Transnational Immigrants in a Global Society - Essay Example

Transitional Immigrants in a Global Society Ideally, it was expected by social scholars that Globalization would establish the concept of universal brotherhood on a stronger foundation. They thought that despite several elements of socio-cultural changes people will be able to learn that they belong to one society. Unfortunately, however, ideal remains an ideal and it is never possible to attain the idealism standing over the plain of earthly reality. The greatest obstacle that people faced in the attainment of the idealist social reflection was discriminatory approach towards each other. An individual, belonging to one ethnic background does not receive a human welcome to another ethnicity. On one hand he carries the stains of his culture with him and on the other hand when he is prevented from being considered a part of the new society, he automatically finds himself alienated. The sense of missing his own root, his culture, elements of his upbringing, recognition in his own society and the total sense of fulfillment is incited. Pondering over the current structure of the US society this sense of being unfulfilled becomes more explicit. Modern US society can be regarded as a perfect example of the global society where people from different ethnic background, from different nations have gathered with the aspiration to introduce new changes to their lives, to aspire for a better future. Most of the time, such feelings are generated from the perspective of attaining a better fortune rather than love for the nation. However such aspiration for attaining materialist gain could not subdue their spontaneous longing for their upbringing and culture. Such social alienation most of time gives birth to existentialist angst and they, consequently, also develop a feeling of hostility against that particular society. In the course of understanding what kind of problems can occur at the psychical level of an individual who, though is living in the US but transcends often to hi original existence, we have met Rina, a 34 years old lady, who has come down to the US for the purpose of completing her higher studies. While meeting frequently with her I have asked Rina several questions about her feeling over her stay at the US, her feelings about lifestyle in the new society and how she finds it different from her ethnic Indian upbringing. It is a quite common conviction transitional immigration is an entirely political phenomenon but the main impact of transitional immigration over socio cultural aspects of a nation most of the time has been ignored. In this context Reed Ueda has observed, “Transitional migration fulfills the new understanding of diaspora. The concept no longer describes forced exile, in the classic definition that arouse out of the expulsion of the Jews from ancient Palestine, but rather the experience by a people of widespread dispersion across international space in which the dispersed group, rather than the nation-state of residence, becomes the primary focus of activity and meaning …. Transitional migration creates social formations that span borders, and involves relations bringing together homelands, receiving societies, ethnic groups in the diaspora. In consequence, dense webs of transitional social fields are created that brings together the migrant, those he or she has left behind, and possibly other migrants, who may be friends or kin, in yet another receiving society….” (Ueda, 2006, p. 226) So, according to such observation transitional immigration has a lot of good things to offer to a particular society, a particular culture but consequently a receiving society also has a great role to play when it comes to fulfillment of the total process. On most of the occasion the last condition is not satisfied and the whole process remains unfulfilled. Rina migrated to the land of United States of America almost two years back. She is basically from Mumbai and was born and brought up in a quite affluent family. Though she was from a small family background but the place she used to reside, a housing complex, along with several other families, they all used to live like a total giant family. After coming to US she said that she missed the togetherness very much. She also clearly mentioned it is not that America is devoid of the culture of togetherness or people in this country encourage the social separatism aspect. The place where she is staying in a flat with two other girls is a friendly locality but the residents are aboriginally of US ethnic backdrop. She feels it is not that people in her locality are hostile to her but they also express a kind of desperate indifference towards her. Over this span of two years of stay in that place she has been invited by the neighbors on several occasions. Though she has tried her level best to mix with them properly but others have expressed the same indifference or ignorance towards her. She recalls that such treatment can only be compared with the behavior of a person if he receives an unwanted guest at an unwanted point of time in his house. While receiving such responses from her I was wondering that Rina, being an individual from Indian ethnic background is receiving a much better treatment than the migrants from Arabic ethnic background people. Thea Renda Abu El-Haj has observed in this context, “For Palestinian youth living in this era of intifada (the Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation) and post-September 11 politics, navigating everyday life in schools and communities is often a difficult task….At moments conflicts arise between Palestinian (and other Arab) students and their teachers and non-Arab peers because of significantly different perspectives on global politics.” (Abu El-Haj, 2007, p. 285-86) Rina was not very sure about the actual reason for such approach of discrimination, intentional or unintentional, against her but she commented that somehow she feels that people with aboriginal American ethnic background feels that they are the most sophisticated people. Culturally, politically and socially they are much superior