Response to Interview Project

For the latest project I decided to interview my dad, who immigrated from Australia; it's an aspect of my family history that I don't really know that much about, and it was amazing to hear the reasons that drove him out of his home country as well as what it was like when he first arrived. Doing this project answered a lot of questions not just about my family and how it came together, but why my dad is the way he is. During this project there were some moments where my Dad would answer with only one word and not go into the details(which is why I did not know that much before this project.) But after more questions I was finally able to gain all the details and gain a better sense of my family and the experience of an immigrant who has just arrived in a country that is not his one, where the customs and even the streets are alien to him. It is a terrifying process and one that takes bravery that I admire.

Response to German Immigrant Article

I found this article really fascinating, personally I have never really considered what immigration is like in other countries, I always just assume that European immigration is better then it is here. Considering the lives of people who are simply the children of immigrants is not something I gave much thought to. In the article the girl is all but pushed to feel like an outsider in the country she was born and raised in, it poses the question if in other countries the children of immigrants feel the same way, I think it would be really interesting to compare articles just like this one from other countries together in order to better understand the whole issue of immigration. All in all I very much enjoyed this article.

Chapter 17 Thoughts

In Chapter 17 it focuses on the next wave of anti immigration reform of the 1990's, an era where U.S Border Patrol and politicians were supposed to be cracking down on the number of people entering the country illegally, and that reminded me of earlier chapters in the text where Nativist ideas were not as much as an influence on the amount and type of people who were allowed to immigrate. In earlier chapters like ones that dealt with the progressive era the amount of Native born Americans who were against immigration was smaller and the number of immigrants significant. To those immigrants coming in the earlier 20th century America was a land of economic opportunity and a place where one could rebuild and start anew. Chapter 17 completely dispels that almost naive notion of immigration, but I was able to find an article about a recent influx of young Europeans immigrating to Australia in search of economic opportunities and a better life for themselves. This article is similar  to the earlier chapters of the text. Chapter 17 also explains the enhanced budget and authority of the INS and more specifically the Border Patrol, my question after reading this chapter is with it's ineffectual and dismal track record how are those Federal organizations able to maintain their prominence and keep functioning.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24854519

Chapter 16

This was a very fascinating chapter because it brings back elements from previous chapters even though it is in a more modern age and in a time where one would suspect the racist undertones of immigration to lessen, and they do not. For example the general public feelings toward immigration during this time were for tighter regulations and to lessen the amount of people who were allowed into the country. The book explains that most of these feelings stemmed  from the Iranian hostage situation and a general feeling of unrest and unease. Upon reading the chapter I still have questions regarding the  select commission. Besides once having a strong affinity for nativist policies I do not understand the role they play today? However I do know that they are less nativist than they once were.

Ancestry.com Project

For this project I chose to do a family that was not my own and I found it very time consuming, but also very fun. When doing this project it was interesting to put the pieces together and connect different sources of information together in order to create a more complete story. A second aspect of this project I enjoyed was that it helped to humanize the events we have been reading in the text book. When reading it is easy for the events to seem far removed and to not fully understand the emotional and human impact of them. An example of this can be found in the life of one of the family members I chose to follow. He was interned in Topaz Arizona simply because he was Japanese. While this sounds horrible, but the documents (or the lack of documents) helped me to see that he was untrustworthy of government authority because of his experience. By doing this project I was able to see history not in a general view, but in a way that is much more personal and honest.