Searching for a Better Life - Immigrants if the USA - Research Proposal Example

23 March Searching for a Better Life: Immigrants if the USA Reason for Choosing My Topic Immigration is one of the problems of big importance nowadays. Since many people have always thought that the life is better somewhere else but not in their homelands, the problem of immigration seems to be eternal, and this is the reason for choosing my topic. With increase of the number of unstable and dangerous zones in the world, where threats to human’s life and health exist, many people escape from their homes, often forcedly, reasonably believing that this is the only possible and available way of saving their lives, families, and health, if it is not damaged in the circumstances that made them flee. This has always been actual for the USA, as most of such people have been seeking for shelter in this country. My research will enable to understand the reason for such choice. Abstract and Summation of Procedural Aspect of My Paper My research proposes to achieve such goals: to interview three persons who immigrated to the USA from different countries of the world; to understand reasons for their migration. I expect to clarify the reasons for the choice of a new destination of the immigrants and the background of their motherlands whether those provided them with the reasons to flee. My research will state the above mentioned reasons and formulate the background for immigration at the end of the work. Methods of research paper: the primary method I will use is interviewing three persons-immigrants to the USA; the secondary method will be analysis of the information received in the process of interviewing. As the interview supposes a dialogue build on the questions and answers speaking model, it is logical to clarify questions of which kind will be put to the interviewees. Naturally, the supposed primary question would be “why did you decide to flee”, but this research will concern itself with broader subject matter, and the questions put to the interviewees will be: why did you choose namely the USA; what made you flee: situation in your motherland, level of its economic development or any other reasons; could you name which positive and negative experience you have had while being in the USA. Research Data The interviews conducted provided us with a good picture of an immigrant destiny abroad and gives food for further thought and analysis. The first person to interview is a student from Uganda, Mbogo Okate. He is about to graduate from the university, and he is far from coming back home. The reasons that he has given us for this are the following. Like many countries in Africa, Uganda represents a country with the standards of living and economic development that are lower than the world’s average ones, and there are difficulties with job offer and salary amount. Mbogo admitted also that now situation in Uganda’s society is much tensed, and many people recall previous conflicts with the Democratic Republic of Congo. The same state of affairs was observed when the country was preparing for military actions and invasion. After a short introduction, Mbogo Okate answered our questions. He informed us that the choice of the USA was imposed upon him by his anxiety about the state of affairs and because the distance now makes him feel calm and quiet and prevents from thinking of the risk of the beginning of new combat actions. Mbogo stated also that he was considering fleeing to one of European countries, but recent news about the Europeans deteriorating opinion of migration and immigrants prevented him from this perspective. Mbogo felt necessary to say that he was aware of the ability of the American students to work part-time, which he considered to be perfect for him, as he is going to take his family to the USA as well to be sure of their safety. His parents still remember the times of constant coups and wars, and dictatorship eventually, and they do not want to survive such events once again. Mbogo answered the second question of our interview in his short introduction partially, and other thing that he felt necessary to mention was education level in Uganda. He satirically informed us that his country has other priorities than educated and thinking population, and educational field is not financed well which results in, from one hand, the teachers’ being reluctant to work for low salaries and with high scope of work, and, from the other hand, students’ lack of desire to study, as it is quite possible to find a job, though low paid one, but without submitting diploma or any similar certificate to the employer. He considers that education is necessary, and, since he is interested in its quality rather than the cost, he felt himself courage enough to set sails to sea. The third question of the interview Mbogo found to be the best one, as it did not presuppose recalling not very pleasant things about his motherland. He found it positive that he managed to save some money due to his part-time work, and also due to his ability to economize, and these savings constantly increase to make his dream come true – taking his parents and other family members to the USA. Okate is determined to stay in the US for at least a very long time, if not forever, and the difference of salaries and incomes level between the USA and Uganda is an evidence of his right choice. Another thing that he was not used to was the ability to think and say what you indeed think and want, and there is no persuasion for religious, political, ideal views. Uganda recently applied practice of taking control over mass media, arts and society’s consciousness: the content which criticizes the power, which tries to turn the nation’s attention to real economic and political problems is persuaded, and there are often arrests of the persons who dare to perform such activity. The power’s tactics is to assure the people that everything is good inside the country, and it is unnecessary to protest against current governmental policy as the government takes care about the citizens of its state. Mbogo subjected to this fact, as if this was really so he would not answer our questions today. There are though some negative moments of an African immigrant living in the US, such as necessity to submit different documents, but Mbogo is aware