Immigration Issues

Frank Couvares, Professor of History and American Studies at Amherst College was our lecturer today. He started by giving us the many different nationalities of his forefathers and went on to explain how America was shaped throughout history by different waves of immigrants; from the first settlers upto the wide variety of nationalities today. The Immigration stop of 1924, the decline of immigrants during the Great Depression, the opening of the borders under certain "conditions" in 1965, all help elucidate the situation of today. We were shown how political choices influence these migrations and what ends they serve.
In the second half of the morning, Professor Jose Angel Hernandez spoke to us about the same topic but more specifically about the shifting Latino/a identity. By tracing the history of the conquest of the West, giving numbers of immigrants (legal and estimated illegal) he brought the issue back to its real proportion. Shocking headlines of magazines and books written by highly praised writers deserve at least a critical reader.

During lunch the Liaison Committee met. This committee is composed of 5 participants and changes every week. They meet with the ITD staff to give and ask feedback on diffent practical aspects. Their main concern is to make life for everyone as enjoyable as possible.

In the afternoon, Bruce Laurie moderated a debate based on 4 newspaper articles that were selected by ourselves from the Sunday papers. Two articles concerned the health care programme, one was about the inauguration of a mosque in Boston and one about the bill on global warming.

These articles were interesting as they were, but, for me at least, they became "hot" thanks to the lessons I attended during the past week. It was a revelation to see how much more sense every article made, read against the background of political and historical information which I gathered from our lectures and our readings. Thanks to Bruce's guidance, linking the events together, I am slowly starting to "get the picture".

The icing on the cake today was without any doubt the movie "Crash" about culture clashes that take place in modern America. Moving, shocking, disturbing, are adjectives which could certainly apply. Something to sleep on and to discuss in Thursday's class.

I can't wait!