Illegal Immigration

Coming from a small southern town, I’m a closed minded person to the idea of outsiders. On the outskirts of Russellville, Alabama, there’s a chicken processing plant, which has drawn a huge interests to illegal immigrants to that town and it’s surrounding area. I’ve been drawn to the topic of illegal immigration for a few years now. My stepmom came from Germany but is a legal citizen. Getting my chance to explore how and why they come to the United States is what drew me to this topic. It’s hard to be against illegal immigration without sounding racists against the races that do that. It’s just unfair to people that actually do come into the states, legally and I believe that it should be stopped. With people coming to America they go through many dangerous stages to get here. 

"In October of 2013, more than 52,000 children, most who weren’t accompanied by adults, were taken into custody for trying to cross the border. President Barack Obama, gave out 4 billion dollars to settle the problem and congress encouraged people to not send their children to America. “'U.N. high safety commissioner for refugees found that 58% of he unaccompanied children are motivated by safety concerns fearing conditions back home'”(NPR). In Honduras, it’s the fear of gang violence and drugs. In Guatemala, it’s poor economy. No matter where they’re from most of the people who are traveling to the United States are wanting to reunite with their family. While it’s a long shot to reunite with their family without getting caught, it does happen. If it’s a small child or a women, they use smugglers if the family can afford it. On average to smuggle a child it’s three grand(which way home). Smugglers, only in it for the large sum of money, give both sides of the family false hope. They tell the family that they will make it safe and sound but in reality, they rape, beat, and rob the person they’re smuggling. In 2012 President Obama, made the decision that dreamers(minors who are brought in as small children) should not be deported. Republicans said that this is adding fuel to the fire. It’s giving the family that’s still on the other side of the boarder, false hope that they can come into america and not be deported, just like their child(NPR). Everything for everyone is just false hope. Illegal immigrants come to America to live the american dream, they’re not going to get that. Children come to America to escape the poverty and hard home life, they’re going to run into the same problem here. 

The rate of illegal immigrants is rising and falling in states. They found that the northern states such as, new jersey, maryland and 5 other states. The fall of illegal immigrants in the other 14 states is believed to be due to the economy taking a turn for the worst. But since the economy has come back up, border control has picked back up because the hispanic illegal immigrants has also picked back up. The senate has passed a bill that orders border control to step up and encourage people the path to citizenship. Border control misses 16% of illegals trying to cross the border.(Immigration Policy) 

There is a reoccurring pattern when talking about illegal immigration, it’s children. Watching the documentary film, Which Way Home, it focused on the story of how specifically children crossed the border. They knew doing a documentary on children in danger would be more attention grabbing than having adults go through the same process. While crossing the border, people frequently die. 10 to 20 out of 100 die from the traveling. The trip that can start at the Mexican-Guatemalan border is over fifteen hundred miles long. In the documentary, they follow two boys from Honduras, Kevin(14) and Fito(13), for a majority of the film. They both want to go to America so someone can adopt them and they can go to work or get an education. To make it all the way to the Mexican border, they ride a train. Freight trains prohibit people from riding the trains but thousands of people get on them and that’s too many people to enforce the rule on. If they make it through the Mexican border they will have to make it through the desert, whether it be in America or Mexico. Many people don’t make it through the desert, such as Eloy and Rosaria. Eloy(13), and Rosaria(16) from Mexico, after a month of leaving Mexico, were walking through the Arizona desert, also known as Sonoran Desert, and died from exposure. They both wanted to go to America to study. Rosaria was found 6 months later and blood had to be drawn to get correct DNA and verify it was him. Making it to the border, like Eloy and Rosaria did was very impressive, people have to pass 5 immigration checkpoints. The producer asked Kevin and Fito to meet up at the next stop but they never showed up. Asking around, people knew the boys. Most of the older people say that they don’t like how young children do this, they think it’s dangerous and they don’t understand at being such a young age that it’s not to be romanticized.Two weeks later, Kevin and Fito were found cold and hungry in the desert. They wandered off from the group because they were frustrated. Immigration had them deported back to Honduras. Before immigration got ahold of them the cops beat them, and robbed them.(Which Way Home)

While people struggle with being deported, the rise of drugs are a problem. Kevin and Fito, along with other young boys, smoked cigarette butts they found on the ground while stopped at the train stations. Yurico(16) does drugs, such as drinking/sniffing glue to get a high. He does drugs because he believes people screw him over and it’s his only way out. Not only do people do drugs, they have drug cartels to bring drugs into the United States. That causes problems for us as a country. Even though more drugs come to the US, the crime rates do decline. According to the immigration policy website, the decline was 45% from 1990 to 2010.(Immigration Policy)

