During the fall semester of my junior year I attended the WAC High School Symposium: The Global Challenge of Migration, where students from all walks of life, discussed the causes of migration and its effect on surrounding countries and the individuals themselves.
We began the discussion by defining migration. Migration is the movement of people from one place to another with various intentions such as settling temporarily or permanently. Lately, migration has been seen as a more political stance(by both parties), yet it is important to realize that migration is personal, not political. The most common reasons for people to come to the U.S. are due to violence, to get a better education, or to have a better life for the family. However, each immigrant’s story is unique and different, and it is unfair to generalize and assume their reasons for coming into the country. All the students focused on the point that everyone has value regardless of gender, race, sexuality, and background. In my opinion, immigration is a difficult topic for many people to understand. I made it very clear to the group that unless they personally have migrated to a different country that can never truly understand the emotions that migrants feel. Behind each photo is a person, a family, a life that we can never truly relate to. I truly believe that it is critical for students nowadays to realize how lucky they are to be raised in a country that is so accepting of them for who they are.
We then moved on to talk about why people migrate. We came up with two main reasons: to escape or flee or to have access. We hypothesized that people migrate to escape or flee conflict or violence, persecution based on race, religion, nationality, natural disasters, or environmental desegregation. We also hypothesized that people migrate to access economic opportunities, educational purposes, quality healthcare, and safety and security.
The History of Global Migration was the next topic that we discussed. Global Migration has always existed and will continue. We began with the Colonial Migration (1600s-1700s). During the Colonial Migration, there were no immigration rules, however, there were economic opportunities and religious freedom in the U.S. that caused a large influx of immigrants. During the Mid-Nineteenth Century (1815-1865), approximately five million Irish and German immigrants migrated to the U.S.. During the period between 1880 and 1920, an anti-Immigration sentiment spread among many Americans which caused them to enact the Chinese Exclusion Act. Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), was the first and only major federal legislation to explicitly suspend immigration for a specific nationality. The passage of the act started a new era in which the United States changed from a country that welcomed almost all immigrants to a gate keeping one. In Modern Migration, we discussed how during Trump’s administration, there has been the lowest number of containment since the 1950s. This point specifically was very shocking and critical to how we view politics today.
The Keynote speaker, Meg Sagaria-Barritt, Integration Partnerships Coordinator for the Colorado Refugee Services Program, then proceeded to give us statistics about global displacement to further our understanding of this complex topic: 70.8 million people have been forcibly displaced worldwide, 25.9 million people are refugees, and 3.5 million people are asylum seekers.
This event taught me that many people do not understand or take into consideration what immigration really is. My parents went through 20 years of paperwork, lawyers, and debt, to live in a country that was safe and welcoming to our family. Not only do immigrants face backlash when crossing the border, but they also struggle to assimilate properly into a certain environment. Every immigrant’s story is different and Americans, especially, should be willing to listen and help.