Anglais: Spaces and Exchanges: The theme of immigration

Spaces And Exchanges: The theme of Immigration

The notion I’m going to deal with is Spaces and exchanges. First of all I would like to give a definition of exchange: an exchange is an act of giving an receiving something else in return, it can also be seen as a continuous movement or circulation of people, trade, media. I would like to illustrate this notion through the theme of « Immigration » especially in the USA because it implies the motion of legal and illegal people to other countries. This leads me to a problem: We may wonder to what extend immigration may be considered as a debated issue.

First of all we studied a listening comprehension which is a documentary based on the US-Mexico border. Over the past decade, the border has been a burning a debated issue. Long of 1,951 miles, La Linea stretches over from Tijuana to Brownsville next to the Gulf of Mexico, and is one the busiest border. It has become a strategic place for legal and illegal business especially drug dealing.  It act like a magnet for Mexican immigrant as América, a character from a novel called The Tortilla Curtain which we studied an extract, who dreams of better life in the USA because job offers are limited in Mexico and the standard of living is much lower than in the USA.

Contrary to Mexico, which is struck by unemployment and poverty, USA appears as a land of opportunities as far as job market. That is the reason why many destitute Mexican cross the border wether illegally or legally. When moving to America for better prospects, employers offer them menial and painful jobs with low wages. That is the paradoxes of the Mexican immigrants’ situation who represents half of the American immigrants and while some are trying to limit their number on the territory, others view them as a cheap labour force. As a result immigration is a highly controversial issue.

There is a drawing we studied in class on which we can see two man, one is Uncle Sam (national personification of the US) who’s holding a poster on which is written keep out, and the second is under Uncle Sam and represents the employers (help wanted). It correctly shows us the paradox of immigration in the USA.

On the one hand, part of the American economy seems to be based on this unskilled work force, ready to endure difficult working conditions in restaurants or as farm labours. On the other hand, the border is watched over by patrol as well as militia in order to prevent illegal immigrants from entering the country even if it implies violence.

Thing is that, undocumented immigrants are taking away jobs for the American citizens, they insist about the painfulness of these jobs and are convinced that American workers wouldn’t accept to work in such conditions. In any case this migration pattern is the bases of all kind of exchanges as economic exchanges, while Mexicans are improving their living conditions, the US economy benefits from their adaptability.

To conclude we can say that even if Mexican immigration remains debated, it is indisputably a sort of economy wealth for the USA. Nevertheless the American dream sometimes turns out to be more of a utopia than a reality.

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