Immigration

Immigration Blog

            Most of think that we know everything there is to know about immigration.  We also have our minds made up about how we feel about the problems with the numbers of our illegal immigrants.  What most people don’t have is the cultural background on how our immigration population became so large.  According to our text book our most recent immigrants are called New Immigrants.  New immigrants refers to people who have migrated to the United States  after 1960.  Most of these individuals are refugee’s, indigent, and desperate. Miller, the author of our text book indicates that three trends characterize the new immigrant: Globalization, Acceleration, and feminism.  In 1965 ammendments to the Naturalization Act made it possible for many more immigrants to enter the U.S.  The amendments allowed people with specific skills to enter the country and our workforce.  Later the family reunification clause allowed residents and citizens to bring immediate family members to the United States.  This caused an overflow of immigrants into the population.  Although this group of immigrants caused a shift economically and in the job markets it is not the legal immigrants that we are constantly hearing about. (Miller, 2010)

You cannot open a newspaper, listen to talk radio, or watch the news on television without hearing about illegal immigrants.  If many of the immigrants that enter the country legally are refugees why aren’t the immigrants that cross the Rio Grande prepared to enter legally.  I think that the answer to this question has to do with quotas the government imposes on certain people, with certain occupations, from certain countries.  I can understand that economically an unskilled laborer will not benefit our country as much as an educated immigrant in the medical field would but I can’t help but remember that our country was colonized by people who had been in prison, persecuted for their religious beliefs, or could not pay their debts.  Somehow we survived and developed a political and economical system that grew to be amazing in the process.  Instead of just mere survival our ancestors thrived.  I understand that we are in difficult times.  I realize that we are facing a financial crisis but I am not sure that our present handling of our illegal immigrants will solve our economic problems.

I would like to concentrate on the Mexican immigrants that enter the country by crossing the Rio Grande.  When I think about these individuals I think about how desperate their lives must be that they would attempt to cross a river that is guarded by the police.  These individuals risk incarceration, physical brutality, rape, even death to cross into the United States.  Those who have the resolve and strength to make it into the country may walk hundreds of miles to find work in the fields harvesting crops.  The pay is of course below minimum wage.  Many people are outraged by these illegal immigrants they scream that they are taking American jobs.  I wonder how many Americans would consider accepting the jobs that the illegal immigrants have taken.  I would guess that most Americans would not even consider working under the same conditions that our Mexican brothers and sisters are willing to accept.  We out source jobs in financially distressed countries all over the world.  If we can do this do we have the rights to complain about illegal immigrants taking jobs from Americans inside the country that most American not only do not want but would never work?

We hear Americans lamenting the death of a loved one at the hands of an illegal immigrant.  The pain is very real to these families and I sympathize but how many Americans kill American each year.  Does that mean that all Americans are murderers?

These are a few arguments that we hear voiced against the illegal Mexican immigrants.  What I see are people who have taken tremendous risks to support themselves and their families.  I see hard working individuals who are willing to work under less than optimal conditions.  I also notice that we as Americans villianize and criminalize these individuals whose real crime is wanting a better life.

The illegal immigrants that are caught in our country are put into federal prisons until they can be deported.  The process is not a short one and they are not isolated.  Illegal immigrants are incarcerated with rapists, murderers, and arsonists.  Many of these people are women who have never committed a crime other than illegally entering the country.  If these women have children who were born in the United Sates the mothers are deported while their children stay in the country.

          To me there is something Un-American about the way that we have treated       Mexican illegal immigrants. The Statue of Liberty has an inscription on it written by Emily Lazarus.  The inscription reads:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

If we continue to treat illegal immigrants the way that we do we may have to delete the inscription on the Statue of Liberty.

Work Cited

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2014097534_apusillegalimmigration.html

http://www.urban.org/health_policy/url.cfm?ID=1000587  Reem Saad (May 2006). "Egyptian Workers in Paris:, Pilot Ethnography". SRC, American University in Cairo.

The undocumented Africans "of St. Ambroise" Bok.net. Retrieved on 2007-10-03.

