International Migration: a Very Short Introduction - Report Example

Migration It is human nature not to remain ‘static’, attached to a particular place or even mental Most of the people has been and will alwayslike to keep on moving from one place to another, crossing geographical boundaries and entering uncharted ‘terrain’. From earlier period, humans as individuals or en masse have been moving and entering into newer geographical territories, which is beyond the borders of their countries or states or cities, etc., with varied intentions. Starting from earliest main intention of occupying new lands to the current main intentions of economic opportunities, and also due to detrimental political situations in their own countries, wars and conflict, or even ecological disasters, people are moving as part of migration or immigration. Although, the words migration and immigration are closely linked and often used interchangeably, there are some minor differences between the two terms or activities. Migration is used as an encompassing term for all movement of people from one location, country or region to another, with an intention of temporary residency or/as well as permanent residency. On the other hand, “immigration is the movement of people from one country to another with the intent of becoming permanent residents.” (Bailey 2008). Notwithstanding this minor difference, for this essay, both the words will be used interchangeably. In the present day context, the words migration or immigration in used to refer to the movement of people mainly with the intention of economic livelihood and residency. These two factors form the basis of maximum immigration, and thus form the crux of other related changes and even controversies. The economic differences between the countries of the world (which led to the slotting of countries as rich and poor) as well as the differences within the countries or even regions (leading to the categorization of rich urban areas and poor rural areas) forms the catalyst for immigration. Humans will want to move from one place to another, and even to uncharted territories, mainly to achieve advancement. One of the avenues which will provide advancement is employment. Thus, individuals as immigrants have and still are crossing their countries’ or regions’ borders and enter other territories to find a productive job. This entry will sometimes happen legally and other times illegally, however the bottom line is immigration or migration is happening in large numbers from economically weaker countries or regions to economically better off territories. There are certain economically well developed nations in the Western world including United Kingdom (UK), United States, Canada, France, Germany, etc., which receive sizable number of immigrants. This process of immigration has become one of the constant and at the same time controversial issues in UK as well as US. As people view UK as well as US as the lands of good economic opportunities, they enter it both in a legal manner as well as illegally. Although, various issues in various countries arise due to this migration, the limitation in this essay, it would be difficult to include all the issues due to word constraints. As pointed out above, economic reasons and residency forms the basis of the immigration to US and UK in the present day context, and more importantly leads to other key issues. Thus, this essay will focus on how economic inequalities is leading to migration of people specifically into US and UK, and importantly how it leads to further issues on the economic front, cultural front as well as changes regarding the residence aspect. Immigration was/is initiated for historical economic reasons One of the economic reasons for immigration also puts the onus on the western countries including US and UK for the heavy influx of immigrants. This reason has historical perspective. That is, it is being stated by many thinkers and theorists that American and British’s (as well as other European countries’) imperialistic tendencies in early centuries only contributed to the economic inequality between the countries, thereby making these countries as rich countries while the countries they colonized as poor or Third World countries. Third World Countries is the term normally given to the poor or developing countries in the continents of Africa and Asia. The reasons for the uneven economic development in these Third World countries in relation to the Western countries are plenty, but one of the key reasons is the exploitation of the natural resources available in those countries by the colonizers for their own development. (Castles and Miller 2009). However, this perspective has not been given much focus as part of the International theories. “The replay of colonial imagery establishes failed states as deficient, abnormal, and lacking, and thereby reinforces the identity of the West as democratic, rational, and morally superior. It also serves to absolve the West from responsibility for the conditions associated with state failure, as the perceived chaos and failure is presented as an expression of otherness.” (Griffiths 2007). Although, one perspective is, it is due to the ability of Britons and Americans that they were able dominate the world and achieve economic