Browning America Article discussion

The article I read was very interesting. It talked about “ Browning America” and how the United States population demography is changing. It says that the majority of babies born were kids of color, and the majority of kids under age 5 in the District of Columbia are of color. Before reading the article I did not think about that the United States might loose their white image in the future. Internationally speaking, when thinking of the United States we picture white person in our head. If this demographic change happens it will impact every thing in this country: education, politics, and culture.

Some people are afraid of this transformation. The conservative interest group Eagle forum stated:

“The USA is being transformed by immigrants who do not share [American] values, and who have high rates of illiteracy, illegitimacy, and gang crime, and they will vote Democrat when the Democrats promise them more food stamps.”

How could this group judge these kids based on their color!! So let us assume that these kids were white, but they are not from the States they are lets say Armenian. They will still face the same problem the brown kids will face. Your color doesn’t guarantee you better education or quicker assimilation. This organization is very rude and ignorant, and shortsighted.

The article also mentioned that by 2042, there will be no clear ethnic majority anymore, and the majority of this country will be minorities. It is very true that there is a disparity between communities of color and white. White neighborhoods tend to be safer and African-American neighborhoods are not. Recent reports addressed that Hispanics and especially African-Americans were highly affected by the economic recession, and their recovery pace is slower then whites.

At the end of the article, the author focused on the bright side of this diversity. He/ she said that we should be thankful of our growing diversity.

It gave us hopes for a better future for our country. Japan and some European countries, for example, are having an gaining population “workforce. This is not the case in the United States, because we have such a diverse place. The youth population in the US is primarily due to communities of color. The States will continue to thrive and flourish with its diverse population.  The author also addressed that “I hope that our leaders, from the President on down, start to publicly acknowledge not just our growing diversity, but why it’s a good thing for America”

The article website:

http://www.essence.com/2012/05/22/preparing-for-the-browning-of-america/

Immigration in an Age of Globalization: Part 2

Immigration in an Age of Globalization: Part 2

When looking at the immigrants we have to look at individual groups and on classes within those groups. Generalization is meaningless and misleading. The book divided these immigrants into different categories in table 17.3 “immigrants Admitted by Country of Birth, 1998” Mexico ranked number one where there was 131,575 people entered the country followed by China and Hong Kong, India, Philippines, Soviet Union, Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Cuba, Jamaica, and lastly El Salvador. Distribution of these immigrants throughout the United States was concentrated into two cities. More than 20 percent of these immigrants told the INS that they are planning to live either in New York or Los Angeles.  

One out of nine immigrants was admitted to the United States under employment-based preference. These immigrants are of two general kinds: skilled workers who held technical degrees and agriculture and service workers. It is not surprising to know that the skilled workers tend to acculturate more quickly than the less educated one. Educated people tend to have better understanding of the world and more willing to blend in the society, on the other hand, non-educated people are more confined with their own environment and culture. The third category of the immigrants is so called millionaire immigrants.  These immigrants has to invest 1 million dollar in an American enterprise or $500,000 if the investment in an economically poor area. The number of such immigrants from that category has never been large; in 1998 it compromised around 0.1 percent of the total immigrants.  The investor program or what is called now “employment creation” had many frauds in it.

Unfortunately we can’t count all the people who entered the United States. There are other types of immigrants who are not recorded. These people came to the United States on various kinds of visa that do not entitle them to apply for permanent residence status and these visas have expiration dates. Some of these people did not have the intention to stay when they first came, but after a while they decided to do so. Other people have the intention to over stay their visa and settle in the United Sates. According to the book, thirty million people came to the United States in 1998 on visas, but there is no system that would allow us to track the number of people who returned to their home country. We simply can’t know if these people are here or not. Our system is broken and we have to find a way to fix it. We should require every one who leaves the country to check out with the immigration and custom department, so we can track the number of people who over stay their visas.

Immigration in an age of Globalization Part 1:

Immigration in an age of Globalization Part 1:

America’s Immigrants: a twentieth Century snapshot:

According to Daniels book, in the decade ending in1990 7.3 million legal immigrants were counted.  This huge number, and the US continue to attract more immigrants even though the country is becoming almost full.  The book talks about how our immigration system is broken. Yesterday while I was doing some homework, a TV program by Fareed Zakaria grabbed my attention. The episode main focus was about immigration laws. It discussed other countries practices with immigration and compared them with the US. Zakaria said that our immigration system is broken it does to many of the wrong things and not enough things from the right ones.  The episode talked about how that we are lacking skilled workforce in engineering and mathematics. It is projected that by 2018 the US is going to have 2.8 million jobs opening in science, engineering, and math, and only 550,000 born American is there to fill them. This is pretty shocking to hear. This reminded me with a story that happened to one of my friends. This guy is a brilliant, he is doing is PhD in Stanford university and his major is energy resource engineering.  He resides in the States with a student visa. He applied for different jobs and he got rejection letters from all of them. All the employers said that it is very hard on them to hire international students and that the immigration legislations have tightened.  We are simply loosing the skill war with the rest of the world!!

Canada and Australia, on the other hand, have smart immigration policies that take in talented foreigners who have the skills the countries needs.  They transferred themselves to immigrant’s society with a foreign born population that is higher than the United States. What is surprising is that Australia has over than quarter of its population foreign born.   Fifteen years ago, Australia had a very strict immigration laws, but it realized that in order to compete in this world it has to compromise and allow more people to enter the country. According to census data, 10.4 percent of the total population is foreign born.  This percentage is 15 percentages lower than Australia. The book emphasized on the educational level of those immigrants had around 25.8 percent of these immigrants is a college graduate as oppose to 25.6 percent for native born. An interesting study in 1995 looked at United States residents with a Ph.D. whether it is from a US institution or elsewhere.  The study found that 23 percent of the science and engineering PhDs, and 12 of non-science and engineering Ph.Ds. were granted from foreign schools.  This shows that immigrants are not heavy load on the country, but they are assets to our country.  

The United States should make some adjustments to its immigration laws. It should attract skilled workers in order to compete with the rest of the world. The United States is afraid of missing up their population demography if they took that path, because Europeans aren’t the only smart people on earth. There are other nations who have smart people such as China, India, and the Middle East. In my opinion, I think that the color doesn’t matter, but what matters is your loyalty and determination to succeed in the States.  

Check out this video, it talks about the immigration system in the states.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=figS5DzQz00

chapter 16

When reading through chapter 16, it was interesting to read about the Irish immigrants experience in the 1980s. The Irish immigrants tend to be educated and tend to blend well in the northeastern United States. 

The book talked about some people experiences. One of the stories was about an Irish guy who holds and accountant degree and couldn’t find a job in his country. He heard that there are a lot of opportunities in the States and he can make a lot of money for working for an American company. He came to the States on a tourist visa and stayed in the states since then. His plan was to marry an American citizen and fly back to his country and come back legally. I don’t know that much about the immigration law, but how will he fly the country without any obstacles won’t the immigration department question him about his stay?

One of the easiest ways to get the US citizenship is through marriage. I heard a story about an Asian guy made a deal with an Asian American girl so they can get married. He gave her around $30,000, and offered her a place to stay until all the documents were passed. I think this is should be reformed. There should be, for example, the marriage should be at least 3 years old.

We see a lot of illegal immigrants who come to the states and work here and they get prayed under the table. They get help from their own people. For example, the Irish guy who came to the State got help from Irish-American.