Notion espace et échange

        The notion I’m going to deal with is “Spaces and Exchanges”. Spaces can be defined by continents, countries, cities or internet. The exchanges can be exchanges of money, ideas, cultures or knowledge.  I will present this notion by focusing on the topic of the immigration to the USA. We may wonder if the American dream is still alive?  We will see at first the American dream in the 19th and 20th century,  and in a second time we will see that the American dream has weakened considerably in the 21st century

        I. The American Dream in the past, in the 19th and 20th century
    2000 of Europeans lefts their country to have a better life in America. Most of them came from Ireland , Italy,  Russia and Germany. They immigrate because of war, famine, poverty or dictatorship. But every migrants had to go through Ellis Island, the immigration center of Manhattan. This was the first place they discovered before entering the USA. We saw this in the extract "the Godfather", indeed, we saw the various steps in Ellis Island of a little boy. His arrival: the little boy is aboard the ship with immigrants. The great hall, there were lines of immigrants and they have to take test. After that, we saw his medical inspection, the boy suffers from chickenpox. And finally, we saw his detention, he looks lonely and sad. From 1892 to 1954, the immigration to America was very controlled, especially by the crossing point at Ellis Island. But the incredible number ( 12 millions European) of migrant shows their faith and hope in the American dream.

        II. The American dream has weakened considerably in the 21st century

     Nowadays, the American dream has become much weaker. We observe that people migrate to Europe. This is called the Europe’s migrant crisis. The migrants come from especially Syria, Turkey and Jordan. But the camps are overcrowded.  They want to go to Germany, Sweden bof the economic conditions are too better.   But they mostly want to emigrate to GB. In an article we studied in class, we saw there are historical reasons, because of the old colonies that already speak English. British people are more willing to integrate the migrants. There is a lot of work in GB, it’s easier to get a job there and the unemployment rate is very low. Furthermore, it’s easier to claim for benefit for food or clothing.

        To sum up, the American dream was booming in the 19th century until the end of the 20th century. Many people were able to take refuge in America and to fulfill their dream Indeed, nowadays, there are a lot of different nationalities in the USA because of this. immigration. But since the 21st century, migrations to America have greatly decreased in favor of Europe.
In my opinion, the American dream is no longer relevant. Even if for some people the American dream is a symbol of success, I think we should rather speak today of European dream. But even the European dream seems more and more to disappear because of racism.. As a personal document, I have also chosen a caricature where we see written in big "Europe is overwhelmed", and below we see a boat of migrants with a XXXX saying "no more than us". This document is interesting because it shows a certain rejection of Europe which complains of being overwhelmed, whereas the migrant boat is really it.  Personally, I think that all of us should take duty and not reject people in need.

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