Tag: article summary

Academic Article: Polish Happiness

I am german and polish, but I like to relate more to my polish side, so I found an article about Polish migration that compared the happiness of those who migrated and those who stayed where they were. When people leave their home permanently, it is often for a better life, but is that what they are getting? Thing that is often looked at to mean more happiness and a better life, is money, health, social status, etc. There was a study showing that most people who migrated in the Eastern European countries were happier, with the exception those who migrated from Poland who were actually less happy than those who stayed. This article goes on to explain how the controlled experiment worked, the results, and the conclusions before continuing into discussions about the topic.

I found it interesting the results were so apparent that the others did feel happier, but the Polish migrants were basically unaffected. I was a bit confused by what exactly may be effecting them this way, they had charts showing “determinants of happiness” and how it effected them, but they were harder for me to understand. I also wonder how true this is for everyone and who exactly they talked to for the research. Especially after reading a book like Americanah where it was obvious the migrants in that book were not happy. This article also has no strong emotional words to sway perspective and opinions it was instead straight facts and evidence which was nice.

Bartram, David. “Happiness and ‘Economic Migration’: A Comparison of Eastern European Migrants and Stayers.” OUP Academic, Oxford University Press, 24 June 2013, academic.oup.com/migration/article/1/2/156/991931?searchresult=1.

Academic Source on Immigrants

The peer-reviewed source I found on the Stevenson Library database is called “Immigrants from Mexico experience serious behavioral and psychiatric problems at far lower rates than US-born Americans”. I chose to focus on immigrants and refugees from Mexico because that is where my grandparents are from and I also tend to align myself with being Mexican American.

This source focuses on a study that was done to gain an insight into the criminal and violent behavior, substance use disorders, and mental disorders among Mexican immigrants in relation to US-born individuals. This study is based on the NESARC-III, a national survey of over 36,000 non-institutionalized adults ages 18+ in the US. By using this survey style, they determined immigration status by purely just asking, “Were you born in the US?”.

This study showed one table that was provided with statistics from the study and is well-formulated to show the differences between the immigrants and the US-born. The table breaks down crime to shoplifting, property damage, breaking into a house, building/car, and making money illegally. Then, violence is broken down into starting a lot of fights, physically hurting someone, using a weapon in a fight, and injuring someone in a fight. substance abuse disorders were separated by alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, and opioids. lastly, mental disorders. These were broken down into depression, dysthymia, generalized anxiety, and post traumatic stress. This study used good information to show the statistics from what they found, however, the information to back up the statistics is lacking some. The results did show that Mexican immigrants were about 4-10X less likely to be involved in criminal or violent behavior, and 3X less likely to be abusing alcohol. however, when it came to the harder substances, like cannabis or cocaine were right around 8X less than those who were born in the US.

Salas-Wright, Christopher P., et al. “Immigrants from Mexico Experience Serious Behavioral and Psychiatric Problems at Far Lower Rates than US-Born Americans.” Social Psychiatry And Psychiatric Epidemiology, vol. 52, no. 10, Oct. 2017, pp. 1325–1328. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s00127-017-1425-6.

Adult Education Services For Immigrants

The scholarly article I found was titled “Immigrants to the United States and Adult Education Services.” The work was done because there aren’t enough adult education courses, like English as a second language (ESL), provided to immigrants. The work was done by evaluating and researching issues and statistics related to immigration in the United States and adult education classes as well as using personal experiences from immigrants themselves. A result that was found was that undocumented immigrants have a harder time taking advantage of the few courses that are available because they need proof of citizenship to attend these classes. It was also found that classes, especially ESL, are extremely important for immigrants because if they are not proficient in English, they end up with low-wage jobs, unable to acquire new skills and new jobs, and denied equal access to health and other services. The work also portrays how organizations like social service agencies, community centers, and especially churches and libraries are the places that support and provide resources, like adult education services, to immigrants.

Since this was a scholarly article there wasn’t much bias present. The main bias I saw in the article that makes me think it is left-center is the fact that it brings up the Trump administration in a negative connotation, without facts. One line that stuck out to me for this was “Unfortunately, under the Trump administration, the conditions for undocumented immigrants are rapidly changing for the worse; they are likely to experience increasing persecution and discrimination” (Larrotta). Since this article was written in 2017 and cites most of its information from 2015 and some from 2016, I felt like this was more of an opinion addition to the article, rather than facts. It doesn’t use any evidence to back up the claim and the Trump administration had only been in the white house for a year before it was published. Other than this bias, I thought it used a lot of evidence and research, rather than interviews, and they cited a lot of references to back up their background information.

 

Works Cited: Larrotta, Clarena. “Immigrants to the United States and Adult Education Services.” New Directions for Adult & Continuing Education, vol. 2017, no. 155, Fall 2017, pp. 61–69. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1002/ace.20241.

