Immigrants Coming to America Essay Example

Presently, in America, we are at a national division in terms of race and nationality. Primarily, our President bashing and demeaning immigrants. In minority communities and abroad, Black Lives Matter protests at the entrance of police departments demanding that police brutality comes to an end. At Planned Parenthoods, nationally, there are “pro-life” demonstrators rallying with the suggestion that abortion is against God. And all over the country, our workers are picketing for better pay because minimum wage is not enough to live on anymore. Equality is the observation of equal distribution of all things in a society, this includes but is not limited to opportunity, income, social status and education.

Equality is a value that America impasses on, but isn’t very exemplary in demonstration. In the American society, we see our citizens separated by class, income, health care, housing, and employment. We witness marginalization and prejudice amongst those of different backgrounds, and this sometimes fuels violence among us. In February 2012, George Zimmerman, local neighborhood watch captain, made a 911 call to report a suspicious person. When instructed to remain in his vehicle, he disregarded and in a turn of unfortunate events, ended up shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, a young black boy who had been walking in the neighborhood with a hoodie on, he was the “suspicious person.” Zimmerman had shot and killed Trayvon Martin with the notion that he acted in self-defense.

Trayvon Martin is one of many faces from colored communities that have perished at the hands of another and have not received any justice from our justice system. The controversy of police brutality and systematic racism has been an apparent topic for colored communities all through America’s history, from Martin Luther King Jr. to Malcom X, to Roy Wilkins. America hones on equality as a value that we uphold, but it was only in 1964 that minorities were enabled the ability to be treated as equal in public places without being discriminated against. It is professed that there is prejudice against minorities and that this prejudice is in our justice system, educational system, and our workforce.

It is a cycle essentially; racially disparities in schools are reason for expenditures being reciprocated accordingly, causing the educational value of minorities to be hindered, and unequal access to knowledge sets these people back steps that their lighter counterparts have already taken. These undereducated POC are not able to afford college, (likewise their caretakers, worsening the cycle) and thus are limited to jobs that offer minimum wage and put them at the bottom of the social classes, and unable to get any higher. When things like this are built into the system, it’s hard to dig your way out, especially when it’s perceived as just how things are. This inequality causes violence among our communities, as exemplified with numerous cases of police brutality against POC (people of color.) Our morals as a society shouldn’t perceive POC to be a threat at glance, but this bias has been ingrained into the minds of many. 

Any act of travel to a foreign country with the intent of staying, is immigration, and immigrants, (among them the darker tone immigrants) are one of the most controversial ideas in America under the Trump presidency. Immigrants come to the U.S. in search of a better life from natural disaster, persecution and government misguided approaches to social advancement. Immigration is a large role in America’s history, pertaining to Ellis Island and the millions of people that immigrated here in search of a better life. During many times in history large immigration has occurred, and every time the U.S. gladly accepted them because it was the only humane option. But, when a national leader begins to target this body of millions of people, insisting that they steal jobs, are rapists and criminals, we, as Americans get fitted under a blanket that assumes that we do not acknowledge these people in the same light. That they are not equal to us.

When immigrants suddenly become prey to radical nativists who strut in Nazi propaganda and tell immigrants to go back home, it becomes a problem of safety for these people. But, regardless of their struggles and yearning for a better life, we hold them to no certain respect that is due to them, as people. Immigrants, regardless of where they are immigrating from, should be held in the same respect as one would have for an inborn American who was born on American soil. They shouldn’t be degraded nationally by someone who is a national leader, mistreated for using government aid, or be deprived in anything that the inborn American has the means to. 

It is a fact that white women are paid 20 cents less to white man’s dollar, and that colored women are paid 53 percent of the white man’s dollar. This inequality, called the gender pay gap, are one of many insights, nationally, that men and women are addressing as gender inequality.  Women should be able to receive the same pay as her male counterpart, likewise, women and men of color should subsume the same pay as their white counterparts in the workforce. But gender inequality is not limited to the pay gap, it includes other facets to our society like promiscuity, sexual assault, education, and behavior. Rape culture, a sociological concept where rape is pervasive and normalized due to societal attitudes about gender and sexuality.

This state of mind allows countless acts of violence to occur and countless acts of re-victimization of victims to materialize, as well. This is where the feminist objective is introduced; to grasp all people of all genders, sexualities and abled or disabled to be equal. Women and men should be recognized likewise, in all aspects of life., Men should be able to express their feelings, and show emotion in the same manner as women, and women should be able to express feelings without judgment of overreacting or being a drama queen. Women should be able to engage in sexual activity just as actively as men and not be shamed for it, or be called improper. Women shouldn’t have to be re-victimized in a courtroom for their sexual assault, and men should feel safe speaking out about their sexual assault experience without backlash, and it should also be recognized that men can be victims of domestic violence, too. When there is inequality among all those: men, women, transgenders, cis men and women, gender fluid men and women, abled and disabled, when there is an imbalance among how they are treated and held in regard to others, there is a culture built around it that we, as a society find hard to step out of. 

Humans have the tendency to devise things into categories: race, immigration status, education level, income, social class, and other subsets of these categories. But these aren’t the values that America claims to honor. Americans shouldn’t be valued by what their pay is, where they live (or don’t live), who they love, what color their skin is, how they show emotion, or do what they choose to do with their bodies. People shouldn’t be devised into these categories and then further given due consideration from these categories. Mothers shouldn’t be judged because they’re making minimum wage, live in government housing, receive state welfare, or aren’t married to their children’s father. Fathers shouldn’t be judged because they show emotion, take care of their children (stay at home fathers), or choose to be single. All these categories, are humans, and humans are all equal, inconsiderate of color, status, income, sexual orientation, and life choices. And all people should see to it that they treat people with likewise respect of anyone who may be in power. Regardless what the system incorporates into our norms, as living, breathing, human beings, we should behold the power in ourselves to treat everyone around us as equal. We should feel abided, by humanity, to hold each other in the same light, irrespective of all classifications.