Becoming American: Why Immigration Is Good for Our Nation's Future (24 page)

In April 2012, the Arizona legislature passed SB 1070, which was considered one of the strictest anti-illegal immigration laws in history. This law was mostly known for measures that increased the occurrence of racial profiling. Under this law, if police have “reasonable suspicion” about a person’s immigration status, they are afforded the opportunity to verify it.
¹⁷
In other words, anyone who looks like an immigrant must show documentation of immigration.

Not only have Hispanics been the target of racial profiling but also they are increasingly subjected to bias-motivated crimes. Particularly in the Southwest, where anti-immigrant sentiments have historically been quite prominent, Latinos have been targeted as the source of social and economic issues. In some instances, often because they were perceived as criminals, Latinos have even faced harassment and deportation.
¹⁸
Many Americans assume that most Latino or Hispanic immigrants are more than likely illegal. “An Associated Press poll from 2010 found that 61 percent of people said that Hispanics face significant discrimination.”
¹⁹
Seven out of ten immigrant Latinos indicated that discrimination is a significant barrier that keeps Latinos from succeeding in the United States, while less than half (49 percent) of their native-born counterparts indicated this feeling.

Racial profiling and discrimination, however, are not problems only experienced by Hispanic immigrants. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, people of Arab descent experienced an unprecedented level of racial profiling, with law enforcement officials citing “national security” as the compelling interest that allows for such racial profiling. For example, one program, Operation Front Line, “allows federal law enforcement authorities to target immigrants and foreign nationals for investigation in order to detect, deter, and disrupt terrorist operations.”
²⁰
In 2003 President Bush, through an executive order, issued rules forbidding federal agents from using race or ethnicity in their habitual investigations.
²¹
The order, however, was mainly a public relations statement, as thousands of exemptions could be imposed.

According to “Muslims Report Rising Discrimination at Work,” an article published in the
New York Times
, “although Muslims make up less than 2 percent of the United States population, they accounted for about one-quarter of t
he 3,386 religious discrimination claims
filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last year.”
²²
Additionally, Arab immigrants are frequently accused of crimes with which they have no affiliation. The hate crimes following September 11, which included murder and beatings, were directed at Arabs solely because they shared or were perceived as sharing the national background of the hijackers culpable for assailing the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Antiterrorism policies of airline passenger profiling, in particular, have disproportionately affected Arabs and Muslims. As stated in an article from
PBS
, “Some have been taken off planes or not allowed to board because of their ethnicity. Anti-terrorist programs and policies that single out people of Arab descent have also contributed to creating negative bias in the public eye, not to mention fear of the police and hesitation to report hate crimes among Arab Americans.”
²³
On numerous occasions, I have been searched “randomly” going through security on an airplane trip. Though this may seem absurd and unfair, the immigrant learns to tolerate and understand it. The point still remains—you should get over it.

NOTES

1. “Gathering and Interactions of Peoples, Cultures, and Ideas: A Brief Timeline of U.S. Policy on Immigration and Naturalization,”
The Flow of History
,
http://www.flowofhistory.org/themes/movement_settlement/uspolicytimeline.php
(accessed July 10, 2013).

2. Jennifer Ludden, “1965 Immigration Law Changed Face of America,”
National Public Radio
, May 9, 2006,
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5391395
(accessed August 27, 2013).

3. Ludden, “1965 Immigration Law Changed Face of America.”

4. “Intolerence: Based on Letters and Talks of the Rebbe, Rabbi M. M. Schneerson,”
Chabad.org
,
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/150549/jewish/Intolerance.htm
(accessed October 29, 2013).

5. Barbara Vobedja, “Immigrant Tide Boosts Population: Decides Gainers, Losers among States, Regions,”
Washington Post
, December 31, 1990,
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1310&dat=19901231&id=u0JWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=i-oDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4916,8134841
(accessed October 29, 2013).

6. George Borjas, “Immigrants—Not What They Used to Be,”
Wall Street Journal
, November 8, 1990,
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/gborjas/publications/popular/WSJ110890.htm
(accessed October 29, 2013).

7. Joel S. Fetzer,
Public Attitudes toward Immigration in the United States, France, and Germany
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

8. Joseph Nevins, “Ronald Reagan and Comprehensive Immigration Reform,”
North American Congress on Latin America
, November 15, 2012,
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/11/15/ronald-reagan-and-comprehensive-immigration-reform
(accessed July 10, 2013).

9. John Thompson,
The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995).

10. “The City (La Ciudad)—Teachers Guide,”
PBS.org
,
http://www.pbs.org/itvs/thecity/resources1_8_print.html
(accessed October 29, 2013).

11. Edward T. Linenthal,
The Unfinished Bombing: Oklahoma City in American Memory
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).

