Essay On Immigration Awareness Week

What do you think of America, when you think of America? If I ask the old me; the eleven-year-old me, to be specific, I would probably have responded baseball and hot dogs. However, having matured and moving to Brandeis University has made me see a bigger scope. I have become more aware of the cultural and ethnic differences that not only form our student body, but if you think about it, it is how I, and many of us, think of America today: as a diverse growing and cohesive population.

Throughout this week, as Immigration Awareness Week is happening, I ponder on the question of why some people still refuse to accept the new generations of immigrants? Why is everyone not open to the idea about new people arriving to the United States? Most …show more content…
First, how can a person be considered “illegal,” is there such thing? The correct term should be “undocumented immigrant.” Secondly, a big percentage of the people who immigrate annually to the United States are forced to escape persecution, blackmailing or deadly threats, or experience extreme poverty or violence back in their homeland. You cannot generalize; you do not know everyone’s story. They have limited choices, one of them being desperately forced to seek refuge in other countries, and some of them chose the United States as their destination. Whether this society wants to accept them or not is reflected in our daily …show more content…
The attendance varies from students with immigrant backgrounds, to people who have relatives or friends who are undocumented, or simply people who are curious and yearn to educate themselves more on the subject. Perhaps I should invite the ignorant individual I encountered the other day at the library. Perhaps I needed to control my ire, and in lieu of immediately abandoning the scene, I should have invited her to one of the BIEI meetings. After all, ignorance is