Spaces and exchanges : "we can wonder if the relations between the United States and others countries have progressed."

    Each society is somehow defined by the geographical space it occupies and by its symbolic monuments.  A society resides also in the idea everyone has about it. Through trade, conquest, emigration and communication, nations have always influenced others beyond theirs borders and have always been influenced, culturally, economically, politically or scientifically. The various waves of migration from and towards the United States have fluctuated and have significantly been influenced by the country’s attractiveness. In order to deal with the notion of immigration, I choose 3 documents: an extract from The Lost by Daniel Mendelsohn (written in 2006), the front cover of the special issue of the Time magazine and the cartoon by Mike Luckovich published in the Atlanta Journal in 2006.

We can wonder if the relations and the exchanges between the United States and others countries have progressed.

    The Lost is an extract of a novel telling the story of a grandfather coming from Europe, and who migrated to the USA at the beginning of the 20th century.
The narrator seems to feel admiration for his grandfather. He sees the trip as an epic story that is pleasant to listen to. The story tells about the steps the immigrants had to go through when arriving in the USA. So the text highlights the difficulties the immigrants had to face to enter the country legally few years ago. Moreover, and as we can see in the cartoon, it’s still the case today. The cartoon presents the emblem of the Statue of Liberty. First, the Statue of Liberty was a welcoming sign for immigrant. As it is shown in the cartoon, this welcoming sign has been turned into a symbol of rejection. The Statue of Liberty stands for the psychological border between the USA and Mexico. It is present at the frontier to replace the wall already built. Lying down this way, the statue of Liberty tells the immigrants from Mexico that they are not welcome anymore.
We can notice the height of the statue and how unbreakable the fence is. In the same way, the wall is meant to be insurmountable. Yet, it is well-known that despite this construction, people will keep moving to the USA, by all means. Therefore, the role of the fence is to dissuade people from entering the country.

Going back to the text, the reader faces the grandfather and his feeling that he has succeeded in life (last line: “won”). Arriving in America is depicted as a trophee, won after a long struggle against hardships.

So as we can see in both documents, the USA, today, is not really considered as a welcoming country but rather a country that wants to close its frontiers. In addition, in my point of view, this is also emphasized by the new US president, Donald Trump, with his new immigration policy.

    On the other hand, the cartoon can be seen as a criticism of the policy led by the Bush administration in 2006 that decided on building up this wall. To illustrate this point, I think that the front cover of Special Issue Time presents the diversity in the USA: so the mix of different cultures and races. We can’t guess the origins of the woman: there is no specific features. This magazine highlights the beauty of this mix: it’s in favor of immigration so does The Lost. The Lost presents the grandfather as the perfect example of integration: he has settled down in the host country and built up his family there. Moreover, being this example of integration also focuses on how immigrants have participated in shaping the diversity of the American population.

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