Mark Taylor. "The Drivers of Immigration in Contemporary Society: Unequal Distribution of Resources and Opportunities". Human Ecology. 35(6), December, 2007. Available at http://www.springerlink.com/content/3194641502768341/. Accessed December 10, 2009 http://www.cis.org/Kephart/Cecilia-Munoz-Embraces-Amnesty

Chapter 8 Politics

Chapter 8 Political and Legal Systems

            Chapter 8 discusses two types of anthropology political anthropology and legal anthropology.  Legal anthropology addresses social order, social conflicts, and how those conflicts are brought to resolution. Political anthropology is the study of power, authority, and influence. The political and legal systems are important part to each culture in the world. Politics is the vehicle by which power, authority and influence are gained. One point that was made by Barbara Miller in the text is that power is the strongest incentive for decision making and probably the least moral. It is not an accident that the world dictators may start out benevolent and end up corrupt or that some congressmen and senators are law abiding citizens when running for office but after election find them in ethical or legal trouble.  Absolute power does have a tendency to corrupt.  There are four types of political organizations that are responsible for decision making, leadership, maintaining order, protecting group rights, and protecting the society from external threats.  The political organizations are:

1.      The Band

a)      Characterized by informal Leadership

b)      Flexibility

c)      If a band member has a serious disagreement with another person or spouse he/she leaves the Band and joins another.

2.       The Tribe

a)      More formal than the Band

b)      The Tribe consists of many Bands

c)      The Tribe has a headman or head woman leader

d)     Big-man/Big-woman political systems exert influence over several different villages.

3.       The Chiefdom

a)      Include several thousand people

b)      Rank is inherited

c)      Social division exists,  linage and commoners

4.        The State

a)        Centralized political unit

b)        Includes many communities

c)        Possesses coercive power

d)       Most states are hierarchical and patriarchal

     Legal anthropology studies social order and conflict.  Recently legal anthropologists have determined that legal institutions often times support and therefore maintain social inequities and injustice.  Social control rather than punishment is the main goal of small scale societies.  The State on the other hand uses punishments as severe as the death penalty or imprisonment.  Interestingly legal anthropologists have determined that high levels of violence in societies are not universal and are associated with the State than with the Band, Tribe, or Chiefdom.  Presently cultural anthropologists are attempting to determine a solution to global conflicts by studying peace keeping solutions.

    One of the most interesting items in Chapter 8 was the information given about Hawaii.  Hawaii was ruled in 1891 by Queen Lili’uokalani.  In an immoral display of power several businessmen both American and European deposed her. Queen Liliuokalani was the last reigning monarch of the Hawaiian Islands. She felt her mission was to preserve the islands for their native residents. In 1898, Hawaii was annexed to the United States and Queen Liliuokalani was forced to give up her throne.

     Queen Liliuokalani was born in Honolulu to high chief Kapaakea and the chiefess Keohokalole, the third of ten children. Her brother was King Kalakaua. Liliuokalani was adopted at birth, at age 4; her adoptive parents enrolled her in the Royal School. There she became fluent in English and influenced by Congregational missionaries. She also became part of the royal circle.
     Upon the death of her brother, King Kalakauam Liliuokalani ascended the throne of Hawaii in January 1891. One of her first acts was to recommend a new Hawaii constitution, as the "Bayonet Constitution" of 1887 limited the power of the monarch and political power of native Hawaiians.  This of course was not acceptable to American or European businessmen who had a financial interest in Hawaii they used power, money and influence to put in to place a legal maneuver to oust the rightful ruler the Queen.  In 1890, United States used economic tactics to ensure power in the Hawaiian Islands. The McKinley Tariff began to cause a recession in the islands by withdrawing the safeguards ensuring a mainland market for Hawaiian sugar. American interests in Hawaii began to consider annexation for Hawaii to re-establish an economic competitive position for sugar. In 1893, Queen Liliuokalani sought to empower herself and Hawaiians through a new constitution which she herself had drawn up and now desired to proclaim as the new law of the land. It should Queen Liliuokalani's right as a sovereign to issue a new constitution through an edict from the throne. A group led by Sanford B. Dole, the pineapple giant sought to overthrow the institution of the monarchy. The American minister in Hawaii, requested troops to take control of governmental buildings. In 1894, the Queen, was deposed, the monarchy abrogated, and a provisional government was established which later became the Republic of Hawaii. On July 4, 1894, the Republic of Hawaii with Sanford B. Dole as president was proclaimed. It was recognized immediately by the United States government.

  Sadly this is a good example of how power and influence can be used not for the good of the people but for financial gain.  This leads credence to the statement that power is not necessarily moral.

Work Cited

             History of the Hawaiian Kingdom by Norris W. Potter, Lawrence M. Kasdon, ARayson

Kuykendall, R.S. (1967) The Hawaiian Kingdom, 1874–1893. Honolulu: University of      Hawaii Press, p. 474.