superiority, it is also a known fact, that US and in particular UK’s development is directly proportional to many Asian and African countries exploitation. (Salomons 1999). Although, various factors contributed and are still contributing to the economic inequalities between the countries, as pointed out above historical actions is one of the key factors and this historical reason is also attributed to the immigration. That is, due to the economic deprivation in those Third World Countries, people are moving in high numbers to the economically rich countries, who once colonized them. America entered into or even extended its influence over many South American countries, thus negatively influencing those countries’ internal affairs, which in a way worked as a catalyst for the Latinos immigration. Negative influence in the sense, America plundered the natural resources of the Latin American countries, and thereby inhibited the growth of indigenous industries and economies. With not enough avenues for livelihood in those countries, sizable number of Latinos started entering America. “If Latin America had not been raped and pillaged by U.S. capital since its independence, millions of desperate workers would not now be coming here in such numbers to reclaim a share of that wealth.” (Gonzalez 2001). Thus, it is clear that Gonzales puts the blame for the Latino immigration into America and the problems associated with it, on the Americans themselves, or in particular, on the Americans’ foreign or imperialistic policies. His theory is clear that the different Latino groups that exist and function today in the American society are a result of the historical happenings and actions of the American government. The same theory is relevant when viewed from the British context as well. If one looks at the demography of the immigrant population, it is clear that people mainly from its erstwhile colonized territories constitute the bulk of the immigrants. That is, the immigrant population of UK mainly constitute people from the Indian subcontinent comprising Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis as well as from the Caribbean islands. As the British colonial government had good relations with certain number of locals, those locals were allowed into UK through organized migration, which in course of time gave way to chain migration. Immigration from India, Pakistan and West Indies reached a very high level from 1960s, as organized migration changed into chain migration, with the already settled migrants from those countries facilitating the entry more friends and relatives into UK. Thus, “the sponsorship and patronage of friends and relatives by those, who were already in the UK, resulted in a mass migration of people both from the West Indies and the Indian sub-continent.” (Anwar). From the above discussion, it is clear that the economic inequalities caused by historical factors played and is still playing a role in heightened immigration High level of immigration with local factors contributing to it In both the cases, entry or immigration will give rise to number of problems both to the immigrants and to the native people. However, the rate of immigration remains at a higher plane during the 1970s, as well as in the current times. In 1970’s the resident population in US was about 1.7 million per year, with immigration itself contributing to at least 19 percent of the total annual increase, and may be as much as 37 percent if we include the estimate for illegal immigrants. (Hardin). This scenario of heightened immigration is also being witnessed now as well. As stated by Morrow (2008) about one million immigrants- both legal and illegal- entered the United States in 2008. On the same lines, UK’s population is increasing sizably due to the inflow of people caused by immigration. According to the estimates given by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) by mid-2027, “the UK population is set to swell from 62.3 million last year to 73.2 million, with more than two thirds of this increase a result of immigration” (The Telegraph 2011). This fact clearly shows that immigration of people all over the world for various purposes is maximally contributing to population increase. As mentioned above, immigration occurs mainly for economic reasons, particularly for jobs and so the main role of immigrants in the American and British society is mostly of an employee. Although, immigrants come on their own for employment reasons, in many cases the immigration is facilitated by the Americans or British people or American or British companies themselves. Immigration receives support from the desire of employers for cheap labor, particularly in industries and trades that offer degrading work and wretched jobs. (Keeley 2009). This role of American employers in ‘promoting’ immigration is continuing even now. As brought out by Morris (2002) most illegal immigrants enter the United States because plenty of companies are willing to hire them, as they provide cheap labour. Thus Hardin’s pointing of fingers at the self-interest groups inside US for the immigration problems, seems to be valid and not time specific because of the continuation of the same activity even now. It is clear that American employers or companies by facilitating the entry