Mexican Migration to the United States: Policy and Trends - Assignment Example

Module Module ID: Indian Removal Act 1830 maintains great significance in the history ofthe USA. The Act not only countered the Supreme Court decision regarding the settlement of the Native Americans and white settlers. Somehow, the then US President Andrew Jackson got the bill passed from the Senate, which eliminated the right of the Native Americans in the land. As a result, they had to move to west to Mississippi leaving the eastern regions and its fertile lands for the white settlers. It left indelible impacts on the entire region. One of the most crucial effects of the Act included Jackson’s manifest violation of the Supreme Court verdict, which encouraged the communities and citizens alike to imitate the same for the future days to come. Consequently, the writ of the American Supreme Court was challenged and its decree was promulgated by the Senate. In addition, the rights of the indigenous population was denied their right to reside over the land belonged to them for centuries. In addition, the Indians had to wind up and surrender all their rights and belongings for good to get settled to some other place. Since they had to travel wide under the situation of scarcity of food and resources, hundreds of Native Americans died of starvation, famine and diseases, while a large majority had to undergo grave difficulties, pains and sufferings. It is therefore their journey and wanderings are aptly regarded to be the Trail of Tears. 2. It is aptly stated that the dominating white majority of the USA always demonstrated biased behavior towards the indigenous American populations consisted of Red Indians, Hispanic and black ethno-racial communities. It is particularly the case with the Spanish-origin Hispanic communities, which had to wander here and there in the southern parts of the country in search of shelter, protection and safety for escaping persecution at the hands of the white people. The whites claimed the alleged involvement of the Seminoles in criminal activities in central regions, where the Native Americans used to raid for committing crimes, and returning back to the south in order to escape persecution. Somehow, the Spain’s selling Florida State to the USA appeared the only solution in order to get rid of the criminals. Somehow, the American invasion in the Spanish regions in order to crush the Native Americans during 1816-1819 is always taken to be the outcome of ethnocentrism the white observed against the Hispanic and indigenous races. Moreover, the whites also promulgated the statutes of 1787 Northwest Ordinance, which emphasized upon treating the Native Americans on the principles of fairness, equity and justice. Somehow, the whites did never bother the importance of the community as human being altogether, and denied their rights as Americans altogether. The Jackson regime took condemnable action against the peace-loving Cherokee nation by allowing the white population of State of Georgia to occupy all lands and revenues in 1828. Though the native people were successful in seeking the Court’s support in their favor, the Indian Removal Act 1830 added oil to fire by forcing the native people to surrender the eastern regions in favor of the whites. Thus, the white exhibited extreme kind of ethnocentrism against the native populations. 3. Allotment Act, also known to be the Dawes Severalty Act 1887, was introduced during the last quarter of nineteenth century, with the apparent objective of allocation of lands to the Indians on individual bases in order to get them assimilated with the mainstream American culture. However, the hidden agenda and basic purpose of these allotments included depriving the Native Americans of the large part of the lands they possessed. Consequently, the surplus lands were to be allocated to the white people for keeping their domination in all parts of the country subsequent to these allotments. Since the Europeans, belonging to white racial groups, were on their way to migration to various states of America, the government intended to get them settled in a proper way partly because of their ethno-racial background that was similar to the white population had been at the helm of the administrative affairs all over the USA. The government maintained reservations regarding the activities of the Indians; it is therefore, they took necessary measures for ensuring ownership of the lands to the white, which previously belonged to the Indians. Thus, every Indian was allocated with a piece of land for cultivation, which later could produce small amount, and observed division on the basis of inheritance. The reservation land was jointly owned by all the Indian tribes, though could not be taken by the settlers at all. However, the allotment act deprived the tribes of their joint claim on the lands. As a result, over two third of the lands belonged to the Native Americans came under the sway of white settlers. 