Blog Week 7

Long Vang

ASA 2

                Identity issue is something many immigrants’ descendants face constantly.  I never once did think too much about the political identity that other countries hold.  I knew that every country have some sort of bias on their country or tend to conceal certain facts, but it isn’t apparent until you travel into that country or start to live there.  The article by Professor Valverde made me remember a certain discussion about immigrants and their descendants.  It had to do with how many immigrants run away from their countries because of war and when they settle in their new home live peacefully.  They, like the immigrants from the Middle-east today, are running away because political issues and for their own safety.  Each individual has their own beliefs and once they settle down safely there is a period of peace and storytelling.  These stories and beliefs from the first generation immigrants are past down and eventually influences later generation.  Creating their own identities and trying to understand where they come from they are sometimes lead into a dangerous path.  The new generation of immigrants are sometimes persuaded like today and join groups like ISIS.  Why is it that the pursuit of understanding or trying to find our culture, is it possible for the newer generation to go back to what our immigrants parents were trying to run away from?  This made me think more of the idea of historical amnesia, but maybe it isn’t that.  Many are told about the dangers and horror that their immigrants’ parent went through, but not many knows who perpetrated those events.  We only know the horrors not the faces.  Is it possible that ignorance of a target or face to direct our fear what cause us to continue this cycle, the cycle of being recruited to the side who harmed our ancestors?