Chapter 15

Chapter 15 is to my mind the most relevant chapter of the book, because it is the immigration story and struggles of Central Americans. Their immigration to America is later than that of other groups we have read about during the course. It is also the most interesting because there are a large amount of people that I know who have either experienced this story themselves or have family members who have experienced it themselves. This has made it one of my favorite chapters because it has a feeling of honesty and bluntness that separates it from the other chapters we have read. The other thing that I enjoyed about this chapter is that while they are from Central America the stories and the experiences are so diverse and eclectic.

Chapter 14

Chapter 14 focuses on the later immigration of Asians, at this time the Asian countries from which people immigrate become more diverse, with countries such as Vietnam, instead of just simply China and Japan. This chapter helped me a great deal when I was writing my Ancestry Paper, many of the earlier family members immigrated from China during the 1960s. The aspect of the chapter that interested me the most was the concentration of the immigration of people from the Philippines because it is a form of immigration that prior to this class I knew nothing about. It is hard for me to believe that immigration from the Philippines was not taught in my previous history classes. The part I found to be the most interesting was the eclectic reasons that people had for wanting to immigrate, there were push as well as pull factors. A second that I found interesting was the high number of well educated people who came over, or came over on student visas. This is so different from the previous groups of migration that we have seen so far.

Chapter 13

In class awhile ago we talked about the boat accident in the Mediterranean and that bothered me. This chapter also talks about the issues experienced by Cuban Immigrants who had to break immigration law to bring their families over. This struck me because before touching on this topic the author notes a general improvement in American Immigration brought on by the Cold War. While looking for research in another class I found a video about a more recent immigration struggle felt by young boys who are trying to immigrate from Afghanistan to America. The story is sad and heartwarming, and it is a struggle that we have seen not only in this chapter, but throughout the entire book.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50147163n

Chapter 12

Out of all the Chapters we have read this far in class, I found chapter 12 to be one of the most interesting precisely because immigration from mexico and the racist treatment they receive once they arrive is till a hot button issue in our politics today. And it is also something that I have seen effect the lives of people that I consider to be family. Also it is a racism I saw for myself when I went on a road trip two summers ago and had to drive through Arizona. Arizona has border patrols where there are no borders and has the most stringent of immigration laws of all the states in the country. When looking through the New York Times for another class I found this article written in August of this year about the effect the horrible laws in Arizona are effecting people and what certain individuals have decided to do about it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/us/demonstration-at-arizona-border-divides-supporters-of-immigration-overhaul.html?_r=0

Chapter 11

In this chapter Daniel's explains a shift in the history due to the events of the Great Depression and World War One. In the opening paragraph he explains that there was more people leaving the U.S then entering it. My question is where did those individuals leaving the United States go and how did they get the money to do so? this chapter also focused in the LPC regulations to limit who came into the country, and even though we went over it in class I still find it a difficult topic to understand. What was the motive simply the xenophobic attitude brought on by the war? and if that is in fact the reason for the rigidity in immigration laws it is probably safe to assume that the practice continued into World War II, but I would like to know when the rigidity stopped and why.

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten deals primarily with discrimination not felt by a specific group of people as in previous chapters but, negative feelings felt toward immigration as a whole.The aspect of this chapter that I found disturbing was the sheer amount of racism behind all the anti immigration legislation, I was also shocked by the type of people who voted, or created racist movements, they were the nations most highly educated and powerful individuals. In this chapter I was also interested in when the anti-immigration would occur, the book states that it would occur when economic downturns would occur and working men would fear for their financial stability.While reading the chapter I was shocked to discover that working men who would foster anti immigrant sentiment were in fact the children of immigrants or even immigrants themselves. This made me so sad that people did not have the empathy one would think.