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Impact of American popular culture
The impact of immigration on American culture
The Background of Immigrants in America
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Have you been searching for a book that will inspire you, but just can’t seem to find one? Well your prayers have been answered, because I have the book for you. The Immigrant Advantage by Claudia Kolker will do the job. The novel was published in 2011 by Free Press. Claudia Kolker is an award-winning journalist, who has written for The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Economist, and The Oprah Magazine. Furthermore, Kolker writes an informative non-fiction book about immigrants from different parts of the world. In this book she talks about how immigrants have brought their cultural values with them. Those values have been cherished and accepted in the United States. Kolker goes on to tell us, how immigrant’s lives are more
In Amin Ahmad’s I belong here, the reader is faced with a sense of sympathy that makes the reader’s view of the world, not only questionable, but alterable. This personal experience, written in the year 2010 shames the fact that this world has and shows how little progress the world has made in the judgment and discrimination of immigrants. These people look differently, speak differently, and live differently; but on the inside they are the same. Nonetheless, they are looked down upon by people from different cultures. The author uses his personal ethos and pathos to support the claim of value that immigrants are not treated fairly. A claim of value is a claim that is based off of what is right and what is wrong.
For thousands of years people have left their home country in search of a land of milk and honey. Immigrants today still equate the country they are immigrating to with the Promised Land or the land of milk and honey. While many times this Promised Land dream comes true, other times the reality is much different than the dream. Immigration is not always a perfect journey. There are many reasons why families immigrate and there are perception differences about immigration and the New World that create difficulties and often separate generations in the immigrating family. Anzia Yezierska creates an immigration story based on a Jewish family that is less than ideal. Yezierska’s text is a powerful example of the turmoil that is created in the family as a result of the conflict between the Old World and the New World.
“We are a nation of immigrants. We are the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the ones who wanted a better life” said former Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, at the 2012 Republican National Convention. Since its establishment, the United States has grown through immigration, lending to a multicultural society. However, immigration and its government policies have become of great public interest due to illegal immigration at the Mexican border and violent events in the Middle East. For this reason it seems sensible to investigate the lives of immigrants so that U.S. citizens may take a stance on this disputed topic. Regardless of their origins, whether they are from Latin America, Asia, or anywhere else, immigrants seem to encounter similar endeavors. In Jhumpa Lahiri’s collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies, the author depicts the immigration of Indian citizens to the United States. Noting various matters ranging from motives to the cultural identity crisis, Lahiri exposes the struggles and ramifications of American immigration. The collection elucidates the lives of first and second generation
A well-discussed debate among today’s economy is the issues concerning immigrants and their yearning desire to become American citizens. As displayed in The Jungle, a rather perturbing novel about the trials and ruthless temptations early America presents to a Lithuanian family, adjusting to new surrounding and a new way of life is quite difficult. To make matters worse, language barriers and lack of domestic knowledge only seems to entice starvation and poverty among newly acquired citizens, who simply wish to change their social and economic lives to better themselves and their families.
It is true that the more people from different cultures that are in a given area, the more the cultures are diversified. However, with all realities, some claim that immigrants dilute the American culture. Indeed, they cause some changes to the culture. Nevertheless, these changes can bring a wealth of attraction and a source of beauty for the country that everyone should be proud of. It is obvious that every single immigrant in the US has his own culture and way of life. When all these are added together, they form a very rich culture. In addition, they bring various interesting aspects such as food, music, literature, etc. That makes the Americans rich in cultural knowledge. The importance of cultural diversity is that it teaches the people to understand each other’s views, interests, and ideas and helps people view the world in different ways. This would finally lead the society to work towards each other’s interest, mutual goals, and objectives. Tamar Jacoby in his article “Are Today’s Immigrants Assimilating in U.S Society, Yes,” he said that, “Those who are coming now are people who understand cultural fluidity, understand intermarriage and find that a natural, easy thing. This maintains unity and balances in the society” (411). Once this stage is reached, all the problems would be solved. Then it can be said that America has reached a true democracy, echoed by
In the United States, the cliché of a nation of immigrants is often invoked. Indeed, very few Americans can trace their ancestry to what is now the United States, and the origins of its immigrants have changed many times in American history. Despite the identity of an immigrant nation, changes in the origins of immigrants have often been met with resistance. What began with white, western European settlers fleeing religious persecution morphed into a multicultural nation as immigrants from countries across the globe came to the U.S. in increasing numbers. Like the colonial immigrants before them, these new immigrants sailed to the Americas to gain freedom, flee poverty and famine, and make a better life for themselves. Forgetting their origins as persecuted and excluded people, the older and more established immigrants became possessive about their country and tried to exclude and persecute the immigrant groups from non-western European backgrounds arriving in the U.S. This hostile, defensive, and xenophobic reaction to influxes of “new” immigrants known as Nativism was not far out of the mainstream. Nativism became a part of the American cultural and political landscape and helped to shape, through exclusion, the face of the United States for years to come.
As we all know that USA is a country build by immigrants from all over the world, particularly from Europe and South America.
