Chapter 1: The changing pattern of immigration

Immagrents have been a primary source of Americas population growth, most particularly from Mexico. These immagrants came here due to hope or fear, or both. Economic disparity is the greatest cause international migration. More than three quarters of the worlds' population live in third world conditions. However other causes include internal and international conflicts, lack of government respect to minorities, poor governance, and the lack of security and basic human rights. People also come to seek better educational and work opportunities. Sometimes the US plays favorites, such as allowing refugees from Cuba but not from Haiti. This is where the UN steps in. The immigration laws in the US began after WWI due to fears of enemy spying. In 1985 46.4% of immagrents came from Asia. In recent years, the population of foreign-born people increased from 5.4% in 1960, to 86% in 1993. This is a huge increase and it's hard to believe that people born in the US are that much of an extreme minority. The states that have them most immagrents are California, New York, Texas, New Jersey, and Illinois. This makes sense because these states have the largest populations and the largest cities. Box 1.1 in chapter one stated that it is likely that 8 billion illegal immagrents have jobs, however it is still debate if this is beneficial or harmful to the future of the country. It has been ruled in the Supreme Court case of plyer vs. doe that children of illegal immagrents have the same rights to education as all other citizens. A popular entry point to the US for illegal immagrents of all countries is through the border that we share with Mexico. "In 2006 the Falfurrias checkpoint apprehended almost four times as many illegal aliens as residents." (Taylor & Whitaker p.7). It was also noted that after 9/11 forty-one Iraqis were found trying to cross into. The US through Mexico. Assimilation is when a group doesn't maintain their original culture when in contact with a different culture. Horace Mann wrote that a primary purpose of public schools is to assimilate immagrent children. Multiculturalism is what schools should be promoting, as there are often many students from many cultures. This is closer to the process of acculturation, which involves learning a second culture while maintains the original culture. Reading your chapter one Powerpoint, I learned that there is de facto and de jure segregation, which defines segregarion as mandated or not mandated by law. According to Taylor and Whitaker, the current data (time of publishing was in 2009), the percentage of school age population is as follows: 1.2 Indian/Alaskan native 4.2 Asian/ Pacific Islanders 15.4 Hispanic 16.4 African American 63.3 White These percentages are not shown in public schools where 88% of teachers and 84% of principles are white. Though the slide in the PowerPoint had slightly different numbers, the diversity of the faculty does not match the diversity of the student body. I would have liked to have seen the graphs that show the disparaity in discipline between races, howwever it seemed covered up by the Public Schools- Racial Devide