12. Conrad Black, “Conrad Black, ‘Flight of the Eagle,’”
Book TV.org
,
http://www.booktv.org/Watch/14688/Book+TV+Interview+Conrad+Black+Flight+of+the+Eagle.aspx
(accessed July 10, 2013).

13. “Rebuilding Local Economies,”
Immigration Policy Center
,
http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/just-facts/rebuilding-local-economies
(accessed August 18, 2013).

14. “Under Siege: Life for Low-Income Latinos in the South,”
Southern Poverty Law Center
, April 2009,
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/under-siege-life-for-low-income-latinos-in-the-south

 (accessed July 9, 2013).

15. “Under Siege: Life for Low-Income Latinos in the South.”

16. “Department of Justice Statistics Show Clear Pattern of Racial Profiling,”
American Civil Liberties Union
, April 29, 2007,
http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/department-justice-statistics-show-clear-pattern-racial-profiling
(accessed July 9, 2013).

17. Tim Cohen and Bill Mears, “Supreme Court Mostly Rejects Arizona Immigration Law; Gov Says ‘Heart’ Remains,”
CNN Politics
, June 26, 2012,
http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/25/politics/scotus-arizona-law
(accessed July 7, 2013).

18. Ricardo A. López, “We Must Stop the Negative Immigratio Rage!”
Latino Opinion
,
http://www.latinoopinion.com/category/prejudice-and-discrimination/
(accessed July 15, 2013).

19. Alan Fram, “Poll Finds Discrimination against Hispanics Is High,”
Seattle Times
, May 20, 2010,
http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2011916375_bias poll21.html
(accessed July 15, 2013).

20. “End Racial Profiling,”
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
,
civilrightsdoc.info
,
www.civilrightsdocs.info/pdf/discrimination/racial-profiling-and-counterterrorism-w-banner-final-4-15-12.pdf
(accessed July 8, 2013).

21. Eric Lichtblau, “Bush Issues Federal Ban on Racial Profiling,”
New York Times
, June 17, 2003,
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/17/politics/17CND-PROF .html
(accessed July 9, 2013).

22. Steven Greenhouse, “Muslims Report Rising Discrimination at Work,”
New York Times
, September 23, 2010,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/business/24muslim.html?pagewanted=all
(accessed October 29, 2013).

23. “Caught in the Crossfire: Arab Americans,” PBS: Public Broadcasting Service,
http://www.pbs.org/itvs/caughtinthecrossfire/arab_americans.html
(accessed August 23, 2013).

16

Sticking to Your Own May Work, But It’s Not Easy

W
ith the nation’s first law to restrict free immigration enacted in 1882, due in part to a post–Civil War economic decline, the Chinese, hemmed in by legality and intolerance, gathered in urban areas and created “Chinatowns.” Here they did business with one another, forming communities that allowed the Chinese to prosper. Chinatowns sprang up in cities across the country, from New York to San Francisco, linked by a continental network.

“A Chinatown served as a safe haven and second home for Chinese immigrants,” according to Library of Congress history. “It also was a good place to do business: The shops and factories in a Chinatown were almost exclusively Chinese-owned, and would hire Chinese workers when many non-Chinese businesses would not.”

The Chinese weren’t the first to create such towns. Early European immigrants to this country, the Germans, Irish, and Italians, also faced discrimination. They initially huddled in vast neighborhoods in cities that in some instances were ghettolike. These groups rose up the economic and class ladders only because within those neighborhoods, they formed their own societies with vibrant economies and a strong, hardworking business class. These neighborhoods have largely dissipated over the last century because these groups have assimilated into the mainstream due to the creation of suburban communities and internal U.S. migration.

Herman and Bettina Linder of Vienna Austria arrived in Providence, Rhode Island in 1939, having fled at Herman’s father’s insistence.

Upon arrival in the United States, they went to relatives, who provided them some money and then—in what was a network of relatives in the new country—sent them to an uncle in New York, who offered further assistance for a good start in the United States.

The couple settled in Philadelphia. Herman took a job in a clothing factory, which was a step down from running his father’s Vienna liquor store and haberdashery that he would have eventually inherited. Bettina went on to work in a high-end woman’s dress shop. 

As these European communities dissipated, other communities rose, and we can still see ethnic community protection today. We see this behavior in places such as Los Angeles, which has the largest population of Persians outside of Iran, with some eight hundred thousand first- and second-generation immigrants, and has garnered the moniker of “Tehrangeles.” In addition, Los Angeles has the largest Korean American population in the country and is home to a large Koreatown, which began developing in the early 1970s. By the early 1990s, the Los Angeles Koreatown covered an estimated five-hundred-block area. The entrepreneurial spirit of Koreans and their hope of achieving the American Dream fueled the growth of Koreatown.