to any other individual in the whole world. People with different skin color and different approach to interact or other types of social approaches, in their eyes, either abnormal or they don’t have minimum eligibility to receive social dignity or they are responsible for occurrence of any kind of all sorts of bad things in the world. It is such type of anticipation; rather illogical speculation that is creating a distance between the transitional immigrants and people of the receiving society that is creating a distance between people as Rina has observed. At the same time there is no denial of the fact that it is such approaches from the people of the US society that people are failing to understand each other and at the same time the society is deprived of being facilitated by the benefits of transitional immigration. This issue of inter-social discrimination has received a great deal of focus by the intellectual section of the US society and it also received a great deal of media coverage. In this context we can cite for a story “The Kindness of Strangers” that was published in the New York Times. The story opens with the lines that exactly echo the impression that Rina received through her 2 years of living in the US and she has also suggested that people with different linguistic, cultural and social upbringing actually receive a very derogatory treatment that is completely contradictory to the minimum level of human dignity, “THE young couple knocks on the heavy wooden door. They are weary and the hour is late; it is bitterly cold. The husband says: En nombre del cielo, os pido posada, in the name of heaven, I ask thee for lodging. From behind the door comes the answer: Este no es meson, sigan adelante, yo no debo abrir, sea algun tunante, this is not an inn, move along, I shouldnt open up, it may be a thief.” (Martinez, 2004, p. 19) It is not that the situation is harsh like this and migrants are always treated in the same manner. On many occasion this harshness of reality comes forth and on others an undercurrent of discrimination keeps flowing that may not be seen through our mortal eyes but it can very well be perceived. Facing such diverse and repeated approaches of discrimination from the receiving society migrants like “…Jose and Maria will finally be recognized for who they are: pilgrims seeking shelter on the road, faces that serve as mirrors to our own.” (Martinez, 2004, p. 21) Rina also said that she does not find that reason that why the people seek to find traits of criminality among others like her. She is still ready to accept the aspects like social discrimination or exposure of desperate racial superiority but finding of the traits of criminality in any person in such manner, she strongly asserted, infuriates her. While discussing over this particular aspect she clearly suggested that if something in the US approach she really despises then it such particular kind of approach. She recounts that on various occasions she herself has tried her level best to make things better in her locality and she desperately searched for the same kind of coziness that she used to find in her place at Mumbai but all those efforts were of no effect. In this session of discussion at certain point of time Rina seemed to be absolutely disgusted with her existence in this new world and she expressed her uncertain situation clearly when she was desperate to know if there is possible solution to come out of this situation at all or not? Prior to her migrating in the US, she had different positive notions about the US liberalism or sense of freedom of the individuals. It seemed that she is extremely sorry to say that all her preconceived notions have been deconstructed and she does not feel good anyways about it. She asked what is the reason to boost over these aspects of liberalism and elevating these aspects to the level of myth at the psyche of people across the globe? Rina’s earnest questioning has been further emphasized by Patricia Sa´nchez as she comments, “Indeed, a more relevant and intriguing set of questions to ask of education today is: What are students who are engaged global citizens already learning in their spheres beyond urban schools? And how can we as educators learn from them?” (Sa´nchez, 2007, p. 490) Though Sa´nchez has asked this question at a more specific arena but the essence of eagerness on part of the both of them is similar. Society is progressing, human civilization is at the heightened level of its success but when it comes to the acceptance of immigrants like an integral part of the society, the basic biased approach of the common people becomes explicit. No matter how much we talk about education and further learning but unless we are enabling us according to the self-taught procedure it will never be possible for us to accept people belonging to diffident ethnic background as our own people. Appendix: Questionnaire Questions Asked to Rina: 1. What difference you find between India and United States of America? 2. Do you think that the factor of togetherness does not exist among the US people? 3. Do to encourage social segregation? 4. Why do you think that immigrants are discriminated in the US? 5. Do you think that aboriginal US citizens think them superior than others? 6. Do you think that American notion about liberalism that has been raised to the level of myth has any relevance with the actual social approach of US citizens towards the migrants? 7. Do you think that inter-social approach of the US people amounts to violation of violation of human dignity of migrants References 1. Abu El-Haj, T.R., (2007), “I Was Born Here, but My Home, It’s Not Here”: Educating for Democratic Citizenship in an Era of Transitional Migration and Global Conflict Harvard Educational Review, Vol. 77, No. 3 2. Martinez, R., (December 24, 2004), The Kindness of Strangers (The New York Times), New York: The New York Times 3. Sa´nchez, P., (2007), Urban Immigrant Students: How Transnationalism Shapes Their World Learning, The Urban Review, Vol. 39, No. 5 4. Ueda, R., (2006), A companion to American immigration, New York: Wiley-Blackwell Read More