of immigrants are in a way defining the role of the immigrants. Immigration and economic impacts The main reason for immigration and the main crux of the immigration problem was/is always been economic issues. Although, some segments maintain that immigrants contribute to the immigrated country’s economy, the other sections put the blame on them for draining the country’s economy, leaving minimal resources to the native or local people. The incoming immigrants are taking sizeable portion of the jobs for low salaries, thereby taking away the job safety or security of the local citizens. By allowing millions of unskilled Mexican immigrants into U.S. and recruiting them for maximum jobs, at low salaries, it is having a negative impact on the wage structure of the American companies, thereby affecting the earnings and livelihood of the Native Americans. That is, as the companies find Mexican workers willing to work for a paltry sum, they easily reduce the salary and thereby evict the American citizens from the company. (Keeley 2009). Allowing millions of unskilled Mexican immigrants into U.S. and recruiting them for maximum jobs, at low salaries, will surely reduce the wages that are currently received by the unskilled native-born Americans. Also, as the companies find Mexican workers willing to work for a paltry sum, they easily reduce the salary and thereby evict the American citizens from the company. So, apart from the decrease in salary, it becomes harder for them to find new jobs. “Immigration foes say immigrants are unwelcome competitors for scarce resources. Opponents claim that immigration damages the U.S. economy. Immigrants hog U.S. jobs, drain public resource.” (Morrow 2008). However, when viewed from another perspective, as U.S. has more educated population, the immigrants by doing the left over unskilled work are actually mitigating the shortage in the homegrown unskilled population. Immigration makes economic impacts in UK as well, with the wage structure being the most impacted. Sir Digby Jones of the CBI stated that the immigrants are prepared to work for low wages as they “come here with skills and education that we no longer seem able to provide for our own workforce”. (The First Post 2006). In addition to the skewed wage structure, the unemployment levels also raising among the British native population, and the immigration is being stated as one of the key reasons. “Set up by Labour government, the Migration Advisory Committee finds that foreign workers do indeed take jobs that would otherwise go to Britons who are qualified and willing to do them. To be precise, it estimates that 23 Britons are denied work for every 100 migrants allowed in – meaning that Labour’s open-door policy denied jobs to 160,000 British workers between 2005 and 2010” (Travis 2012). In addition, due to sizable employment of immigrants, the financial flows within the British economy get restricted. That is, as the immigrants maximally send their wages abroad to their family members, therefore, spending only minimally in UK, it does not make a positive impact on the UK economy. According to Leapman (2007), political monitoring bodies have put immigration at number one in the public’s list of concerns, however at the same times others argue that the importance placed on immigrants may be entwined with political reasons. Thus, it is clear that immigration in a way makes key economic impacts, as it said to be affecting the indigenous population. Immigration and Cultural impacts The key issue which has always put the immigration, or in particular immigrants, in tight spot is their acculuralization or assimilation to the local culture. That is, even after living in America or UK for many years and interacting with the local society, immigrants still exhibit allegiance and support to their parent country in many situations. Although, it is not illegal or criminal to do so and it is their personal choices, the social belief is, it is morally wrong and unpatriotic on the part of them to ignore and avoid the American and British identities respectively. Influx of illegal immigrants from different countries, with different culture and language could "divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages” (Huntington 2005). The other view about illegal migration put forward by Huntington is how a single ethnic group is migrating in large numbers, dwarfing other ethnic groups. That is, Koser (2007) opines that unlike the previous immigration surges, in which immigrants from all over the world came, the current immigrations happens mainly with Latino population from Latin American countries, particularly Mexico. Out of the total immigrant flow into U.S. from all over the world, Hispanic/Latino comprises 52%. The other fact is, out of the 700,000 thousand Hispanic/Latinos who enter U.S. annually, approximately 40% are entering illegally (Huntington 2005). Because of this trend, a sizeable population speaks the non-mainstream language of Spanish and practice a distinct culture, which affects the national identity of America. That is, with the continuous supply of mainly first-generation immigrants, the culture, language, and the behaviors of the Latino population will stay for a longer time than any other immigrant groups. Unless there are equal growth