Week 7 A04 Lohitashwa Garikipati

Week 7 Blog Post

            Immigration is an especially hot topic now. As President Trump continues to make demands of building his wall with the desire to shut out immigrants from Mexico, xenophobia, typically from white conservative Americans as much more pronounced. Typically, this leads to the harassment of people who aren’t white, and evidence for this is found all over social media. Countless videos of expletives being hurled at people of color who are minding their own business. Sadly, because of this extremely vocal group, refugees are finding it difficult to come to the US to seek asylum. While there is some merit to ensuring the safety of citizens of one’s nation, its also important to extend help to those who need it. Hana E. Brown discusses the experiences of refugees from Liberia, and how their interactions with others in society, as well as their treatment by the state, shapes how they respond. Given the fact that refugees are “seeking shelter” from political, economic, or other turmoil in their home country, they are already in a difficult situation. Many Asian-Americans have parents who can attest that leaving everything behind and going to a new country is extremely difficult and scary. You no longer have any control, and how you are perceived by society often shapes what people end up doing the rest of their lives. Brown discusses the ethno-racial hierarchy, and how many of the refugees have extremely difficult lives to begin with. They are single parents, have significant medical problems, are often uneducated, and as a result are forced to rely on government support to sustain themselves. This leads to a lot of meetings with government officials which adds further stress to their lives. Given the extreme reliance of refugees on government support, should be provide as much help as we can, when we can’t even provide our citizens with free medical care? I believe we should; we just need to manage our funds better.

  

Citation:

1. Brown, H. E. (2017). Social Problems, 58(1), 144-163. Retrieved October 10, 2017, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/sp.2011.58.1.144

2. Hands Reaching Out Stock Vectors, Clipart and Illustrations. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.123rf.com/clipart-vector/hands_reaching_out.html