When determining someone’s immigration status, they have to class it as 3 different things, non-immigration, immigration and dual intent. Non-immigration is when you only want to be in the US for a small amount of time for business. While being a non-immigrant, you can have multiple visas but can only use them one at a time. While you may have a visa, police officers can deny you access if they believe you are trying to just live in the US. Immigration is when you move to the US and live her. You would be called a green-card holder or a resident alien. To go through this process, which costs money, you have to hire an immigration attorney. Dual intent is complicated and the least used out of the 3. Many people use dual intent as a way of having a visa but staying in the US as a permeant resident of the US.(Berkeley University) "States such as Alabama use SAFE, which stands for Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements"(Immigration Policy). It's a quick way to find out if someone is having immigration documentation at that time of day. While you're able to find that out, it doesn't say if you're here legally or not. If they find you are not any of these things, they deport you back to your home.(Immigration Policy)

Even though my views have not changed that much it does give me a sense of what’s going on. I believe that it’s wrong that people come to the United States illegally while thousands of other people go through the process of actually becoming a citizen of the US. I did find it surprising that people would target children in such a large way as a way to get through to people like in the advocacy film, which way home. Children don’t understand that what they’re doing is illegal and breaking the law and it’s sad that people don’t teach them. I didn’t know what people did to get across the border before this and I didn’t realize how long the trip was. I found the film, which way home the most helpful along with an article on why illegal immigration was happening from NPR. They both were different views and it helped me compare and contrast the two of them while learning things about this topic. 

This is a sign is for people traveling and warning them that it's common to encounter illegal immigrants 

These people are climbing the fence to cross the border 

This is a scene from which way home on people riding the train

This is illegal immigrants riding the train to cross each border

This is a picture of how some of the border is secure but not all of it and how much it costs to build

Berkeley - Immigration status determination

While during the research, I had to find out how someone is classified as an immigrant or an illegal and it was a short and simple explanation. It was from Berkeley University so it is credible as a source 

Immigration Policy - SAFE

Along with having to find how someone is classified as a citizen, I found that a lot of states use SAFE, which I had never heard of before now. It explained what SAFE was and how it was operated. It gave both pros and cons to the program and I found that helpful. This is a credible source because it's from immigration policy website. 

PEWhispanic - which states are having immigration

 This told which states had an increase or decrease of illegal immigrants and when all of the immigrants started coming in. 

Washington Post - why the immigration is happening

This article was very informative on how immigration is on the rise again. While the article was from a few years ago, it gives an accurate reading from the past and what was going on during that point.

NPR - why immigration is happening

This was one of my most used sources and it was very useful when comparing and contrasting this and another documentary. It gave the answer to the question I was having and it was straight forward with it 

Immigration Policy - crime rate

This is another thing from the immigration policy website and it helped me with the crime rates and where the most or least crime has been over a period of 20 years

Which Way Home - HBO documentary - Netflix link

This is one of the documentaries that I watched and I found the most interesting. It was an advocacy film so it gave a different view than a political view 

Which Way Home - HBO documentary

This is the website for the documentary and it explains everything about the film  

Cinderella Man

       While the movie Cinderella Man takes place in the Great Depression, it’s more about James Braddock and how he overcame his struggle with the hardships. The movie is heartfelt and you feel more of a connection with James Braddock than focusing on the Great Depression time era. While it does show us how it was hard during that time period, it shows more of James Braddock and his fairytale ending. 

James Braddock had a string of bad luck in this time of his life. First being hit with the stock market crash, losing most of his money that way, breaking his hand, which lead to having his boxing license revoked. While the Great Depression went on, so did James Braddock, who worked hours upon hours at the docks just to put food on the table for his family. Cinderella had to do much of the same thing. While Cinderella had the support of few, James still had a fan base, friends, children, and his wife to help him. During the movie, you see James struggle constantly with sending his children away and having to live with not being able to support the household. While he made a promise to his kids, his wife goes being his back and sends them away. James mans up and goes out and asks for help from his fellow coworkers which can hurt a mans pride in these situations. These things that James does to help is family is what makes this movie more of a fairytale then spreading facts about the time period. 

