Spaces And Exchanges

Spaces and exchanges

Introduction

        I am going to introduce you the concept of Spaces and Exchanges and to focus on The New Americans.

        In a text from The Telegraph which we studied in class, we read that in 2014 « […] more than 170.000 people arrived in Italy by boat fleeing violence, persecution and poverty ». We also learnt that many European states implement policies to clampdown immigration of crowds who mainly flee African countries in order to find asylum far from famine or war. Immigrants form an huge amount of the worldwide population and migratory flows contribute to important hustle and bustle on cross-border spaces.

        Thus it is worth wondering what obstacles immigrants can meet. We will see that even if refugees succeeded their journey, they can stay in camps or face difficulties in their new lives they dreamt of.

1. Hardships during the journey

        First of all, everyday, more and more people dream about an heaven where they would be able to live in peace without the scare of war or the pressure of a dictatorship. That is why, in order to fulfill it, crowds from underdeveloped countries flee their own roots to reach our countries. While they try to forget their homeland, migrants unfortunately endure many pains on their way due to frail conditions.

        They fairly often have to cross deserts on foot or seas in boats in which they are piled up during days deprived of food and water. Some of them also try to enter Europe by road and rail at their peril.

        As we can read in an article from The Telegraph which we studied in class, a war between Irak and Syria has spurred an exodus of refugees. So they usually pay « between £2.000 and £3.000 » people smugglers who are supposed to lead them to Europe. This heavy price doesn’t guarantee any kind of safety during the journey. Indeed the article explained that « In August (2015), Austrian police found 71 migrants dead from suffocation inside an abandoned lorry. »

1. The horror of camps

        Secondly, once lucky migrants succeeded in reaching a developed country, they can encounter new obstacles. Nowadays some European countries such as United Kingdom are refusing the entrance of refugees or illegal immigrants in order to clamp down on migratory flows. So they remain behind the border waiting for an opportunity to sneak across it. That is why refugees are frequently occupying huge camps where you can find migrants from all over the world.

        For instance an article from The Guardian presents the conditions in which crowds are living in the Calais refugees camp, located in North of France. With a big lake of hygiene and without running water and the ability to treat health problems, many issues born over there. The narrator quotes some of the most frequent health troubles : « respiratory infections from the cold ; stomach infections from the water ».

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