through normal immigration procedures, including legal departure from Cuba) and undocumented (Cubans arriving in the United States without immigrant visas, who have usually left Cuba illegally). Until 1985, there was no quota for Cubans entering the United States via normal immigration procedures, as there was for other immigrant groups. Cuban undocumented entrants have always had special status: While entrants from other countries have been required to demonstrate that they were fleeing political persecution to be granted refugee status, it was officially assumed that anyone arriving in the United States from Cuba was a bona fide refugee and therefore had automatic access to the special benefits that refugees are entitled to. Cuban entrants have had other special privileges as well; since 1966, for example, the Attorney General has had discretionary power to guarantee permanent residency to any Cuban who has been in the United States for a year, including those on visitor's visas who have overstayed the period delineated in their visas.

There have been, since the revolution, three basic waves of Cubans coming to the United States. These groups tend to differ from one another in their opinions and values and have different acculturation experiences, depending partly on when and why they emigrated from Cuba, and partly on their reception in the U.S.

“Even immigration scholars have frequently labeled Mexicans as part of a ‘new immigrant’ grouping in comparison to Europeans such as the Irish and Germans,” which he claims to be a widely held misconception. Mexicans have been immigrating to the United States for more than a century in response to US labor demands and have been citizens of the United States in the Southwestern states since the Mexican-American war in the mid 1800s. 30 years of this century the first wave of immigrants from Mexico, suddenly ended with the coming of the 1930s Great Depression. The United States there are a large number of unemployed Americans want to get rid of the desire of Mexican immigrants, but also lead to large-scale forcible repatriation. Mexicans have been on welfare to survive, partly because before the Great Depression of the 1920s the agricultural recession, while the vast majority of Mexicans is precisely engaged in agricultural production. In 1925, for example, in the city of Riverside, California, 90 percent of the welfare budget is spent on the Mexican body. Other cities in California and the city, many Mexican peasants and workers often apply for relief after the planting season. High crime rates and high incidence of the Mexicans, also increased public resentment. A large number of poor Americans from Oklahoma "dust" with move out, but also enhances the desire to drive away foreign labor, because there are so many Americans can not find a job. Organized to fight for the repatriation of Mexicans movement began in the 1930s, have been found, returning them to Mexico freight is not low relief week's overhead. Mexicans of those who apply for relief more than was told to go to a certain department, in fact the department homeopathic put them back home. Sometimes they had detained the relief funds, "Automatic" to leave the United States unless it agrees to accept relief. These coercion or inducement, tens of thousands of Mexicans who did not have a formal hearing were repatriated. A large number of immigrants have been repatriated, even including many people with U.S. citizenship.

    
     Mexicans and illegal immigration is a major source of Mexican immigrant groups subjected to social exclusion and discrimination, the color of their skin to locate groups of people of color, with clan discrimination in American society, the status of people of color constraints their position in society, but also hindered their acceptance in American society, they are engaged in occupations in which they live in the bottom of society, such discrimination, Mexican immigrants is difficult to be successful like Cuban immigrants in the political and economic, compared to Mexican immigrants, Cuban immigrants a strong national consciousness and political participation, awareness of ethnic groups, they share the values ​​and cultural traditions of American society, the positioning of the U.S. government of Cuban immigrants gave the Cuban immigrants success and national identity in the United States provide a relaxed environment.

The Mexican Repatriation refers to a mass migration that took place between 1929 and 1939, when as many as 500,000 people of Mexican descent were forced or pressured to leave the US. The event, carried out by American authorities, took place without due process. Some 35,000 were deported, amongst many hundreds of thousands of other immigrants who were deported during this period. The Immigration and Naturalization Service targeted Mexicans because of "the proximity of the Mexican border, the physical distinctiveness of mestizos, and easily identifiable barrios."

   
    The Repatriation is not widely discussed in American history textbooks; in a 2006 survey of the nine most commonly used American history textbooks in the United States, four did not mention the Repatriation, and only one devoted more than half a page to the topic. Nevertheless, many mainstream textbooks now carry this topic, while subsequently ignoring other mass deportations and repatriations of European immigrants. In total, they devoted four pages to the Repatriation, compared with eighteen pages for the Japanese American internment which affected only one-tenth as many people.

These actions were authorized by President Herbert Hoover and targeted areas with large Hispanic populations, mostly in California, Texas, Colorado, Illinois and Michigan.

    
    In conclusion, the United States combine all the different kinds of people, we need to learn more information about the others, the culture, the history, the life styles. To build a bridge between different racism, ethnic and immigration from different areas is the goal for all human beings.



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