Spaces and exchanges

Spaces and exchanges
I’m going to talk about the idea of « spaces and exchanges ». First of all, I’d like to give a definition of the notion. All societies are somehow defined by the geographical and symbolic space they occupy and how the open up these spaces to what lies farther away. Trough trade, conquests, emigration and comunication, nation have always influenced others beyond their borders and have always been influenced culturally, economically, politically and scientifically. In order to illustrate this notion, I have chosen some documents dealing with immigration to the USA. How does immigration evolve through time ? First we’ll talk about the history of pre-1965 immigration, then about post-1965 immigration, and in the end, we’ll see what the different perspectives about immigration are.
First of all, let me talk about the history of immigration pre-1965. As a matter of fact, there were many push and pull factors, that encouraged immigration. Push factors would be political and religious persecution, agrarian unrests, social repression. Pull factors were very numerous : the discovery of gold rush, better social expectations, new « religious havens », material plenty. The American dream was as well a very important factor. It’s a subjective vision of America, which is viewed as a land of freedom and prosperity. Ellis Island was the central point of immigration. We heard an audio document dealing with the trip of the first immigrant through Ellis Island called Annie Moore. This women is like a symbol of America as an opened country to the world, and a symbol of all the immigrants going through Ellis Island. We also saw a video of a virtual trip to Ellis Island. The presentator made us imagine the great holl bustling with hundreds of people. In an extract of the « Godfather II », a little boy from Italy called Vito Corleone came alone to Ellis Island. He had to answer to several questions but he couldn’t because he didn’t speak English. He has been renamed by a controler who hasn’t understood his name. But in general people who arrived to Ellis Island give very poignant testimonies. They all started a new life.
Then let’s talk about the post-1965 immigration. There was a diversification of origins : people started to come frome China, Japan, India, etc. There started to be more and more hyphonated people. The immigration nationality act of 1965 removed the nationality based constrains put in place by previous legislation. That law has contributed to the America becoming the melting pot it is today. Moreover, the melting pot is an idea which has been created during this immigration periods. In class, we saw a video dealing with the melting pot : hyphonated people were supposed to bring their culture to America, but they also had to become true American citizens. The termin of melting pot reminds of the salad bowl notion : it’s an idea according to which people from different cultural horizons come to America, but they continue to be foreigners.
To finish with, let’s talk about the different perspectives of immigration. Firt we’re going to talk about the Native American perspectives. We saw a video in which Native American people shared their vision of Thanksgiving. They evocated lies, massacre and hypocrisy. It’s a very sad day during which Natives talk about their roots. Then it’s really difficult to be bilingual. In her poem Pat Mora highlited the difficulties of being Mexican American. She’s considered as an exotic person by American people, and a strange person by Mexicans. There are benefits of being bi-cultural but it makes people to decide what is their first culture. It’s the case of Anna, an American girl, whose parents are Chinese. She finally chose American culture so she illustrated the melting pot notion.
To conclude, America is a land of immigration and the perspectives of a multicultural society can be very sad.