4. Indian Reorganization Act 1934 is viewed to be the reversal of the Dawes Act 1887 in order to compensate the Indian tribes for the losses they had to undergo through Dawes Act. The Act not only decreased the role of the federal government on the affairs of the Native Americans, but also it paved the way towards the establishment of self government of the Indian tribes in the regions they were in majority. The Act actually appeared in the wake of the demand made by the Indians for the elimination of their age-old grievances appeared in the wake of the purported allotment process. The act also served as the sense of gratitude to the Indians for their services rendered during WWI in favor of the US government. The act not only banned the allotment of surplus lands to the settlers or individuals anymore, but also restored the non-reserved communal lands jointly to the Indian tribes. Another dominant feature of the act included granting the Indians the right to make decisions and adopt their own policies and strategies regarding their communal problems and challenges. Hence, the Indians were compensated against the injustices had been committed on them through the Dawes Act. 5. The second half of twentieth century was the most fertile one in respect of bringing social segregation to an imperative decrease gradually but steadily. It was the era when the black population started raising voice in favor of their rights as well as against the prejudiced behavior observed by the white population against them. Not only this the Africans realized their rights and privileged as per described in the constitution of the country, but also they took biased behavior against them to be strictly contrary to fundamental human rights as well. As a result, they began demonstrating their proportional strength in the US population on the one side, and raised revolt against apartheid and segregated behavior in public places on the other. The peaceful settlement of two ethno-racial based disputes, i.e. the Brown’s appeal to the court for desegregation of schools in 1954 as well as the bus protest incident, appeared in the form of the revolt raised by Rosa Parks in 1955, provided great social courage, cultural uplift and moral support to the African American population, which decided to present their cases in the same manner for winning their rights as an important minority group of American society. However, inclusion of emotional and aggressive individuals and groups during the mid 1960s turned the human rights movement violent in its nature and scope for the acceleration of the pace of winning equal status for the blacks. It was particularly the case with the deployment of young and energetic blacks, and workers from both black and white races, that the marches and demonstrations became a routine in America. Though the black leader Martin Luther King led several demonstrations, and was thrown to jail many times, yet he personally did not favor violence. Somehow Malcolm X and other leaders and workers displayed antagonism and aggression towards the authorities, which resulted in the murder f both Malcolm X and King eventually. However, King was successful in winning the right to vote for the blacks. The black authors including Toni Morrison, Margaret Drabble and others also added their share in awakening their nation. As a result, not only this that the blacks started participating in elections, but also obtained place in the federal cabinet. The year 2008 was a landmark for the community when a black individual i.e. Barrack Obama was elected as the President of USA. 6. Wealth and income are rightly regarded as the most important measures for the estimation of socioeconomic statuses of the individuals. The same measures are applied for the estimation of the economic position of white and black racial groups in the USA. According to the statistics, the white population maintained the wealth equivalent to $113,149 in 2009, while the Hispanics and Blacks enjoyed $6325 and $5677 respectively (Kochhar et al. 2011). Hence, both the minority races appear to be lagging far behind from the whites in respect of the wealth they possess. Moreover, most of the key positions in all governmental institutions and military services are occupied by the whites. Hence, the statistics contradict the validity of the presence of equal chances of growth for all racial groups in the country. However, the statistics forget to produce the witnesses of the long term struggles the whites had made for the establishment of their business networks, which offer job and employment opportunities to the people belonging to different US communities. It is therefore an overwhelming majority of the industrial units are in possession of the whites, ancestors of which had made hard and sincere efforts in the industrialization process of the country. It was the time when the Hispanic and black populations were making struggle to win their rights, had been negated by the white majority. 