Immigration

Immigration Reflection

Throughout the previous cycle we had the opportunity to learn about immigration in general, the basis of immigration, the reasons, and some modern day examples and stories. Immigration splits into two parts, which are immigrants and refugees or asylum seekers, which are slightly different in some aspects. Immigrants are people who migrate to another country due to a decision they make. Common reasons of immigration are work purposes, decision, personal issues, and others. Refugees, on the other hand, are people that are forced to move out of their country because of fear and necessities, like natural disasters, political oppression, war, violence, human rights violations, and others. In this unit we watched various TED Talks about people who have immigrated to the US and how they have struggled to create a successful live in their new living location. For example, a TED Talk we watched was about a Canadian woman called Leezia Dhalla who migrated to the United States when she was very young, and she talks about how her family managed to create a new life in the United States, how she changed cultures, and how even though she was American in every aspect there is, she wasn't consider a legal American. Another TED Talk we watched about an immigration story was the story about Jose Vargas, where he talks about how he lived with his grandfather in the US and had about 13 years without seeing his mother, but he lived a tranquil life until he learned that he didn't have any papers that granted him to live in the US. Learning this was really hard for him, since he was living a lie for a great amount of his life. Then, to learn about the situation about refugees, we did a couple of different things. First, we watched various videos that introduced what is a refugee and how they are totally different from immigrants. Then, we spent a good amount of time educating ourselves with the situation that is occurring today in Syria and Myanmar. We talked about what is occurring, the reasons why they are fleeing the country, where they are fleeing, and how other countries are creating organizations to help these refugees that need help from their neighboring countries. In conclusion, this has been a really interesting unit where I have learned many things that I was really curious about, and I hope we learn about this topic even more on the future.