Paul Dudson
Blog 6 – Crossing Borders
The world is constantly changing, and it’s not surprising
that most economically developed countries are seeing an influx of migrants
coming to their country to work and live. Being from England, a day doesn’t go
past when immigrants/migrants are mentioned on the news or in the papers.
Unfortunately, what is being mentioned in the news is not necessarily positive.
I never used to take much notice of how many migrants/immigrants were entering
England, until I would go back to England for holidays and would notice many
people living in England from different countries and minorities had grown each
year. I personally feel that people should be allowed to enter a country as
long as they are bring something positive to that country, not to just get free
benefits, which is what usually happens when people come to England.
Today, “more people are
on the move today crossing cultural boundaries and national borders than ever
before in the history of mankind. In 2009, more than 214 Million people lived
outside their country of origin, and currently 940 million tourists have
crossed international borders as tourists.
” (United Nations world Tourism Organization, 2011)
There is a slight difference in the term migrants. Migrants
are people that move from one place to another, one culture to another. This
can be either voluntary migration, in which he person has chosen to move.
People who do not choose to move and after often forced to by war in their
countries are called involuntary migrants. Many migrants will try and leave
one’s country and move to another to better their lives and often give their
children a better upbringing. The problem is that sometimes, they do not go
about it the legal way, which is why there can be such negativity with people
coming to live in another country.
Potts said “there are
three waves of migration that have happened over the years. The first wave can
be traced back to the European Colonial period in the 16th Century
through the 19th Century. Thousands of Migrants sailed out of ports
in Europe for colonies in Africa, Asia and the Americas.” (Potts, 1990)
Castles & Miller
explained that “the second wave of migration took place rom the mid -1800s to
the early 1900’s during the industrial revolution. Many peasants fled European
countries fleeing poverty, famine and migrated to other areas in Europe and
North and South America.” (Castles & Miller, 2003)”
Hammer said “the third
wave of migration following WW2 saw large numbers of Jews leaving Europe for
Israel and America. Guest worker programs were started by many countries to
help bring in labor from other countries as wok forces were cut short due to
the war. Many people from countries which were once colonized would move to
that country to start a new life and help with the labor”. (Hammer, 1995)
In terms of labor and countries producing labor workers,
migrants can be divided into either high or low skilled labors. Low skilled
labors are usually from poorer countries, such as the Philippines, India and
Vietnam, in which many people work in factories. High skilled workers on the
other hand migrate away from their countries and usually end up in Western
Europe and America, to take on more complex jobs.
Macro
Level Theories
“Migrants
are variations of Push Pull Factors”, first articulated by a British
Geographer in the late 1800s. Push
factors are seen as factors which force a person to leave their current
place, such as economic hardship, famine, war or persecution. Pull factors are seen as things that
encourage and draw people to want to move and live in a different area, such as
better way of life, more work opportunities, better living, better education.
Today the United States is describes as the melting pot,
popularized by Jewish immigrant Isreal Zangwill. The constant influx of
migrants from all over the world coming to American in the early 1900s has
created a multicultural society that is constantly growing and changing.
Micro
Level Theories
A study was taken by a study abroad
program of Norwegian students travelling to America. Norwegian researcher
Sverre Lysgaard, 1955, noted three significant stages in cultural adaption. The
first was Anticipation, the
excitement and what they thought it would be like. The second was Culture shock, being unfamiliar to a
certain environment. The Third stage was Adjustment
in which the students were able to encode what certain objects where and relate
to verbal, norms, values and behaviors. This was called the U –Curve Model.
Meso Level Theories
Meso level theories aim to analyze
the connections between micro and macro level theories. Theories of
organizations, social movements, or communities are often at this level. Basch
felt that “today, migrants maintain
connections to more than one nation, community, and location, reinforcing,
breaking and rebuilding collective identities of migrant networks across
national boundaries”. (Basch, Blanc, & Schiller, 1994)
There are many positives and negatives that can happen when a
country take in migrants from other countries. There are the benefits of
getting some very intellectual, hardworking people who want to come and benefit
a country. On the negative side, which I tend to see a lot more off, it seems
that a lot of migrants tend to come to England as we are very generous with our
benefit system and tend to allow pretty much anyone into our country. As a
result, many ethnic minorities tend to group together and often refuse to adapt
to our way of life and culture. They will often feel a national identity to their home country and will often refuse to
integrate with the local culture. This often causes many problems as locals and
migrants usually stay away from each other causing tension and prejudices
towards the other culture. In England
one problem that is happens is many Muslims are trying to enforce their
religion into British society and wanting the laws to be changed. I feel that
this isn’t right because we are allowing people to come to our culture and helping
them out, but all they are doing is either not want to help our country, or
spread the word of hate against our country. I understand it is not all of
Muslims, but if you watch this video below, it doesn’t take much to make you
angry watching it. I often wonder how I would be treated if I were to go to
their country and start demanding the Christian laws be in place.
As Tony Morrison pointed out, our
world in motion requires “Us to come to terms with being, fearing, and
accepting Strangers”. (Riding, 2006)
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