Post #5

Mykaella’s background is very interesting. Her father’s family had to go through a lot of hardship and suffered a lot just to get into America, but that doesn’t mean they are all legal citizens. All he went through just shows you how strong and powerful a human’s determination can be.

            On Ligny’s journal entry, you can feel how most people felt traveling to a new place. They were scared, especially since they had to learn a whole new language. They had to wait on Angel Island for a while before they could reach California. The long journey some people went through just to reach America is very inspiriting.

            Arshad’s video is very interesting because you can see that even today immigrants from Ireland have to answer questions in order to get into the U.S. Some people are still racist and give the immigrants a lot of hardship. It’s sad to see that people can’t view anyone different from them as equals.

          Angel’s video post was shocking because not everyone is the same or thinks the same. Just because some criminals in the U.S. were Mexican, it doesn’t mean that all immigrants that come from Mexico are criminals. By judging people just because of where they come from makes us a little less human.

Post #4

            I’ve lived in Puerto Rico my whole life, but I have Latin and European blood in me. Puerto Rico has been a mixture of European, African, and Latin Blood for years, and with every year that passes, there are more people born with a lot of different heritage.

My dad comes from Ecuador, so I have Incan blood in me, and my mom’s great-great-grandfather came from Italy. I have family on the North side of the island, on different states of the U.S. (like New York, New Jersey, Georgia, Florida, etc.), Ecuador, Italy, and Norway. I am very proud of my heritage and I love having different cultures, since I get explore the beliefs and customs of different countries. The food from every country is equally delicious.

I am very thankful to have a multi-cultural background. It has taught me a lot about other countries and I’ve been able experience many things that could only happen once in a lifetime. You can learn a lot about history just from your background.

Post #3

            The U.S. has been a home to many immigrants from different countries for years. Many of these immigrants struggle to learn the English language. In order to make transportation easier, the U.S. government made sure that the DMV makes the written tests in many different languages. Some improvements in technology have also helped greatly with this issue.

            It’s a good idea to do this because it gives more opportunities to the immigrants that have difficulty learning a new language, especially since the U.S. is a big melting pot. Not everyone has the same learning capacity and when you’re in a different country with a different culture, learning a new language doesn’t make life easier. 

http://www.usimmigrationsupport.org/integration.html

Post #2

April 17, 1918    

I was only seven years old when I got on a boat and sailed with my family to a foreign land. My country’s economy wasn’t going so good, so my father decided to move us to America for a better opportunity. In the beginning, it didn’t turn out like we had hoped; we had to go through a lot of hardship.

 My family and I had been living in Hawaii for ten years now. Every day it gets harder, and the prejudice grows, but the difficulty of it all just gives us strength to keep moving on. Sometimes it’s hard to keep the faith, but if we succumb to the pressure we’ll never succeed in life. We take pride in our achievements, we worked really hard to accomplish them, but with every new one we make, it gets harder to accomplish another.

I often work with my father on the fields from dawn until nighttime, and when I’m not putting long hours of labor on the fields I help mother with the house chores. Father’s dream is to open a restaurant and fill it with the crops we grow on our small piece of land. He wants for people to know the delicious foods that come from our homeland. He’s so close to achieving his dream that I can almost taste the onigiri filled with pickled ume, salted salmon, and kombu alongside mother’s homemade sushi.

Keeping the faith is what has helped us reached so far in life. Every insulting comment we receive from people who don’t see the value in our culture like we do only gives us strength, for we know how precious it really is. We’ll never give up, no matter the consequences, and we’ll leave our legacy for future generations to come. No amount of weapons or laws will keep us from reaching our goals… 

                                                                             - Tsukiko Mori

Post #1

               During the 1870’s many Japanese migrated to Hawaii. They were farmers and farm laborers that had to suffer through many hardships because of envy and prejudice. Even though they had to start from the bottom, it didn’t take long for them to work their way up to success.

Many Japanese moved to Hawaii during the 1870’s and 1880’s because of the rise of the sugar industry, not just because Japan’s transition to the modern economy caused a lot of unemployment and bankruptcies. They wanted to reach the U.S. in search for more opportunities and a better life. The ones who settled on the mainland settled more on the West of the country (i.e. California).

Many of the first Japanese immigrants were men who were recruited to work on the fields. They had a hard time trying to make their new home have some elements from their traditional culture. Thousands of Japanese women moved to the U.S. after 1907 to reunite with their husbands or to marry. Many of the women who immigrated had arranged marriages.   

The Japanese were able to succeed rapidly after having just arrived to the U.S. They became successful farmers, fruit growers, fishermen, and small businessmen since they could achieve a lot with little given.  Many Americans were so envious of the Japanese’ achievements that prejudice grew and there were laws restricting the rights of the Japanese, including laws that denied Japanese citizenship and the rights to own land.

The Japanese suffered through a lot when they reached America. They had to start from the bottom but were able to succeed rapidly. Their rapid success caused more racial prejudice to be born and restriction laws to be written. Even though they went through many hardships, they were able to withstand them and be successful.