opportunities in the Mexican territory and there is a shrinking of economic gap between America and Mexico, US-Mexico border will function as the gateway for the struggling immigrants to have better life. So, it is sure that illegal immigration will continue, without full stop, introducing a new way of life, importantly culture and thereby forming a threat to national identity. Influx of Asian immigrants and people from other regions of the world led to the ethnic diversification of the UK’s population. However this diversification has also resulted in the development of a variety of national identities, with different social psychological beliefs, which go beyond an unreflective Britishness. That is, even after living in Britain for many years and interacting with the British society, British people of Asian origin still exhibit psychological allegiance and support to their parent country in many situations, thereby exhibiting the psychological process of group-think. (Keeley 2009). This social psychological belief is clearly reinforced as well as challenged by sports particularly Cricket. That is, when an Indian or Pakistani or even Bangladeshi cricket team tours England and plays the English cricket team, the people ‘belonging’ to those countries are seen psychologically associating with those countries and supporting them, ignoring England. In 1990, the Conservative politician Norman Tebbit famously posited the test match test. “"Which side do the Asians cheer for? Its an interesting test. Are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are? (Korinman and Laughland 2007). This was further reinforced by the comments of the former England Cricket captain, Nasser Hussain. He said: "It was disappointing to see a sea of green shirts with the names of Pakistani players instead of ours. It reminded me of when we played India at Edgbaston [in Birmingham] in the World Cup in 1999. It was like an away game because so many people supported their side." (qtd. in Majumdar and Mangan 2004). Following the psychological process of group-think, these individuals think alike en-masse in order to exhibit to ‘their’ fellow people (belonging to their same nationality or religion or community), that they still hold their allegiance to their homeland. However this social psychological belief can also challenged, when one looks from another perspective. That is, the above comment was actually made by a British man of Indian origin, which clearly shows that British Asians immigrants have indeed integrated or in the process of integrating into the British society, even rising to the status of national captain. Thus, the social psychological belief that Asian immigrants have not psychologically integrated into the British society could also be wrong, as many immigrant British of Asian origins have taken the British identity and support their ‘home’ team of England, exhibiting group think in another way. Immigration and its impacts on the residences or infrastructure for residences United States started to transform from a rural nation, which focused mainly on agriculture, to an urban one, focusing on industrialization mainly in the later half of the 19th century and particularly in the early part of the 20th century. One of the main catalysts for this transformation is the migration of people from the rural areas of United States and importantly immigration of people from various countries towards its major cities like New York, Washington, Philadelphia, etc. When they go to new places, the first thing, they will or have to look for is physical accommodation or shelter, either temporary or permanent, based on the purpose of their migration. Thus, construction or even evolution of accommodations or settlements or suburbs or even town or cities will be mainly based on the migration of people. This has been the norm throughout the history and the evolution of tenements is no exception to it. The word “tenement” originated from the Latin language, and the word means “to hold” in Latin. Thus, a tenement is a building, which “holds” many houses or rooms, where number of different families lived. One of the defining characteristic of a tenement is that it is multistoried building, which will be owned by a landlord, who will rent each room or house to its tenants. Although, the name “tenement” is the precursor to the now commonly used word, “Apartment” (as both exhibit the same above mentioned characteristics), it is not commonly used now and even when it is used, it is used with a pejorative meaning. “When people use the word today, they mean an old crowded building where poor families live in terrible, unhealthy conditions. But, in the Eighteen-Hundreds, the word "tenement" simply meant a building in which many families lived.” (Liming 2004). As mentioned above, in 1840s there was a heavy flow of immigrants from other countries as well as from the interiors of United States. Immigrants came mainly from Germany and Ireland and they got concentrated in New York. All the single row houses were altered into buildings, with four or even five stories high, leading to the formation of the first tenement in 1839. As these tenements provided cheap accommodation, many people preferred it and so by 1850s, many tenement squares were built. With people coming in high