Secondary Source Integration
Migration is not an unfamiliar word to Americans. There are many immigrants come from Asia to America. According to the 2014 China International Migration Report, China has become the world’s fourth largest exporter of immigrants, and the “immigration deficit” phenomenon has become prominent. The United States as the first destination of Chinese overseas immigration, according to the US Department of Homeland Security Immigration Data Office reported that in 2013 alone, 71,798 applicants from China were granted green cards in the United States, accounting for 7.2% of the number of green cards approved in 2013. As the heat of immigrants continues to heat up , the problems faced by the generation of immigrants in the United States are increasingly evident. “As modern societies become more and more multicultural, the concept of ethnic self-identification, that is, the subjective attachment people have to ethnic communities, of increasing importance. International migrants, in particular, have to reevaluate their connections and allegiance to the host and origin countries soon after immigration. Empirical research on this topic (see eg, Phinney, 1990: Rumbaut, 1994) often considers ethnic self-identification as a single linear variable, meaning that feelings for the country of origin and host country are mutually exclusive”. (Zimmermann, Constant) For all the first-generation immigrants, leaving the place where they have lived for a long time since they were born and moving to new place is a struggling thing. Aziz Ansari in his live at Madison Square Garden used a funny style to demonstrate the struggling of his first-generation immigrant parents. “Many immigrants try to gain positive recognition in their everyday lives through the active and selective rearrangement of social relations with members of the host community and their own ethnic groups. Amongst other things, their selectivity with respect to who they want to be associated with are expressed through their ethno-social preferences.” ( Marko)
For the 1990s Chinese people who want to migrant to America, the living conditions of immigrants are absolutely better than returning home: better communities, better income, decent jobs, houses and cars. At that time, most of the Chinese people still rode busses and lived in a few houses. The American life had a fatal material appeal to the Chinese at the time. The goals of struggle in the United State are "stay." They tried their best to find ways to stay in America. But the immigrant policies were strict and obviously not everyone who want to migrant to America could realize dream. “Together with border controls, these are crucial ways through which immigration policies may have the postulated effects on the lives of migrants.” (Fokkema, Ambrosetti)
Today, this generation of immigrants has basically entered the middle class, a house with a car, two children and a dog, rich but not rich, stable but not bubbling, but also realized their goals for that year. On the other hand, their relatives and friends who have developed in China have not lost to them because of the wave of development in the late 1990s (although most immigrants do not recognize this). In terms of income and purchasing power, they are similar. From a work perspective, the first generation of immigrants did not have too much ambition for the cause of the United States. Ordinary jobs get the salary, you can live a rich and healthy life, you do not have to squeeze the head in the company, do not have to step on someone's face, you can live in the villa to buy a BMW, wearing a brand name to visit the country. “There are four two-dimensional possibilities of how people view their ethnic elf identification, as they embrace new or shed old ethnic identities: Immigrants can be classified as integrated, that is, feel strongly connected both the host and origin country, and these feelings can peacefully Immigrants can be assimilated.” (Zimmermann, Constant) Therefore, not many people will aim at climbing to the top of the company. The nature of work is mainly engineers. The number of years of service is based on the completion of the child's college education and the payment of endowment insurance. In summary, the work pressure is not great, but the salary is a little bit more than enough.
And about second-generation immigrants, they face different situation with their parents. “Compared to first generation immigrants, the second generation have more choices and there is a certain contextual fluidity in how they incorporate different dimensions in the formulation of their identity. They can, for instance, choose to retain cultural and language aspects in one whilst downplaying them in others.” (Heelsum A, Koomen) As a child of first-generation immigrants, their attitude towards belonging is similar with that of their children who left their hometowns with their parents and grew up in the north of China (which means child leave hometown with parents when they are very young kid to a new place to live). For their hometown (China), although they will go back to China with their parents, there is no sense of identity. Although life is simple, this group of children is not without problems. Compared with academic performance, it is better than sports, and it's better than those who attend college. The pressure in these areas is similar with that of domestic children. Some parents are still old-fashioned thinking, putting their unfinished dreams on their children. Some of the children are under pressure no less than students under exam-oriented education. However, the general situation is that these children have more freedom to realize their own ideas than Chinese children. Their development path in the United States is more diversified than the previous generation, and there are not many children entering the absolute upper class.
Many people immigrate for children, and to some extent it can be said that immigration is to give up the previous generation for the next generation. Professor Zhou Minting of the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles has proposed that in Chinese American immigrant families, Confucian traditions of filial piety, studious, hard work, and self-discipline are often used as norms and codes of conduct for educating children. However, it is not easy to maintain traditional Chinese norms and codes of conduct and implement such tutors. Because second-generation immigrants born in the United States receive pure Western education, and their thinking is the same as that of Americans, the Western world’s values and worldviews are the basis for their lives. The generation of immigrants possesses the traditional Chinese way of thinking, which makes inter-generational conflicts in which both parents and children of Chinese immigrant families treat each other, as well as the specific cross-cultural conflicts of immigrant families. The English short paper "Origami", which won the 2012 science fiction literary award, tells the story of a Henan rural girl who survived the Great Famine era in China and came to the United States to become a mail order bride. She had a baby Jack with her husband in the U.S., often origami paper animal animal Jack, and these magical origami, activities can bark. Until Jack grew up, he began to resist his Chinese country mother under the influence of the environment. He was forbidden to speak Chinese and not to eat the Chinese food she cooked. Eventually her mother became ill and depressed. The plot is simple, but it shows the difficult process of the integration of American immigrants and descendants, and the cultural conflicts between the generations and the second generation. (Ken)
From my point of view, whether you can rely on your own power in the countries of immigration to allow you and your family to live the expected life is important. In the country, those who encourage immigration may have different motives. They may exaggerate the contrast between the country and the country because of pessimism/optimism. Regardless of how rich people boast about immigration countries and how good education is, if you don't earn in an immigration country, you are equated with no. If we can put the current property status, we are currently in the immigration country's income, and in the future the career development prospects of immigration countries, as the first consideration factor, will be a more rational immigration analysis. The more specific these considerations, the better it is.
Works Cited
Zimmermann, Laura, Klaus F. Zimmermann, and Amelie Constant. "Ethnic Self-Identification of First-Generation Immigrants¹." International Migration Review. 41.3 (2007): 769-781. Print.
Valenta, Marko. "Selective Networking As Identity Project: the Social Integration of First Generation Immigrants in Norway." Journal of International Migration and Integration. 10.2 (2009): 177-195. Print.
Paparusso, A, T Fokkema, and E Ambrosetti. "Immigration Policies in Italy: Their Impact on the Lives of First-Generation Moroccan and Egyptian Migrants." Journal of International Migration and Integration. 18.2 (2017): 499-546. Print.
Wallace, Matthew. "Adult Mortality Among the Descendants of Immigrants in England and Wales: Does a Migrant Mortality Advantage Persist Beyond the First Generation?" Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. 42.9 (2016): 1558-1577. Print.
van, Heelsum A, and Maarten Koomen. "Ascription and Identity. Differences between First and Second-Generation Moroccans in the Way Ascription Influences Religious, National and Ethnic Group Identification." Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. 42.2 (2016): 277-291. Print.
Ken, Liu. "The Paper Menagerie." Fantasy & Science Fiction. 120 (2011). Print.