Immigration then and today. Written by an American

Immigration has made America the melting pot it is today. Beginning as early as the 1600’s the first immigrants settled in the United States looking for various things amongst most were freedom. Immigration has continued to present day, legal and illegal, and it is still continuing to shape the social climate of America today. Many immigrants were met with hostility from being different and each group shares a unique story of their experience in the new world. Even today, most individuals in America connect with their homeland and are proud of their heritage. It is commonplace to see Puerto Rican and Italian flags on people’s cars and t-shirts, or a Mexican flag flying on a flagpole. These individuals are proud and because they are in America have the right to share that pride with the rest of the country. My family does not identify with our heritage too much and consider ourselves Americans. My parent’s parents were born in American and they consider themselves American. We have all grown up here and believe this is our home. We are respectful of our earlier heritage but identify with America the most. Instead of speaking about a personal immigration story in this blog I am going to discuss the experiences that my family, Italians, experienced when immigrating to America, and an issue Obama is dealing with right now concerning immigration.

Most Italians who migrated to America had agricultural skills, which were rendered useless because the cheap land in America had been bought up by the time Italians landed. These individuals were forced to move to more urban areas and take on lower level jobs such as shoe shining, rag picking, and sewer cleaning. Italians would accept any job that anyone else wouldn’t do. Most Italians would settled all over the US based on where they originated from and did not hesitate to mix in with non-Italians descendents. Italians are very proud of their homeland and have kept much of their culture in tact while in America; included their food, drink, art, and family values. Most Italians came to America with the idea of staying briefly only to earn money and then return to Italy, but only 1 in 4 ended up leaving due to the war or personal preference.

Currently, President Obama is facing several issues concerning immigration in the United States. “There are roughly 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States. In addition to making a way for some of them to stay in the country legally, CNN has learned the Obama administration wants to remove incentives to enter the U.S. illegally, beef up border security and work with Mexico to cut down on illegal immigration.” (Lothian and Hornick) Many argue that Obama is taking on too much, too soon in his presidency and that he should be focusing on the economic climate in America. Obama supporters believe that “this actually is a good time to bring it up because immigration is tied so closely with our economy and what drives economic growth is economic development." (Lothian and Hornick) It is said that if these illegal immigrants were given rights that they would be able to come out from the dark and purchase homes, and goods that would in return stimulate the economy. After watching the video in class and learning of the strict rules we had for immigrants in the beginning I cannot believe we could go form that to allowing illegal immigrants to live in America. Many of these immigrants are uneducated and will drain government funding through social security and other benefits. America is also becoming too crowded and this would only promote more illegal immigration. I do believe it’s a good thing that Obama is tackling the issue of immigration because it is pertinent given our current economy.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/09/obama.immigration/index.html