Immigration & Racial/Ethnic Interpersonal Violence (Facilitation 1)

SAE: CH. 4 IMMIGRATION; ECONOMIC MIGRATION
Stephen Burman

Diversity

• Immigrants from 200 countries migrated into USA in 2005
• “Universal society”
• More diverse and multicultural
• Challenges existing social order

Economic Affects

• Creates economic dynamism
• Cheap labor
• Provide skills in demand
• Help American economy grow
• Economic migration helps develop economies and revitalizes rich countries, such as the USA.
• Social patterns challenged

“America is… adopting a suspicious, closed mentality that sees immigrations as a threat. Social tension has increased as many Americans feel that immigrants are taking their jobs, and taking advantage of welfare payments.”

“Migrants not only perform jobs at the bottom of the economic scale – dirty, demeaning, difficult, and dangerous jobs that Americans do not want”

IVUS: CH. 13 RACIAL AND EHTNIC INTERPERSONAL VIOLENCE
Barbara Chasin

“Many acts of violence can be interpreted as mechanisms for the maintenance of accustomed hierarchies” and power.

Bias Crimes Hate Crimes Ethnoviolence

• Targets are those who threaten identity, beliefs, values, and possessions
  Peer pressure

“I have a reputation as a tough guy who defends the neighborhood and I want to keep it. People know when you’ve taken care of people who don’t belong in the neighborhood"
Pop Culture feeds the urge to defend one’s self
Popular culture, films, television, and advertising influence people to believe stereotypes that label whole groups

• Economic downturns and tragedy make people fearful and anxious; it causes them to blame others for their unemployment, financial struggles, etc; “Scapegoat”

ANALYSIS

Burman recognizes that immigration creates a more diverse and multicultural society, but that is all he mentions. Since there are people from different countries present in America does that mean America is diverse and multicultural? What does he mean by diverse and multicultural because it also seems like he sees immigrants as inferior, and that is not how multiculturalism should be viewed. Along with this idea of a diverse society, he recognizes the economic benefit and how it revitalizes rich countries like America.

He creates a binary between immigrants and “dirty, demeaning, difficult, and dangerous jobs;” cheap labor. He says America’s conception of itself is a universal society; open and welcoming, and it is to some degree but with his words it seems like America is taking advantage of these immigrants and giving them the jobs Americans do not want. Why does this binary exist?

Although Burman believes immigrants benefit the economy, others believe they are taking away opportunities of economic prosperity, and this is why hate crimes are committed. With these two readings you see the different perceptions of immigration, and racial and ethnic people of America. People feel they need to defend what they believe is rightfully theirs and they blame others for their misfortunes; they blame minority groups, “undesirable human beings,” “despised ethnic groups.”

Chasin mentions a story of a woman who resents the fact that she has lived in Jersey City her whole life but can barely pay rent while Indians come and buy property. Automatically I defend the Indians, they have every right, but as I thought about it more, in a sense, I can relate. When I think of home, of Hawaii, I think of people who did not grow up in Hawaii crowding the island, destroying its natural beauty and developing its land, people who do not have respect for the land, who overlook the culture and only see Hawaii for its scenery and luaus. I started to feel resentment myself because to me Hawaii is so much more, but I stopped and I realized the only people who should have a say in this and whose words really do matter are the Native Hawaiians; and here on the mainland, the Native Americans. Not the locals, not someone who has lived there their whole lives, not me, but the indigenous people of the land. This was a real eye opener for me. Growing up on Maui really made me appreciate everything about Hawaii culture and I have grown attached to it, even protective but that does not mean I can say who can and cannot live on the islands.