The Year of the Immigrant

While many countries in the West are kicking and screaming, the global reality is that things and people are shifting around.

It generally makes people very uncomfortable when they realize that the identity of their land-nation-country-region is changing, especially if they think the new reality will be seen as lower class or less educated.

Some say that the xenophobia (an unreasonable fear of foreigners) - in America is because white people don't want those looking different to take over.  I think its more than that.  It is that everyone doesn't like change.  A small town in Mexico would be upset if it was taken over by Hungarians.  What makes it more complicated (and unfortunate) here is that the division is made more clear because the "new" people are easily identified by their darker skin.


Amidst all the bad feeling and subsequent draconian anti-immigration laws in Arizona and Alabama there are some positive changes.  Sayu Bhojwani, former commissioner of immigrant affairs for New York City writes about our new American leaders who are changing the road for all of us.



MTH
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January 12, 2012, 11:31 pm - New York Times

Year of the Immigrant

By SAYU BHOJWANI

[The] ...most crucial, development for immigrant civic engagement is the growing number of new American candidates on the ballot for school and library boards, state legislatures and Congress. The number of Asian-Americans running for Congress more than doubled in just two years, from 8 in 2010 to 19 in 2012, according to the Asian Pacific American Institute of Congressional Studies. These races include three in which Asian-Americans are running against each other for the Democratic nomination — in Illinois’ eighth, Washington’s first and Hawaii’s second districts. In these races, voters to whom policy positions may matter as much as ethnicity no longer have to choose one over another.

Latinos in elected office have already increased by 53% over the past 15 years, according to the National Association of Latino Elected Officials; with senate races this year in Texas and New Mexico featuring both Latino Democrats and Republicans (including Cuban-American Ted Cruz), that number will probably grow....link to complete article