Birthright Citzenship

In ‘Refugee,’ by Alan Gratz, the stories of three traveling families are told. Each one is set in a different period of time where something bad is happening in the world. For instance, one story is about a boy named Josef. Him and his family were fleeing Germany during Hitler’s takeover and his poor treatment of Jews. Another story focused on was more recent. It had to do with a Syrian family who were trying to get away from the chaos in Aleppo; however, what I want to focus on for this blog post involves the third family. The family that left for Florida from Cuba on a little, packed boat.

Isabel during a point of unrest in Cuba. They were riots among a bunch of other things happening. There’s a lot I could talk about and connect to modern day, but there’s thing in particular that I’m interested in talking about. During this whole journey of trying to get to Florida by sea, Isabel’s mother is heavily pregnant. She gives birth while they’re practically on the shores of Miami. Isabel says something along the lines of how her baby brother is an American citizen, and soon, she’ll be one too. What she’s alluding to is called birthright citizenship. Basically, birthright citizenship is a legal right to citizenship for all children born in a country’s territory. This is regardless of their parentage. About 30 other countries offer this right. The United States is one of them; however, Trump recently voiced that he wants to take that away.

This article by the New York Times talks about how Trump wants to use an executive order to end this right. The president says that this right ‘is ridiculous’ and that ‘it has to end.’ That might be what he thinks about the issue, but there’s a lot of pushback coming from others. Some of these people are even in his own party (ex: House Speaker Paul Ryan). Legal experts against Trump on this one too.

In an article by the Washington Post, a lot of legal experts called the proposition unconstitutional; however, other big names like the Justice Department have declined to comment on the legality of what Trump says he plans to do. Will this be another dastardly act our government will let Trump get away with? Or will he be stopped like I hope?

the Desert People

Before being assigned Storming the Wall, I had no idea who the Tohono O’odham people were. By the name and further reading, I understood that they were native people located in the Arizona/Mexico area; however, that is all I really knew. That is, until I got into the nitty gritty.

Sadly, I wasn’t very surprised to hear that these natives, over the years, have been treated poorly by our government. Our Border Patrol in particular has been very heinous where it is stationed down towards where Mexico meets the United States. What I read from Storming the Wall depicts all sorts of incidents with the natives as well as other people passing through; however, when I was searching, I found something specific that made my eyebrows raise.

A Tohono O’odham citizen was struck in (basically) a drive by done by a border patrol agent. Crazy, right? There’s even a video of the whole incident, including the moment the person was hit. Luckily, they weren’t hurt too badly. The citizen was treated at the local hospital for non-life threatening injuries. My question, though, is what brought this on? 

Apparently, there's been tension for awhile between our government and the native Tohono O'odham people (again, not surprising). And, lately, it's gotten even worse because of one man and his crazy ideas. I'm talking about Trump and his border walls. If built, the dividing structure will go through their territory and the natives are against it. Below is a video that I saw featured on several articles. I figured I'd put it here too. 

They aren’t the only ones who oppose the wall. In fact, if you just type in border wall opposition into the Google, so many similar articles pop up. They also talk about different groups of people who don’t want that idea turning into something tangible. This one in particular talks about how Texans along the border don’t want the wall installed.

This country is already so divided. So why does our government keep making it worse?

Possible Great Lakes Future

Global warming is a constant looming threat over not just the United States but the entirety of our world. While temperatures continue to rise, catastrophe after catastrophe is predicted to happen. Coastal cities will be swallowed as sea levels rise. Deserts will expand while gargantuan forest fires will wreak havoc. Earth will be under siege and millions upon millions of people will be displaced.

For class, I recently read a book that fell under the genre of ‘cli-fi.’ It was set in a future United States where global warming had already begin to really take a toll. The book is called ‘the Water Knife’ and it’s by Paolo Bacigalupi. In it, horrid droughts have hit the American southwest, and the cities/states are all fighting over water rights that involve the Colorado River. These rights are important because the value of water is so high due to the drought. We, as humans, need this precious liquid to survive. It’s not a surprise that this big water source would be fought over; however, is that what’s in our future? If global warming continues to worsen, will we mimic this book and kill just for a drink? It’s definitely possible.

We don’t know exactly what the future holds, but we have a pretty good guess. Fighting over the water supplies of the Colorado River could very well happen; however, I want to focus on a water source that’s closer to home for me. That water source is the Great Lakes. It was brought to my attention, that modernly, people are trying to protect the Great Lakes from getting siphoned off of. There’s already talks of trying to move its water all the way to our western states via pipes. It wasn’t a surprising thing to learn, although, I had never really thought of it as a possibility. When, I think about it, my mind goes to extremes. Imagine living in the world where those big and beautiful bodies of water are all dried up. It’s recreational uses could soon be traded in for those needed to survive.

There were quite a few articles that popped up when I started searching for research materials. The first one I clicked on was fairly recent, but told me I had to pay if I wanted to read it so I moved on. The next one was from the Detroit Free Press. I found it interesting that this proposition of taking water from the Great Lakes has been pitched for years; however, the states around it and Canada made a pact to stop it from happening. Though, trouble might be coming soon because now someone from NASA thinks moving the water is also a good idea. I also find it ironic that they keep mentioning how these pipes would go to Phoenix. That city was talked about so much in the Water Knife. It’s a familiar setting for the characters. 

The Detroit Free Press had another article on the topic that I read as well. It started off by talking about some of the problems that would come with trying to take water out of the Great Lakes. Like for instance, it would be very expensive. Billions upon billions of dollars would be needed to do such a thing. It wouldn’t be cost efficient at all to build the structure needed to pump all the water.

I also found out that it isn’t just the Great Lakes that are being attacked, but the aquifers under our state as well. Companies like Nestlé use wells in Michigan to fill 4.8 million water bottles a day and ship them everywhere. Other companies are starting to try and do the same. Some of them try to give back some of the water they took, but others don’t. It’s another big thing that I never even knew about.

So what is the future for the Great Lakes and other water found in Michigan? In all honesty, I still don’t know; however, one thing is for sure. Global warming is still upon us, and drought ridden lands are going to need to get water from somewhere.