Issue date: 4/25/07 Section: Opinion

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Since fall semester class registration began on Monday, I would like to make an official endorsement for a certain class that students should consider taking. The class is Sociology 122: Immigration Studies, taught by Professor Manuel Barajas. Current debate on the issue of immigration, more specifically, on illegal immigration is often a narrow, ethnocentric debate about what we should do to solve the immigration problem and not about what causes immigrants, documented or undocumented, to come to the United States and the hardships they face.

Before taking this class, I saw immigration in the simple push/pull model. That is, people leave their native countries because they are poor and come to the U.S. because it is rich. These types of misconceptions cause people to lose sight of the racist provisions of U.S. immigration policy, how neo-colonialism has impacted immigration and how the notion of the illegal immigrant came about. It is important to critically analyze the history of U.S. immigration policy, the social and political atmosphere of the U.S. during certain periods of immigration and how immigrants are received by their host nation, which often determines the level of success in the U.S. Furthermore, examining the degree of economic, political or military involvement the U.S. has had in nations that send large numbers of immigrants to our shores and borders allows one to look beyond the simple push/pull factors.

Through this class, one can gain insight that is critical in understanding the causes of, and factors that influence, immigration, the role the U.S. immigration policy has played in stereotyping and racializing immigrants and in understanding that the current debate over immigration should not simply look at how to solve the immigration problem. I used to ignore the human aspect of immigration, but by ignoring the human aspect of immigration, it becomes easier to raise arbitrary restrictions on immigration that lead to real immigrants suffering.

There are immense hardships immigrants face, such as leaving behind family, risking mental and physical injuries and being vilified by American society and being forced to assimilate or leave. One might say that what I have stated here is pure conjecture or bias. Well, I am biased in saying that one should take this class and not take a geology or math class instead. What is not based on conjecture or bias is the information I have been exposed to by taking this class. My hope is that people will be exposed to information that challenges uncritical, mainstream thought about immigration that is often distorted by the media and political pundits.

For example, the term illegal, when applied to immigration, is used in the media and on talk shows in order to close discussion on the issue and label people, regardless of how much or little they contribute to America, as undeserving of being here because they are breaking the law. U.S. immigration restrictions and quotas based on national origins (and on census data from 1790) produced the illegal alien as a legal and political subject barred from citizenship and without rights.

Furthermore, one will see through examining the history of U.S. immigration policy how restrictions and quotas vilified and stigmatized inferior races and cemented American identity as white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Fast-forward to 2007, and the long history of equating certain nationalities as inferior races has manifested itself in the immigration problem now being a Mexican problem.

It is incredibly unfortunate that people make decisions about how undocumented immigrants should be treated and dealt with without at least looking to the past at how this problem was created. Current policy such as building border walls and militarizing the border is a stop-gap measure that is not only inhumane and ineffective, but ignores a long history of how the policies of the United States government have created and exacerbated the same problem it now seeks to solve. If you want to be informed on the issue, I urge you to register for Sociology 122 this fall.

Scott Allen can be reached at opinion@statehornet.com

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