The movie captures your attention by the story of James Braddock but not about the time period. The Great Depression is more of background noise than anything else. If this would have happened in the 1940s or 1950s it wouldn't have been been as big of a deal. While touching on the subject of hardships, the director chose to show more of the story of James since that’s what the purpose of the movie is about. If the movie focused more on the Great Depression and how hard it was for James to take control of his life again, it most likely wouldn’t have been as successful.

Successful movies a lot of the time have action in it, even if its stretching the truth. Cinderella Man did end up doing that to one of its characters.

While making the story about James Braddock and his “Cinderella ending” they had to make some of the characters less appealing and more aggressive. Max Baer was one of the victims that fell into the category. To make the story more of a Cinderella, they had to make someone the antagonist. While the Great Depression was already a main problem, they needed a human. Max Baer, probably a nice guy, was portrayed as a heartless, egotistical man, who was out for blood. The director did this for the sake of the movie. This makes James Braddock a weak guy compared to Max. Max Baer was only doing the same this as James Braddock, he was just more aggressive in his style of fighting and that made him an easy target to become the bad guy. They also made the Star of David, on Max's shorts, less noticeable because Jews are more prone to fall victim to being called weak and they could;t have Max being that. They needed Max to be mean and cruel so James could have the spotlight of being the weak one and being the underdog. Cinderella has her evil stepmom and stepsisters, James had to have his own, which was Max. And it wouldn’t be a Cinderella story without having a fairy god mother, which was James’s manager, Joe. He got James the fight and he believed in him. Joe made James Braddock into Cinderella. 

While James Braddock got his fairytale ending, it wasn't just at the expense of losing a job, it was his life. Without becoming Cinderella in a sense, who knows what would have happened to both him and his family. He fought for control over his life and he won. James Braddock in this movie, teaches everyone that you just have to keep trying and fighting until you win. If you give up, like James Braddock could have done after he broke his hand, he wouldn’t have gone on to win the Heavyweight Championship and defeat Max Baer. The things that James goes onto do makes this story Cinderella and keeps inspiring people to fight for want. 

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute trip

   I learned a lot about the 16th street baptist church in greater detail than what I knew before the field trip. I also learned more about the KKK and the children's march as well. It's much more realistic and springing how bad it was. I felt much more emotional than what I did when I just read from a page in the text book to actually seeing video and all the other things in the museum. It didn't change my perspective on it, just that it was much more upsetting because of what when on and how violent it was. The value of seeing this is person makes it more real and you can connect much more with it instead of just seeing it on a screen or a piece of paper. You can touch and stand where stuff happened and it draws more connection to what is going on and makes you remember better. You can read stuff that happened 50 years ago but you when you get to be there it's a much better experience. I felt that if we wouldn't have had the snow days and had been stressed out that it would have been much more fun and relaxing(as much as it can be with it having the history that it does) but it was a fun trip

Changing in the Medical Fields

    If we were still in the era for people to claim that they were professional doctors, we would be a train wreck. Mortality rates would be sky high, birth rates would be very low. They would be cutting people up for the fun of it and then they would get the money and run. Due to people faking to being doctors, they had to come up with something to weed out the fakes and the real doctors. One way they did that was to make the American Medical Association, also known as the AMA, an actual thing and enforce what they brought to the table.

    Founded in 1847, the AMA, was a very helpful thing. People who were fakes, were put to the test to see how well they could fake it, and the real doctors were able to keep going and get a license. Without the license, doctors weren't able to have their own practice or work under anyone else. When someone was sick they wanted someone they could trust with their life and not have to worry about fakes. To put people's mind to ease, they created the AMA, which in turn gave the people what they wanted, which was security. The AMA was able to create the code of medical ethics. The code of medical ethics was something doctors had to have in order to get their license. In the code of medical ethics there were three components; professional education, professional training, and professional conduct. There were other steps that they had to take before they could even get to the code of medical ethics.

     In May of 1846, there was a national convention held for everyone. In that meeting there was standard code of ethics developed, the adoption of courses for premedical education, and the creation of the AMA. The educational standards were that they had to have a "liberal education in arts and science, a certificate of completion before medical college , and a MD degree that covered 3 years of study, including 2 6-month lecture sessions, 3 months devoted to dissection, and a minimum of one 6-month session of hospital attendance".(According to nlm.nih.gov) In 1852, they had a revision, "medical schools had to provide 16 week course of instruction that included anatomy, medicine, surgery, midwifery, and chemistry. Graduates had to be atlas 21 years of age, students had to complete a minimum of 3 years of study, 2 years of which are under an acceptable practitioner"(According to nlm.nih.gov)

      The government was feeling pressure from people because the people of America were very unsure of if people they were getting help from was helpful and who they say they were. "The US congress acted to outlaw certain industrial payments or other inducements to physicians. [...] the response to those covered by professional societies, industry, and governments."(According to nlm.nih.gov).

