When we think of an alien, we think of an extraterrestrial being who usually demands to speak with our leader and wants to take over planet Earth. Aliens are portrayed as threats, wishing to exterminate the entire human race, yet our laws use the word “alien” to refer to people from another country, treating them as if they are from another planet. It is no wonder the United States struggles to welcome immigrants into the country, for the law strips them of rights and even humanity. Consequently, immigrants and refugees are targets for hatred and discrimination.
During this past summer, I travelled to McAllen, and El Paso, Texas as well as Juarez, Mexico to study our border policy. I was horrified to find such a hostile environment and a broken system, causing many asylum-seekers to make treacherous journeys, often leading to death by dehydration. Our border policy is mismatched: a poorly built wall that does not effectively prevent border crossings (my group witnessed ladders next to the walls we visited). In fact, the wall is not built exactly on the Mexican-USA border, so we lose some of our own land, invading individuals’ property and affecting the local environment. There’s a clear disconnect between the “threats” we are seeing and the policy we are creating to prevent them, and I believe humanizing and redefining our laws can help save immigrant lives.
How can we humanize immigrants and refugees to change and prevent this maltreatment? I read an article in the Millennium by Dan Bulley called “Home is Where the Human Is? Ethics, Intervention and Hospitality in Kosovo,” which analyzed the Kosovan refugee crisis of 1998-1999. The author attacked Britain’s humanizing of Kosovan refugees, for he said their definition of humanity, focused on a “human-home relationship,” limited the British from opening their own borders and effectively helping the situation (1). In other words, the British insisted that these refugees were people being inhumanely slaughtered, yet they were not willing to open their borders or make any efforts provide asylum in Britain. Instead, they asserted that neighboring countries, closer to the refugees’ homes, should open their borders. People sympathize with the refugees and immigrants who die but remain unwilling to welcome them. This hypocrisy is a puzzle I wish to tackle in my research. It’s obvious that the definition of humanizing needs to be reanalyzed in order to effectively implement immigration and refugee policy. I seek to reevaluate international policies to see how the world can minimize refugee and immigrant struggles as they change and uproot their homes. I’m hoping to research how the world can start seeing refugees and immigrants as people worth welcoming, rather than an alien threat.
(1) Dan Bulley. “Home is Where the Human Is? Ethics, Intervention and Hospitality in Kosovo,” Millennium 39, no. 1 (July 2010), 42-63.
September 5, 2017 at 1:36 am
You are off to a good start, Gwen, with a topic area that has much promise for research and many interesting directions that you can go with your research. I like the fact that you’ve connected your proposed research interest to some existing scholarship–this is important, and this is something that you should keep doing as you continue your background research. You mention reevaluating the idea of humanizing and reevaluating international policies, both of which are good but very, very large goals. We will get there eventually, but in the meanwhile see whether you can work on making your own research puzzle a bit more concrete. With some more digging — and this is an ongoing process — we’re going to work towards some “why…?” or “what explains…?” type questions that get us towards the idea of *understanding* as discussed by Booth et al. (p. 23). What might those questions look like for you?
Keep up the reading and research — I’m very interested to see how the project develops in the next few weeks!
Lastly, one minor formatting note: great job with the source and the footnote citation, but since you reference (quote) specific material in your sentence, the footnote at the end of the page should contain the specific page # for that quoted material, not the page range for the entire article. Just a little (but important) thing to keep in mind as you continue your work!
September 5, 2017 at 9:00 pm
Hey Gwen, I think you have an interesting topic area and I’m excited to see where it goes. I was wondering if since you said you went on an alt break to the Mexican American border you might want to focus specifically on immigrants from central and Southern America? I say this just because I think there is a substantial difference in perception in our country between latino immigrants and muslim ones. There is a degree of common xenophobia with both groups, but the specifics of each are probably different, and it might be hard to lump both groups together.