In Marcelo M. Suarez- Orozco and Carola Suarez- Orozco’s article “How Immigrants became “other” Marcelo and Carola reference the hardships and struggles of undocumented immigrants while at the same time argue that no human being should be discriminated as an immigrant. There are millions of undocumented people that risk their lives by coming to the United States all to try and make a better life for themselves. These immigrants are categorized and thought upon as terrorist, rapists, and overall a threat to Americans. When in reality they are just as hard working as American citizens. This article presents different cases in which immigrants have struggled to try and improve their life in America. It overall reflects on the things that immigrants go through. Immigrants come to the United States with a purpose and that is to escape poverty. It’s not simply crossing the border and suddenly having a great life. These people lose their families and go years without seeing them all to try and provide for them. They risk getting caught and not surviving trying to make it to the other side. Those that make it often don’t know where to go as they are unfamiliar. They all struggle and every story is different, but to them it’s worth the risk. To work the miserable jobs that Americans won’t. “I did not come to steal from anyone. I put my all in the jobs I take. And I don’t see any of the Americans wanting to do this work” (668). These
There are many opportunities in America that can improve one’s wealth and power, thus leading to the mass amount of immigrants coming to American. Most immigrants that come to American usually are categorized as the lower class immigrants, but they take any opportunities to improve their economic status. In an article by Howard P. Chudacoff, it states “immigrants generally chose upward paths that led from manual labor into small proprietorships” (Chudacoff 1982: 104). This explains the reason why immigrants choose to come and stay in America. They start out small as laborers then over time they will work to own a small business. Even though immigrants gets to grow to move from the lower class to the middle class, the natives will be always
America is known famously throughout the world with the nickname 'The melting pot.' The reason behind this is that America is extremely diverse and has many different people. Immigrants give America the chance to know the culture of many countries. They bring in their culture, religion, economic benefits, and ideology to America. I believe that the United States should allow legal immigrants from all over the world because they bring many benefits to it. Immigrants are a positive influence on United States of America.
An outburst in growth of America’s big city population, places of 100,000 people or more jumped from about 6 million to 14 million between 1880 and 1900, cities had become a world of newcomers (551). America evolved into a land of factories, corporate enterprise, and industrial worker and, the surge in immigration supplied their workers. In the latter half of the 19th century, continued industrialization and urbanization sparked an increasing demand for a larger and cheaper labor force. The country's transformation from a rural agricultural society into an urban industrial nation attracted immigrants worldwide. As free land and free labor disappeared and as capitalists dominated the economy, dramatic social, political, and economic tensions were created. Religion, labor, and race relations were questioned; populist and progressive thoughts were developed; social Darwinism and nativism movements were launched.
"Immigrants and the American Dream." Society 33.n1 (Nov-Dec 1995):3(3). Expanded Academic ASAP. Thomson Gale University. 26 Sep. 2006.
The general causes of migration are poverty, unemployment, economic stagnation and overpopulation. Accepting immigrants has become a humane cause along with foreign investment in these poor countries with the hope that less people will have to migrate. U.S. investment in the global economy has had the reverse affect though, encouraging people to move along with the flow of capital, goods, and services. Saskia Sassen’s article, Why Migration, points out that the “open nature of the U.S. labor market, epitomized by the notion that government should stay out of the marketplace, provides a necessary condition for immigration to occur.”(Why Migration, p.15). The new immigrants from Asian and Caribbean countries have different reasons for migrating. Many of these new migrants do not come from poor countries as previously thought. Many migrant-sending countries had been experiencing increasing economic growth. South Korea had one of the highest gross national products in the 1970's and also was sending a record amount of migrants to the U.S. at the time. These people were migrating towards the promise of freedom and prosperity. In the 1980's the U.N. reported that the U.S. was receiving 19% of all global emigration.(Why Migration, p.15). The U.S.’ foreign investment in export production has disturbed the traditional systems of many countries, displacing subsistence farmers so that commercial agriculture can thrive and produce more exports. Sassen says that the results are that “people first uprooted from traditional ways of life, then left unemployed and unemployable as export firms hire younger workers or move production to other countries, may see few options but emigration.”(Why Migration, p.17). Another cause for migration to the U.S. was the attractive prospect of an abundance of low wage jobs which U.S. citizens were not very interested in. Even educated and skilled immigrants have filled these low wage jobs when they first get to the U.S. These immigrants provide crucial and necessary services for the U.S. citizens and therefore should be welcomed by everyone.
In the 1990s the United States of America was marked with an incredible surge of immigration from the territories of former Soviet Union. “Liberated” émigrés decided to take a chance, leaving everything they had behind in pursuit of a better life. They brought with them education, numerous skills and talents. Their difficulties, however, including a foreign language, their age and inability to quickly adapt their social attitudes to new values, bogged down their feat to succeed in conquering the “American Dream” (Fox 79). Overcoming aforementioned obstacles, the responsibility of creating own fortunes and great accomplishments is now inherited by the second-generation of immigrants.
Her message on the different reasons why immigrants come to new countries and cultures is highly perceived in her story. Her use of rhetorical devices helps success her in her story. The usage of ethos, storytelling, word choice and structure played a major role in aiding her beliefs and illustrating them to her audience. Ethos helped her compare her and her sister’s beliefs on their culture and lifestyle in India and America. Storytelling made it possible for readers to connect with her thoughts and stay entertained throughout the paper. Her word choice and structure also helped the outline of the story and made her beliefs sound more