      The roles of persuasion, communication, and collaboration were very clear in this situation. The persuasion came from the people convincing everyone that the american medical association was needing to be founded. Communication was people telling everyone about the american medical association and the government being informed about everything. Then lastly collaboration was used because they had to come together and create a system for people to use to get their license.

      During this process of learning about the coming about of sorting fake and real doctors out I learned what the process was then and how it has changed so much overtime. I found the sources were harder to find for this project as well. Overall this project was harder but I learned about things I didn't know before then.

the ama's logo

the old ama building















a piece of paper from the ama

talking about the founder of the ama

new ama building

http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/about-ama/our-history.page?

http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/about-ama/our-history/ama-history-timeline.page?

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001936.htm

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3765103?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22944/

http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/about-ama/our-history/history-ama-ethics.page

How do you analyze a political cartoon?

If I were to analyze a political cartoon right now I would start by looking over the cartoon, distinguish the person, look at the captions and try to think about what has happened with the people or things that were in the cartoon.

loc

In the guide it says to describe what we see, what you notice at first, notice what people/objects that are shown, what words are drawn, how would this look different if it was photo, what do you see that might refer to another piece of art, what is in the picture that would be a symbol, what other details do you see?

Spanish Misrule

loc

Stanford

http://powayusd.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/online/virtualcivics/Sp-Am.%20War%20Documents_files/image016.jpg

Speech

Walking into this class at the beginning of the year, I had the mindset of every typical teenager, “This class is gonna be boring” or “Why do we need to learn this? They’re all dead anyway.” As the first week went on I was shocked to find out that one of our first project was to watch the movies, “12 Years a Slave” and “Glory” unlike every other class we had where it was review. 

My favorite and the most pleasantly surprised part was how horses were such a big part of the Native American culture. If horses wouldn’t have played such a part of the Natives lives then they wouldn’t be a part of the American Culture. As a quote from my paper, “  Indians bred the most well known horses known to date in America.” If they wouldn’t have bred those horses, there would be no entertainment containing horses such as rodeos or Kentucky Derbies. The one thing I was unpleasantly surprised with the United States was how they treated the Industrial Workers. The higher ups could have gone about cutting wages and laying off workers differently but they didn’t. Instead they cut some workers pay and raised the rent up to 25%, that’s bound to put anyone out on the streets if they weren’t financially stable before that. 

In 10 years from now, I will probably still remember the horrid and vivid images from “12 Years a Slave”. I won’t forget house Solomon was treated as property and I won’t ever understand why someone would treat him badly and others treat him okay, or how Soloman had respect for the man who held him captive. In his journal he praises William Ford, “There never was a more kind, noble, candid Christian man than William Ford.” Along with slavery came Racism. Racism is something that Americans still continue to struggle with. The Huffington's Post has an article titled, “More White Americans Believe in Racism than Ghosts”. So many people believe in ghosts but more people believe that racism is real. Racism has been one of the many problems America has struggled with and they will continue to struggle with it for many years to come. 

If I were to name the time era for 1865-1920 I would name it “The Migration”. During that time period more than 25 million people immigrated to the United States. This helped the time period out a lot because they were able to recruit workers in the industry. And even though they were sent out in hard work areas, they were able to say that they worked and lived in America. 

Having history in our schedule at school may seem pointless and boring at first glance but then you come to find out the good aspects of your country and the bad aspects and you learn how the people before us built the country to what we are to this day. It makes it more interesting to learn about when you think about how we could’ve been a totally different country if it weren’t for certain people. 

Thinking About Success

 I think that with hard work, skill, opportunity, and luck that you would be successful in the economy. Being successful in a job or anything comes with hard work. If you don't have the will to work, or you want to do it lazily then you won't have success. Skill is also important, even if you don't have skill in the start of your job, if you keep working hard you will gain your skill. Having opportunities in the job world means that you can get further faster in your job. If a good job opportunity arises then you would jump on it and you might get it if you have the will to work hard, and the skill that comes with working hard. Lastly to be the most successful is luck. To be lucky means that you just happen to be at the right place at the right time, it doesn't mean that you're going to continue with your lucky streak.