that this is a global issue rather than the American only. (Okate, 2015). Ling Xiao, the second participant of our research, comes from China. The immigrants-representatives of this country are more numerous than the previous ones, and the society is more aware about the situation in that country in general. Ling is a recent immigrant who had little possibility to get much experience of being in the US, but she states that it is more than enough to explain her being here and the differences in ways of living of the countries which the world society nowadays considers to be the strongest. Ling chose the USA to emigrate because of the same reason as the above mentioned student from Uganda. She was right to suppose that, when there are economic difficulties or crises r recessions, the nations tend to prefer local resources, including labor ones, to cope with the difficulties, and immigrants, being ready to work for lower salaries, create competition on the labor market. The employees prefer cheaper labor force and tend to facilitate immigration. Lin assumed that the USA did not face such economic problems, and it was a very good chance to check it only by visiting this country. The second question is applicable to Ling partially, as she does not consider that she has fled her motherland. According to her convictions, she had to look for better career prospects, and that was the thing which determined her moving to the other country. The realities of China are that it is possible to live only in big cities and to work perfectly, because competition for working places is extremely high due to population increase over the last years. Having lived in a big city, Shanghai, for ten years, she has felt herself tired of constant smog and poor quality of water, which cause serious health damages. It is good when there are so many plants that you can choose any of them as your employment place, but would you be able to bear the adverse ecological effects, especially being a woman planning birth of her children, for a long time is a question answer to which is obvious. According to Ling, moving to the USA helped Ling Xiao to escape from the things that were unpleasant to her in China, and this is the response to the third question. Ecological policy and public awareness of the environment is a perfect basis for health guarantees. Being tired of a big city life as the only possible variant of existence, Ling is now quite content with her life in a small town which seems to her much cozier. Ling found here confirmation to her hypothesis that immigration is not accepted as a good phenomenon in the period of economic difficulties: many locals noted that the Chinese occupied now many job offers and deprived the Americans of at least job offers, not speaking about the salary. (Ling, 2015). Sergiy Pavlenko, aged 54, born in Ukraine, but forcedly left his motherland in the middle of the1990s, crowns up our interview part of the research. He has no doubt in his choice and says that otherwise he would seek for shelter today, when there is war in his motherland. Sergiy’s choice is an example of typical stereotype of the society of the former Socialist block, influenced by the ideas of Perestroika and break of the “iron curtain”. Then the people saw the life in Western countries without propaganda clichés, and many preferred to move to the USA as the leader of the Western world. A significant impulse that made Sergiy flee was the increasing crime rate in Ukraine, typical of all the former Soviet republics, which reached its peak by the mid-90s. Armed people in the streets added no confidence in tomorrow, and some day he just packed his things and escaped to search for safety. Sergiy is also still angry with the economic situation in Ukraine, as the country itself abounds in natural resources and has access to two seas, possesses its own production base including for such items as missiles, but the people are so poor that the minimum salary now makes only 40 US Dollars per month, while some persons, Sergiy does not want to name them, accumulate billions of Dollars and Euros and feel very good. There is also political reason for this, as no politician has made anything to improve the nation’s conditions of living for almost 25 years of independence. The positive things, according to Sergiy, are that he is confident of tomorrow being here, and there are firm guarantees of safety, personal freedom and employment, the last one is provided that you are able to work hard and responsibly. The inherited Slavonic trait, the ability to survive with minimum monetary funds, made him able to capitalize on a bit and to provide material support to those members of his family who still think over the idea of joining him which due to the latest events is very similar to come true. (Pavlenko, 2015). Analysis and Critique The goals declared in the beginning of our research were to conduct interviews with three immigrants to the USA from different parts of the world. This goal was achieved in the Research Data chapter of the paper. The second goal, to understand the reasons for migration, is able to be achieved after receiving the interviewees’ answers. The common reason for these people to leave their homes is economic situation in their countries that leaves much, sometimes very much, like in Uganda, to be desired, and political situation together with violation of human rights. The other reasons are quite personal: looking for safety guarantees, better environment, career prospects, opportunity to help the relatives who are still at the immigrant’s motherland. The goals of the research have been completely achieved. The results of the work done can be related to desire of the immigrants to share their thoughts about their actions with the others, as they have provided all the information that was expected to be received. It is possible also to conduct such research based on the statistics data and general and\or deep analysis of economic and social states of affairs in the countries the interviewees come from, but they cannot transfer the personal implications which are the most important things to understand such a cardinal change in one’s life. Works Cited Okate, M. Personal interview. 23 Mar. 2015. Pavlenko, S. Personal interview. 23 Mar. 2015. Xiao, L. Personal interview. 23 Mar. 2015. Read More