Showing posts with label immigration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label immigration. Show all posts

May 22 - Canadian Immigrants Day

Posted on May 22, 2020

Today is supposed to be about celebrating people who immigrated to the United States from Canada.


I read that the Canadian/U.S. border (including the Alaskan border) is the longest in the world that is not patrolled by military forces. Even though Canada is the second largest nation in the world (after Russia), it's # 39 in population. Actually, most of the nation is very sparsely populated, with an average of 10 people per square mile (4  people per square kilometer).


Compare that to population density numbers for a few other nations:

  • Singapore - 20,445 people / square mile
  • Bangladesh - 3,033 people / square mile
  • United Kingdom - 725 people / square mile
  • China - 377 people / square mile
  • United States - 87 people / square mile
  • Canada - 10 people / square mile
  • Mongolia - 5 people / square mile

WHAT a huge difference, huh?

The thing is that most of the people who live in Canada live within a few hundred miles of the U.S. No wonder more Canadians immigrate to the U.S. than to any other nation - Canadians are quite likely to have at least some friends or family who live in the U.S., and they might get an opportunity to work in the U.S.

I live in the United States and would love to immigrate to Canada if it were easy to do so. I know a lot of Americans who feel the same way - too many of us, as a matter of fact! 

Here are a few of my favorite Canadian immigrants:

Will Arnett - actor, comedian, voice artist, and host of LEGO Masters


Samantha Bee - actor, comedian, host of Full Frontal



Nathan Fillion - actor, famous for Firefly, Castle, and The Rookie


Sandra Oh - actor from TV and movies


singers Joni Mitchell and Alanis Morissette 



There are SO MANY others, too many to list! 




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October 9 – A Norwegian-American Passage

Posted October 9, 2018

People from all over the world have come to the United States - and not just to visit, but to settle down and make the country a medley of different religions, languages, customs, and cuisines.

Today is the anniversary of the first organized emigration from Norway to the U.S. On this date in 1825, after a three-month-long journey, the sloop called Restauration arrived in New York City.

It wasn't a super welcoming situation. Apparently, the relatively young United States government had laws about how many people could travel on various sizes of ships - and the Restauration had too many people for her size. So the captain was arrested, the ship was confiscated, and somebody (the captain? the owner of the ship? - I'm not sure!) received a hefty fine. 

About a month later, President John Quincy Adams pardoned the captain, released the ship, and rescinded the fine. Still, the Norwegian people who'd come to the U.S. were saddled with the nickname "the Sloopers."


These days there are about three million Americans who claim Norwegian as their only or primary ancestry, and another 1.5 million people who proudly claim some Norwegian ancestors. 


That's a very small number compared to more than 34 million Irish Americans, 15 million Italian Americans, and 10 million Polish Americans.

The Norwegians who came to America came for the normal reasons: seeking religious freedom, in some cases, and fleeing from agricultural disasters and poverty, in more cases. For the most part, Norwegian Americans settled in the upper part of the Midwest. 



On my recent travels in Michigan, I stumbled upon a small town named Norway. When I was talking to people in Michigan tourist spots, some of the workers said, "I'm from Norway," and they didn't mean Norway-in-Europe, they mean that small town.




Also on this date:


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September 17 – Citizenship Day in the United States

Posted on September 17, 2018

Today is Constitution Day in the U.S. - and I've already written about that here.



But another name for today's holiday is Citizenship Day. And it's never been more important to think about the words citizen and citizenship than it is this year.

First, citizen means a person who legally lives in a particular nation, who owes allegiance to that nation, and who is entitled to protection as a member of the nation. You can be a citizen because you are "native" to the nation - in the United States, that means you were born in the U.S. - or you can be a citizen because you took the legal steps to become a citizen, even though you came from another country. The latter is called a naturalized citizen.

Citizenship is more complex. It can just mean the state of being a citizen, like, "Hooray! Maria finally got her citizenship!!"

But it usually means all the rights, privileges, and duties of being a member of a particular nation. In the U.S., these include the right to vote, the duty to serve on a jury when called (unless you can get out of jury duty, which an awful lot of people do an awful lot of the time), and the privilege of holding a U.S. passport (and being able to more easily travel in other nations than people with shaky legal status or no official paperwork).

The thing is, every nation sets its own system of citizenship, and whenever there is trouble - natural disasters, wars, corrupt or fascistic governments, and so forth - then people who are desperate for safety often cross borders, or try to, and then nations are pushed into having to deal with non-citizens and what to do with them.


Over the centuries, people around have generally not done great when refugees cross their borders. For every heartwarming story of a nation taking in refugees - like Bolivia taking in about 30,000 Jewish refugees during World War II - there seem to be dozens of awful stories - like the U.S. refusing entry to a ship full of 900 Jewish refugees who had made it all the way to just off the coast of Florida. (Yes, the ship had to return to war-torn Europe, and yes, lots of the people on that ship ended up being killed by Nazis!)

Shanghai was "the port of last resort" for many Jewish
asylum seekers during World War II, since the Chinese
city didn't require visas or passports for entry.
Immigrants who are not as desperate - not "asylum seekers," not refugees - get uneven treatment at various nations and at various times, as well. Between the years 1880 and 1920, the U.S. admitted more than 20 million immigrants, but in 1917 a literacy test was established, and in the early 1920s immigration quotas were established; World Wars and the Great Depression meant that immigration went way down.


Now many nations, and certainly the U.S., are struggling with conflicting ideas and goals. Should a society turn away outsiders so that its own citizens can enjoy the best opportunities for education and jobs? Should a society welcome outsiders, knowing that they tend to be hard workers and are often more loyal to their new home than are people who didn't have to struggle to get there? Should a nation allow rapid growth by admitting immigrants and refugees, knowing that more people in the country mean more people buying stuff - and therefore economic growth? Or should a nation try to control or even stop growth, knowing that space and resources only stretch so far?

I think everyone in the world, and certainly in the U.S., should try to be a little more empathetic and kind when dealing with asylum seekers and desperate refugees. It's really tough to know what to do, but at least we should be treating humans like humans!

On Citizenship Day in the U.S.A., I urge all U.S. citizens to use compassion while considering policies about immigration, asylum, legal and illegal residents, DACA, borders, citizenship requirements, voting requirements, and ICE. 



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