Article 2- Entrepreneur helping Refugees

The news article “70M People are Counting on this Social Entrepreneur to Succeed” was found on Forbes. This article was written by Devin Thorpe and was published on February 22, 2019. Forbes is known to be a neutral but has a slightly skewing right leaning bias on the media bias chart.

This article discusses the details of what John Kluge, the founder and acting managing director for Refugee Investment Network or RIN is doing to help refugees not have to pay for their travel loans. this company has aligned themselves with other brands and companies to help assist the refugees by “matchmaking” them with potential investors. This is beneficial since there are “70 million refugees and internally displaced people in the world.” That is a lot of people. people that are scraping to not be at the bottom. as Thorpe states it, these people are not living, they are surviving. which in my opinion, is not a way to live

A quote that stood out to me in the article was “Investing in opportunity for refugees domestically and around the world represents an opportunity for impact as well as for financial returns.” This stood out to me because it shows that even though Kluge is looking at this as a business transaction, he also sees it as an opportunity to help the refugees and assist them in process. this is not to say that they are having everything handed to them. many of the refugees have been displaced for many years and cannot live the way that they would like to.

Article Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/devinthorpe/2019/02/22/70m-people-are-counting-on-this-social-entrepreneur-to-succeed/?fbclid=IwAR3bZEaWshMp0tmLZL786-srsYeg0CLmBJdKTD5AwOICU5VO1HhllyAn3mk#5a3b6c7c61fa

 

Article 2: Opposing Side, Migrants in the Rio Grande Valley

The article “The Border Crisis Is A Money-Making Machine For Smugglers” is about the immigration border crisis. The writer of the news article is John Daniel Davidson who is a senior Federalist correspondent. The Federalist is known to be a right leaning news source and this specific news article is Davidson’s written testimony that was delivered before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

The article included opinions and facts about the experience at the border in the Rio Grande Valley. Davidson includes details about the process that immigrants have to go through in order to get through the physical border. Davidson also discusses his views on why he thinks the border is a making money machine. He states, “Assuming each migrant pays $4,000 for safe passage over the border, that’s about $400 million – just for those apprehended crossing illegally in March.”

Something that this article includes that the first article did not include was the discussion of drug cartels. This article went further in depth about the reasonings and the profit that is made when immigrants cross the border. This article also uses a different kind of language when discussing this topic. For example, the first article calls asylum seekers “migrants” while this article calls them “immigrants.” However, both articles did agree on the same point, which is the immigration system is flawed.

everyone is confused about Trump’s aid cuts to Central America

The article, A week later, everyone is confused about Trump’s aid cuts to Central America, published on April 5th, 2019 by ThinkProgress was very interesting in my opinion. This article signifies how the State Department, Congress and affected countries weren’t expecting the cuts and they don’t know what to do next.

This article talks about how the conditions in some communities in these countries affected are so bad, violence in Honduras, outright hunger in Guatemala where food insecurity is reaching famine levels, that people need to leave even if it means taking huge risks for their families. Some mothers are putting their daughters on birth control for the journey north because they know the odds of rape are extremely high and more than likely will happen. And despite all these risks, they keep leaving.

The Trump administration was in full support of giving almost 420 million dollars, while the governments of these three countries allocated 5.4 billion dollars. The supported it because this initiative supported programs that lead to lowered homicide rates, boosted job creation and helped fight corruption.

These countries governments were confused, Honduran government said they had met with national security advisor days prior. Homeland Security secretary also signed an agreement that focused on lowering migration rates the same week.

This article was very interesting to me, due to the fact that these southern countries agreed to help the migration and  President Trump decided to cut all aid for them. After reading about their conditions, this is very scary. Imagine if you were that family making its way, or have to starve every night due to hunger. “Central Americans look around the world and say, ‘I’m a human being, and there must be some place in the world where I can live free from fear and want’ — and that’s why they leave.””

https://thinkprogress.org/one-week-later-no-clarity-on-what-trumps-aid-cut-to-central-american-countries-means-c19c9a48ce3e/

Trump cuts aid

The article, Trump moves to cut aid to Central America, amid caravans and flood of refugees was very interesting. It was published on March 31, 2019 and was on Fox News. This article discusses how Trump decided to cut direct aid to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras because their citizens were fleeing north and overwhelming U.S. resources. The White House warned them, eventually they will be closing the entire border with Mexico. The article also signifies how the U.S. is giving more than 10 billion dollars in December, and yet they keep getting information of how a a new caravan is forming in Honduras and may have more than 20,000 people.

