Week One Reading Thoughts

1.  The book mentions a doubling in the number of documented refugees between 1965 and 2010.  During this time population also approximately doubled, but the number of undocumented immigrants increased by a larger proportion.  Is this a result of stricter policy?  Or another factor?
2.  The west gladly accepted Warsaw Pact immigrants before 1992 in an attempt to sap the Soviet bloc of manpower.  After 1992, how quickly did this attitude change and what was the given justification for it?
3.  What does the future of migration look like?  Do the upcoming economies have the same pro-immigrant sentiments in their nation-building myth?  China in particular seems a likely candidate to see massive migration in the future because of its location and geographic features.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reading Reflection 7/5

FIGURE OF THE MIGRANT THOUGHTS It's always interesting to me how many assumptions we have that we don't openly think about or recognize. The assumption or stereotype of migrant as a 'failed citizen' is one that I think many of us subconsciously have, even if we do not believe that they have failed because of their own choices. In many cases, we view them as being from a failed state, and this judgment, too, is one that should be openly addressed and critiqued. The chapter mentions that 'the most 'dispossessed refugees have created some of the most interesting non-state social organizations'. I am recording this partially as a reminder to look for some of these later. Often when people think of immigrant organizations it is criminal organizations that come to mind. A few years ago I read an interesting piece about the idea that organized crime is an almost necessary step for any immigrant community in a “1 st world” coun
Read more

Journal Entry IV

Did you post witnesses? he said. To report to you on the continuing existence of those places once you’d quit them? That’s crazy. Is it? Where is yesterday? -Cormac McCarthy,  Blood Meridian Memory is something, as Julie pointed out in feedback this week, that shows up in most of my reflections and longer journal entries.  This one isn't going to be any different. I'm sitting in the Jetpack Ecolodge in Grunwald, just outside of Berlin.  It is Monday morning.  I have just said goodbye to Zosia as she headed out to get her taxi to the airport and, though Sophie will be here another day, I feel pretty alone in a way that is both sad and exciting, and she too will leave tomorrow and then I really will be the last one in Berlin. It makes a strange sense:  I was the first one of the group in the city, followed by Sophie half a day later, so I should be the last one out.  To truly complete the palindrome I should have stayed in Lichtenstein again but I wanted to se
Read more

Journal Entry II

I still feel that I between the flooding and the Hamburg trip, I haven't had time to fully process everything we saw at Sachenhausen.  The last 4 days have been unrelenting each in their own different ways.  That being said, there are many impressions I got while there that I'm sure will form more fully even as I write this.  For that reason, I'm mostly I'm going to talk about the Sachenhausen part of the week. The first, strongest thing that I felt there was the sense of hallowedness that I had on some level expected.  I have dozens of photos from other places we've been.  I have three from that place.  I know others have felt the same, and the few pictures I did take almost felt wrong when I was taking them, and I found that I had to explain to myself that it will be important to show people what it was like when I get home, and that's why it was okay to take a small amount of photos.  It's an entirely different kind of documentation, even though we w
Read more