numbers from European countries, the demographics of the American urban cities changed completely and showed skewed numbers, as the ethnic enclaves of the immigrants grew more populous than compared to the largest cities in their homelands. On the same lines, in the post-Civil War years Americans from various parts, particularly form interior rural areas, came in troves to seek financially productive livelihood and comfort in the industrialized environments of New York and Washington. Lower East Side in New York was even considered by the immigrants as the “Gateway to America”. The immigrants were largely Irish, who were forced to emigrate from Ireland because of the Great Famine, and Germans, who left Germany because of the tough conditions following the Revolution of 1848. In the decade of the 1840s, the population of the City increased by more than 60 percent, from 312,710 to 515,547; the following decade brought the population up to 813,669, an additional 58 percent. (Limmer and Dolkart). This heavy influx led to bigger social turmoil, as there were not enough accommodations or shelters for them to reside. As pointed out in the above paragraph, the Lower East Side was mainly inhabited by the well-offs. However, this entry of high number of immigrants lead to a kind of strain in the relationship between them, and so the numbers of well-offs minimized as they started moving to the more affluent parts towards the north. As they vacated, some of the enterprising absentee land owners started converting the row houses into tenements and also started building new tenements. So, the main reason, why tenements emerged in urban centers like New York is the heavy entry of immigrants. When the immigrants through tenements got a roof to live under, for a very nominal price, the demand for more tenements also reached higher. At one point of 19th century, the Lower East Side was considered the most densely populated place on the whole of earth. With heightened migration or immigration, more tenements came up providing only basic facilities or even difficult environment. That is, most of these tenements were crammed, crowded, and inadequately constructed without water and basic sanitation, as multiple families lived in the same apartment or room together to save rent. (Koser 2007). Although, the living conditions were not up to the standards and were even deplorable, people or migrants continued to favour these tenements, as they were theirs’ only option within their financial limits. However, in course of time, due to the intervention of the reformists and other social groups the conditions in the tenements improved a bit, as they brought to light the bad living conditions to the authorities as well as the common public, which eventually lead to housing laws to protect the tenants. Conclusion Immigration is an ongoing phenomenon from time immemorial, which has led to both advantages as well as controversies. From the above analysis, it can be assumed that certain historical factors led to economic inequalities between countries or regions or territories, thereby leading to initiation of immigration or migration from economically poor countries or territories to rich territories. This immigration started impacting the economics of the immigrated economically rich countries, as the wage structures of those countries evolved due to the availability of cheap labour from the Third World countries. Apart from the economic impacts, there were also cultural impacts due to immigration, with the immigrant population being criticized for not acculturating with the host country. As immigration as well as migration happened due to the wish of the individuals to have permanent or even temporary residence, it also impacted the development of infrastructures for residences. Thus, it is clear that immigration or migration has made sizable impacts and will continue to make impacts. References Anwar, M. “New Commonwealth Migration to the UK.” In: R Cohen, ed. 1995., The Cambridge Survey of World Migration, Cambridge University, pp.274-278. Bailey, R., 2008. Immigration and Migration, Infobase Publishing, New York. Castles, s and Miller, M., 2009. 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Challenge CET6 with VOA English, Tsinghua University Press. Limmer, R and Dolkart, AS. The Tenement As History And Housing, [Online] Available from http://www.thirteen.org/tenement/eagle.html(Accessed on May 17, 2012) Majumdar, B and Mangan, JA., 2004. Cricketing cultures in conflict, Routledge, London. Morris, L., 2002. Managing Migration, Routledge, London. Salomons, E., 1999. The 1900s, Weigl Educational Publishers, London. The First Post., 2006. EU immigration into Britain: Pros & Cons, [Online] Available from http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/5734,news-comment,news-politics,pros-and- cons(Accessed on May 17, 2012) The Telegraph., 2011. UK population to reach 70 million, [Online] Available from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8850656/UK-population-to-reach-70- million.html(Accessed on May 17, 2012) Travis, A., 2012. Non-EU immigration linked to unemployment, says report, [Online] Available from www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/10/non-eu-immigration-unemployment(Accessed on May 17, 2012) Read More