This article was written for many reasons. Some include the fact of spreading more information about Trump and his policies. Everyone questions why he wants to build a wall, maybe this has something to do with it. Secondly, this article spreads our president, Trump’s opinions and tweets. He states that the Democrats don’t care about crime and how they don’t want any victory for Trump or the Republicans even if it helps The United States of America. Trump also states that by building a wall, which could possibly be the next step, it’ll help close the border and maybe even stop the drug flow from Mexico.

By providing a wall could have detrimental effects. This could heavily impact cross border communities, Mexican supermarkets, factories that rely on imported parts, and other businesses across the U.S and even threaten 5 million American jobs.

In my opinion, I don’t agree with President Trump’s ways and beliefs about the wall. It basically shows, as one said “It’s sending out a message to other countries that, don’t come because our borders may not work at any time. That is extremely scary and dangerous.”

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-moves-to-cut-aid-to-central-america-amid-caravans-and-flood-of-refugees

 

 

Closing the Mexico border would be a logistical nightmare

The news article “Mexico border closing: Trump and US could face logistical nightmare if he follows through with threats” was posted on USA Today by John Fritze on April 3rd, 2019. According to the media bias fact check, USAToday falls under the left-center. This means that they are relatively balanced but slightly skewed left.

Like the first article, this news article focuses on President Trump’s threats to close and/or tariff the U.S – Mexico border. Unlike the other article, this article focuses on the glaringly negative effects that will come from closing the U.S – Mexico border. At the beginning of this article, it references the first time in U.S history that the U.S closed the Mexico border. This was right after John. F. Kennedy’s assassination. They did this as a precaution for the U.S direct national security. This caused bumper to bumper traffic at the U.S – Mexico border.

Similar to the J.F.K situation, President Trump wants to close the border for national security reasons. He states that closing the border could have an immediate impact on illegal immigration. On the other side, experts say that closing this border could have a massive impact on the economy. The article states “the move could disrupt more than 1.5 billion dollars in goods and hundred of thousands of people who cross the border legally everyday”. This is essentially saying that it could have an immediate negative impact on the American economy by the billions.

 

In my opinion, this article seems slightly skewed to the left and slightly biased because this article features a few key emotional words that may try to persuade a reader to agree with this type of article.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/04/03/donald-trump-faces-logistical-nightmare-closing-u-s-mexico-border/3337332002/

“Asylum seekers returned from Mexico plead to stay in U.S.”

In a more recent article after Trump’s administration policy went into effect in regards to asylum seekers, those very asylum seekers are now asking to stay in the United States because they fear for their safety. As this was a known issue when the policy went into effect, this plea is expected. More than 240 people have been returned to Mexico since the policy was enacted. These asylum seekers that appear in court in the United States have to return to Tijuana under the policy, but Tijuana has been very violent lately. The article states, “Tijuana, like much of Mexico’s northern border zone, has seen extensive bloodshed since the federal government began using the military against drug cartels over a decade ago.” Lawyers for the asylum seekers are attempting to ask for their clients to remain in the United States. While Mexico claimed that they would set up work permits for the asylum seekers as they wait for their court hearings, they have not provided details about how to obtain a work permit. The backlash against the policy continues as “The American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy groups are suing in federal court to halt the MPP program.” The government explained that this policy was created to end our “generous immigration laws.” These groups and critics of the legislation says it violates United States laws and will be watching closely as the court dates proceed. The safety of the asylum seekers is a main concern, especially with having to go back and forth between the United States and Mexico.

Link to article: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-asylum-mexico-idUSKCN1R01Q5

 

“Trump Administration’s Asylum-Seeker Policy Takes Effect”

In an article by the New York Times, “Trump Administration’s Asylum-Seeker Policy Takes Effect” written on Jan. 29, 2019 outlines Trump’s new policy towards asylum seekers. This policy forces them to wait in Mexico for their cases to be processed. The legislation allows for asylum seekers to enter the states only for court appearances. Asylum seekers previously were allowed to remain in the states while their cases were filed and put through the system. Mexico is supposedly working with the United States on this new policy, but are still trying to figure out the process. Asylum seekers are granted a special visa to come and go during the court proceedings. The issue with this policy is that, while Mexico has committed to protecting those asylum seekers when they are in country, these human beings are fleeing their country because of their concern for their safety. It is still unknown if this legislation will cause further harm. There has been significant backlash from advocacy groups over this bill because of the concern over safety. Another aspect is the fact that the borders are already overwhelmed with the number of people fleeing and trying to enter the United States, which adds another element to this policy. The United States said that they would only return men who are single to Mexico. It is expected that advocacy groups will fight this policy in the hopes to change it. As the flow of asylum seekers to Tijuana grows, new individuals are shocked to hear the news. These individuals did not plan on staying at the border for longer, but are still hoping for freedom and better opportunities.

Link to the article: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/29/world/americas/asylum-seekers.html