7. Multicultural societies apply two types of segregation within their jurisdictions; one is de jure, and the other is stated to be de facto type of segregation. De jure segregation in the one that focuses upon segregation of the individuals by the act of any statute of law, while de facto segregation appears in the light of the attitude and behavior of the masses towards the member of some specific race, ethnicity, religion, gender, community and class etc. For instance, allotment of some specific privileges to some particular group by legislature or administration comes under the definition of de jure segregation; as the seats are reserved for women in some countries that do not encourage participation of women in national and social affairs. Similarly, the Allotment Act had segregated the Native Americans from the mainstream white population. On the other hands, de facto segregation appears where the people personally segregate themselves or rival communities on the basis of appearance, gender and faith etc. For instance, the seats were reserved for the white passengers in the buses, where the blacks were refused to have a seat in public transports in case a white individual requires the same. Similarly, the people send their children to the schools administered by the people of the ethno-racial group they belong to in order to escape an unpleasant situation at the educational institution. It is therefore the whites and blacks have established racially segregated educational institutions in the areas dominated by the rival racial group. 8. Bilingual education system has always appeared to be challenging for the individuals seeking education at schools. It is partly due to the very reality that learning the primary and/or mother language(s) as well as initial courses at very early stage of life is itself a great challenge; besides, learning two languages, quite divergent to each other in nature and scope, is certain to create difficulties for the children. It is particularly the case with the students belonging to Spanish, Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Urdu and Persian speaking backgrounds while their pursuit of seeking education in English language. Since English has obtained the status of global language, particularly during and after the end of colonial era, several former colonial states of Asia and Africa are bound to offer education to the masses in English language. In addition, an overwhelming majority of scientific and technological inventions have also been made by the English speaking countries; it is therefore, getting acquaintance with these inventions, particularly computer, navigation and mobile-phone technologies, the world has to learn English in one way or the other. Keeping in view the new era challenges, the third world non-English speaking countries have introduced many English learning programs in the patterns of tests including TOEFL, IELTS and others, on the basis of which level of the students’ understanding English as secondary language is assessed. English emersion programs are also introduced at schools where classical English Literature, films and historical background is taught in order to develop their taste for the language. It is therefore, English has obtained the status of secondary language in almost all non-English speaking countries of the world at large. 9. Historical records reveal the evidences of massive migration of the Mexicans to the USA. It is therefore the statistics reveal Mexicans are the largest group of U.S. migrants across most types of immigration statuses (Rosenblum et al. 2012). In order to discourage this rapid immigration flow challenging the US economy, American administrations have devised different schemes and plans, implementation of which would halt the migration to an imperative extent. Being the part of poor Latin American states, and belonging to low-income group of countries, socio-economic conditions of Mexico are certainly deteriorating ones especially in comparison with the neighboring USA. Hence, like several third world countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, Mexico also undergoes the same problems faced by the poor states, which include low per capita income, reliance on agriculture, low literacy rate, lesser participation of women in professional activities, corruption, nepotism and others. Scarcity of resources and overpopulation add fuel to the fire of poverty and unemployment in the country. It is therefore the Mexicans dream of migrating to America with brighter and superior employment, education and business prospects. Keeping in view these developments, the US authorities have introduced U.S. immigration control and border security policies. First of all, unlawful migration is strictly being checked at the US borders in order to arrest, imprison and deport the illegal migrants. Secondly, schemes have been introduced for the lawful immigrants on the basis of their education, skills and socioeconomic positions. Thirdly, the immigration proportion has been decreased to a great extent in order to strictly discourage the fast flow of Mexicans’ migration to USA. 10. Situated in the south east of the North American continent, and in the Caribbean region, Puerto Rico enjoys the status of an unincorporated area of the United States. The region comprises of several islands, including Vieques, Culebra and Mona, which makes the commonwealth of Puerto Rico. However, the term commonwealth here is not similar to the British commonwealth; on the contrary, it is the associated free state of Puerto Rico that obtained this status in 1952 in the wake of the struggle made by the Puerto Rican nationalists in favor of winning the status of an independent state for their island. The inland actually was captured by the USA in 1898 from Spain in the aftermath of the American-Spanish War. Since then it has been being administered by American authorities. For over nearly two decades, the island maintained the status of an