Tradition and culture are two major elements describing a particular group of people within a given time period in history. Different cultural and ethic groups have different values and tradition which is passed from one generation to the next without loss of meaning. Arab Americans have undergone several episodes of discrimination in the United States. This has been contributed by biased perceptions that prevailed in the United States during the early times. As a community Arab Americans just like the other minority groups endured numerous experiences of prejudice, racism and segregation. The paper takes a look at the issue of discrimination in the United States. Special focus will be given to Arab Americans in the United States.
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Ethnic Groups and Discrimination
number one
The issue of discrimination is mostly associated with ethnic groups. Therefore, several groups encounter discrimination due to their ethnic origins. Discrimination involves several aspects that represent unfair treatment of certain groups due to their ethnic affiliation. Consequently, discrimination takes the form of racism, prejudice and segregation (Wang, 2006). Arab Americans have undergone several episodes of discrimination in the United States. This has been contributed by biased perceptions that prevailed in the United States during the early times. As a community Arab Americans just like the other minority groups endured numerous experiences of prejudice, racism and segregation. The paper takes a look at the issue of discrimination in the United States. Special focus will be given to Arab Americans in the United States.
Arab Americans migrated to the United States. The community moved to America during the early days. Some of them came as early business people and explorers who eventually settled in the United States. Furthermore, during the colonization of the world by the European powers the British moved Arabs from their countries to other territories under their control. This included the Arab colonies that were under British rule. Since America was also under the colonial rule of British, it became easy for Arabs to move to the American continent. Therefore, the Arabs who migrated to the United States during the British colonial period are the forefathers of the Arab American community in the United States.
Arab Americans underwent discrimination in the United States. The community was subject to prejudice, racism and segregation. There were several ways in which Arab American were subjected to discrimination. The community was regarded as inferior to the whites who are the majority in the United States. They were discriminated since they were not considered to be original Americans. This was one of the main reasons why the Arab Americans endured prejudiced. During the time when racism was at its peak, blacks and Asian Americans were not considered as an integral part of they American society. As a result, they were not allowed to participate in mainstream activities like voting and education. Even after the community was allowed top pursue education special institutions were set apart for them. Therefore, Arab Americans were not allowed to attend similar school with whites. This was the highest level of segregation that was experienced by Arab Americans. Arab Americans did not have representatives in leadership; they were subjected to subjugation by the white majority.
Arab Americans were greatly affected by the discrimination against them by the majority. As a result, the Arab American community participated in several activities in response to discrimination. Among the events that the community took part in include; Dual labor market, Environmental justice issues, Affirmative action, Redlining, Double jeopardy, Institutional discrimination, Reverse discrimination, Glass ceiling and glass walls. Through affirmative action, the Arab American community sought to entrench the practice of equality in the society. This mainly targeted social institutions like schools, hospitals and other social amenities. Through affirmative action, the Arab American community endeavored to achieve justice and equality. Reverse discrimination was also rampant since the Arab American community took measures to safeguard their interests and these measures amounted to the discrimination of other communities (Kayyali, 2006). The Arab American ethnic group also took part in institutional discrimination. This was initially aimed at ensuring that the community reduced the rate of discrimination against its members. However, the practice was practically counterproductive since it institutionalized discrimination indirectly.
The immigration process in the United States is very demanding and exhaustive. I personally would not want to migrate to the United States. This is because the whole process is just too long and uncertain. Apart from the bureaucratic nature of the immigration process, the costs involved are also too high. For that reason, it costs a lot to complete the whole immigration process. It has this becomes so difficult to move to the United States now a days compared to previous years. Considering the entire process of becoming a US citizen I would not like to migrate to the United States (Naber & Jamal, 2008). The immigration process is just too difficult for any immigrant seeking to travel to the United States and become a citizen. Additionally, the aspect of cost has a lot of relevance to immigrants. First and foremost immigrants move to the United States in search for better living. Therefore, it is obvious that those travelling to the United States are people who are not well off economically. High costs of processing immigration are a great obstacle in the immigration..
Question number two
Immigration laws, policies and protocols should be neutral at all times. The United States immigration policy should not favor any kind of immigrants. This is because it is an aspect of discrimination to favor certain immigrants at the expense of others. Unless there are justifiable reasons the immigration process must guarantee freedom and equality. It is against the spirit of equality and oneness to favor one group in the process of immigration. All kinds of immigrants must be given equal chance to compete for immigration. The role of the government is to set rules and regulations that govern the immigration process. These regulations should be based on the application of protocols that must be adhered to such protocols should not be based on ethnicity.
Preference in the immigration process if any should be given to the neediest groups. These criteria will bring justice to the whole process. Instead of favoring certain groups and not others, the process of awarding citizenship should be equal. However, incase there are more applicants from a certain group, and then there is no problem awarding them the majority slots. This will be considered as fair since the majority group deserves to be considered in large numbers. However, the issue of awarding applicants from a certain group alone and denying other ethnic groups is unethical and should be discouraged.
There are also the parameters that are often considered when awarding citizenship; they include talent, oppression and affluence. Among the three talents should be given preference. As much as it is fine to issue citizenship to the group with the largest applications, it is in the interest of the country to award citizenship to the most talented applicants. This will ensure that they play a constructive role in the economy on the United States. It will not be in order to award citizenship to the most oppressed ethnic group. This is because oppression cannot be a viable criterion in awarding citizenship. Affluence also does not measure up as a viable method of awarding citizenship. The immigration process in the United States should not consider awarding citizenship to the richest applicants.
It apparently seems that the immigration process has been left to the rich and on my case I will not consider migrating to the United States.
