Refugee Displacement and Identity: Finding Home
When fleeing persecution, winning trust and welcome in a foreign land depends on the meaning of the label of displacement. According to Daniel, the making of modern refugee identity hinges on the right language affixed to your desperation, and right interpretation of this desperation by powerful authorities; proving modern identity can be a deadly game.
Modern identity often takes shape in the blending of lines that weren’t supposed to blend. No matter how coded or enforced, labels never hold all of one’s identity in place. The lines bounding the identity of the refugee are determined by the UN, and dictate a system of values foreign to many would-be refugees. For the Tamil mother from Sri Lanka, individual status as a refugee does not make sense; she is connected to the bones of her son and the soil in which they lie in Canada (Daniel 278). Terms of individuality are relative in the cultural understanding of many displaced peoples: collective identity in family structure supercedes that dictated by Western nation states, though the argument for asylum depends upon cognizance of Western value systems.
When lines of identity inevitably blend, relative jurisprudence must be exercised. Lines make excluding circles and methods of excluding people from asylum; our international community divides into unwelcome and welcome nations. As discourse, cultural identity means translating beliefs and feelings from one culture to another. In the process of translation, a screen of cultural values filters understanding of the values and experience of the “other.” The simple word “refugee” evokes images and stories particular to a collectively defined identity, invoking “an image of the radicalized other” (Daniel 272).
Finding trust and cultural understanding is crucial in securing safe haven; the human category of refugee is inundated with hydrophobic metaphors and imagined “racial markers” delimitating the story of the refugee into numbers and race categories (271).
One of the more disconcerting aspects of Bill C-31 is the newly adopted Designated Country of Origin (DCO) legislation which has permanently labeled particular nations as “safe”. Consequently, individuals claiming refugee status who originate from these countries no longer have the same rights and privileges afforded to their refugee counterparts from other nations (“Overview of C-31,” 2013). In turn, this has led to a dichotomy between those who view this change as necessary in order to diminish the influx of embellished and falsified refugee claims and those who view this policy as discriminatory and prejudiced towards people originating from certain nations.
Agamben, Giorgio. "We refugees." Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures. Vol. 49. No. 2. Taylor & Francis, 1995.
Some people do not consider certain acts of animal cruelty to be cruelty or they do not care. Normally the people who think like that are the ones who are actually causing the animal abuse themselves. Animal abusers sometimes do not see any wrong in what they are doing because they do not care what the animals feel. They do not think if the animals are happy or being hurt, they just continue doing what they are doing because to them it is not cruelty towards the animal. Some, though, do not believe that t...
My essay focuses on discrimination as one of the main challenges that refugees face. I discuss some instances of discrimination that occurred in the book, whether based on race or culture,
Animal abuse is described generally as any act or omission that causes unnecessary or unreasonable harm to an animal. Animal abuse are vary and can lead to different forms. These may include, tormenting or beating an animal, executing an animal in a harsh way, binding or transporting an animal in a way that is improper for its welfare, neglecting to give fitting living conditions, neglecting to give proper or satisfactory sustenance or water for an animal and neglecting to give suitable treatment to infection or injury (Animal Cruelty, n.d.). In general, for an act to be considered as animal cruelty, it must be a non-accidental, socially unacceptable, enacted on a vertebrate animal, causing pain, suffering and distress or death. (Battle, 2013).
Hansberry uses unique characters, a well-rounded theme, and detailed symbols to a example a family fighting for the American dream. The characters described the different difficulties ones may have to achieve the American dream. The theme helps emphasize the struggles the characters face throughout the play. The different symbols shows the hardship the family had to go through to achieve the American dream. Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, definitely shows the struggles someone may face to be able to reach the American dream.
Animal cruelty is just one reason why animal abuse is bad. Part of the problem is people who hurt animals don’t do it on purpose they just do not know how to take care of the animals (Mason 6). Other times people enjoy engaging in watching two animals fight. Some owners test them to see if they are good fighting dogs and if they are not they kill their dogs This one owner killed his dogs that would not fight by hanging,drowning and slamming the dogs (Dohrmann). Most of the time when the animals fight one of the animals dies and the other of is badly injured (Mason 31). The people that watch place bets on which dog they think will win. This is cruel to the animal because they have to fight if they don’t they may die. If they don’t die they
Before I begin contrasting my home culture to the host culture at Friends of Refugees, I must explain some social norms of my culture. As I previously stated, I come from a mostly typical American family and display at least five of the norms presented in Craig Storti’s book, Figuring Foreigners Out, A Practical Guide. One norm discussed is Individualism, where identity is found in oneself (Storti, 1999). I experience individualism through the choices I am presented in daily life and through the expectations of others, particularly my family and school. For example, my parents did expect me to go to college, but they imposed little influence on the major I selected, that decision was mine alone. Apart from college, my parents, like most other
In Stuart Hall’s “Ethnicity: Identity and Difference,” he claims that identity is a volatile social process through which one comes to see the self. Hall argues that identity is not a thing rather a process “…that happens over time, that is never absolutely stable, that is subject to the play of history, and the play of difference.” These factors are constantly entering the individual in a never-ending cycle, re-establishing and affirming who one is.
Should animals have to go through pain and suffering? Should they have to go without food and/or water? The answer is no. Animal abuse happens everyday and it happens because people are barbarous or because they don’t know how to take the best care of an animal that they have. Whatever the reason it’s still not right and will never be okay. This paper will cover a brief history of animal abuse, the statistics, the signs of animal abuse, and what can be done to stop animal abuse. Animal abuse needs to end for the animals that can’t speak for themselves.
Hansberry starts the play with a family with frustrated dreams. These dreams mostly involve money. Although the Younger family seems turnoff from the middle-class white culture they want to obtain the same materialistic dreams as the rest of American society. The America Dream is for everyone, as Hughes state in his poem “Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain seeking a home where he himself is free”. Is like Hughes is saying let the Younger be able to fulfill their dreams, even though they are not middle-class people. Let them have the freedom to get want they desire. Which indeed is possible for the Younger to obtain if they stay thinking positive and in
Every 60 seconds an animal is abused. Dogs, cats, horses, and many other types of animals are being neglected and tortured everyday, yet resulting in few and minor consequences for the perpetrators. Animal abuse is prevalent in the United States and has been an ongoing issue since the 1970's, and prior to. Society as a whole has chosen to avoid the facts and arguments about animal cruelty, because to some it is seen as acceptable and typical. It becomes much more frowned upon when people actually see the results of the cruelty, especially in the media.
Dogs are the most common victims of animal abuse with cats, horses, and livestock not following far behind.
Animal abuse is a travesty in our world that must be stopped. Every year, millions of animals suffer because of human actions, directly or indirectly. Whether it’s abused dogs and cats or even mistreated circus animals, their suffering is as real as it would be if it happened to us. Even animals who are raised on farms simply for human consumption should not have to suffer. One of the worst parts of humanity’s role in animal abuse is that there are easy ways for people to help that they are either ignorant of or simply refuse to do. There are many examples of animals who are abused by humans, but there are also ways for people to help prevent and put an end to animal abuse.
Who am I? Wrestling with identity— our history, our culture, our language— is central to being human, and there’s no better way to come to grips with questions of identity than through the crossing of borders. The transcendence of borders reveals the fluid nature of identity, it challenges absurd notions of rigid nationalities, and highlights our common humanity. It is no coincidence, then, that my experience as an immigrant has shaped my academic journey and pushed me to pursue graduate studies.