American colony, though citizenship right was granted to the Puerto Ricans in 1917. There are many benefits of the island’s status as commonwealth. Since the island is a poor country, it mostly depends upon the US support to meet its economic challenges. It is estimated that America issues $2.2 billion to the island as financial aid, while the island earns just $2 billion for the US economy (Lozada 2010). Since an independent Puerto Rico would not be in a position to fulfill its requirements, its independence will not be beneficial for the masses. In addition, Puerto Ricans can enter America as its citizens, and can seek jobs and education, which is not possible for an independent state. Somehow, statehood also maintains some benefits. One of the most important benefits of statehood is this that the Puerto Rico will become the part of America, and its people will enjoy the same status associated with the superpower of the world. Moreover, the island, as a US state, will participate in the voting that is not possible under commonwealth status. The same privilege will also be observed by the statehood. Somehow, the island will have to lose its separate identity in the wake of becoming the US state. The benefits of an independence includes the freedom of the Puerto Ricans in respect of articulating their policy plans for foreign relations, internal affairs and defense matters. In addition, the people will not be under obligation for learning English, and hence will be in a position of implementing Spanish medium of learning in all educational institutions. Moreover, the island will be free from any bar for entering into diplomatic relationship with the countries that are considered to be the rivals of America. Since the US has become a strategic and economic giant during the last century onward, the affiliation with it is most desired by the poor states of the world. It is therefore the Puerto Ricans also support the idea of statehood for their collective socioeconomic growth and development. 11. Child abuse simply defines the maltreatment of the individuals below the puberty age; this molestation includes mental, physical and/or sexual exploitation of the most innocent stratum of society i.e. children. Since children are not in a position to defend themselves from the harshness, assault and violence being practiced against them, they are entirely on the discretion of the mercy of the adults, which are in a position of treating them according to their whims and wishes by dint of their physical and mental strength. Child abuse has turned out to be a curse that has universally been practiced and witnessed in almost all parts of the world without discrimination perhaps since ever. Though, most of the cases of child molestation appeared in past reflected the offensive behavior and violence exercised by the strangers on children, though the same is also being inflicted upon them by the neighbors, family-friends, teachers, uncles and stepparents as well as real parents even. The research reports reflect the physical torture on children at domestic level as well as in schools, both of which are taken place because of the children’s inability to defend themselves. Moreover, incidents of child rape also appear that are aptly committed by stepfathers, uncles and teachers, which is due to their control on the children. In addition, the internet and electronic media have also played their role in the deterioration of moral values from society. Further, the peoples’ turning down religious teachings and cultural values has also caused the physical and sexual exploitation of children. Popularity of single motherhood, extra-marital relations and immoral cohabitations, and homosexual marriages has also left indelible impacts on the decline of morality from society. The first step taken for the prevention of child abuse includes the training of the adults while treating the young members of society. The educational institutions and law enforcing agencies should launch campaigns against child molestation by declaring it as a heinous crime strictly against the noble principles of religion, moral values and humanity as well. Thirdly, the child molesters should be announced severe punishments and penalties for the eradication of child abuse from society. The church and moralists should also come forward to play their imperative role in order to set the children free from the cruel clutches of rapists and molesters. Works Cited Kochhar, Rakesh., Fry, Richard., and Taylor, Paul Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics Twenty-to-One Pew Research Social and Demographic Trends 2011 Retrieved from http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/07/26/wealth-gaps-rise-to-record-highs-between-whites-blacks-hispanics/ Accessed on 03-04-2013 Lozada, Catherine M. Pros and cons of statehood for Puerto Rico The Queens Courier June 2010 Retrieved from http://queenscourier.com/2010/pros-and-cons-of-statehood-for-puerto-rico-27144/ Accessed on 03-06-2013 Rosenblum, Marc R., Kandel, William A., Seelke, Clare Ribando., and Wasem, Ruth Ellen Mexican Migration to the United States: Policy and Trends CRS Report for Congress Congressional Research Service June 2012 Retrieved from http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42560.pdf Accessed on 03-05-2013 Read More