Refugees Around the World

The book, Exit West, was an interesting read. The magical element of these refugees being able to travel to different countries just by going through doors adds a certain spice that nothing else I've read has. It could be compared to Monsters Inc. or the Chronicles of Narnia, but it is so much more than that. It's a book about humanity. It allows us to connect with these refugees on another level; however, it also got me wondering about our world. Refugees are a big topic right now. Where are all of them coming from? What instances of this do we have? Is it anything like what happened in Exit West (sans the mystical doors)?

Right away, I came across the article World Vision. It gives a list of the top countries refugees are coming from. It was no surprise that Syria is number one. The country has been at war for years, and the citizen in cities like Aleppo face dangerous situations every day. In fact, there was just a toxic gas attack there this last Saturday. Horrible. This country accounts for 6.7 million refugees. 

The next four on the list didn't really surprise me, but I was disappointed with how little I had heard about them. It's good that Syria gets so much coverage because people should know what's going on; however, these other places should get their story told as well. Ignorance is not always bliss. Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar, and Somalia deserve better.  

I had never even heard of refugees being from Myanmar. I had no idea there was something going on there that was causing people to move and be displaced from their homes. This is an article by BBC that talks about the crisis there. People are being denied citizenship and aren't being recongizedas human beings. It's a case of ethnic cleansing that I didn't know about, but now I do. And now you do too. It is my hope that stories like these get more light shed on them. 

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.

Migrants: Past and Present

Everyday, millions upon millions of people are traveling and moving. An estimated 8 million people fly in that short time of 24 hours; however, that isn’t the only way people are getting about. Others may take a train or a car. The subway. Some people might walk or bike. But what are their reasons for being on the go? They could be going to or from work. They could be going to see family. Or, they could be moving because of an unfortunate displacement due to horrible storms, climate change, or other tragedies. 

In John Steinbeck’s novel ‘The Grapes of Wrath,’ the Joad family was just one of millions that had to move west because of the havoc the Dust Bowl wreaked. 2.5 million people took a similar journey that they did. Most were farmers who were fleeing because their acres could no longer support them. They faced discrimination from the Californians they came in contact with and police alike. It was brutal. ‘Okies,’ a term that once served to remind them where they came from, soon turned into an insult. People took advantage of their desperation. They got paid low wages that were hard to live off of, and were often given poor living conditions in the camps they worked out of. The police helped start more fights than they put out. It was horrible, and the dehumanization of such migrants can be compared to lots of things that happened in the past and that are happening presently. 

In our modern day world, immigrants in Mexico are treated more harshly than any other country in the world. This USA Today article talks about a man who came from Honduras to Mexico in order to escape a drug cartel. He thought life would be better with the move, but the man wasn’t treated much better. Local police robbed him and threw him (and several others) off of a moving train. The other people he had been traveling with were taken by gang members in front of Mexican authorities. Tens of thousands of people running away from violence in their countries are often made prey by criminal organizations as well as corrupt government officials.  

And it’s hard for them to leave Mexico and cross over into the United States because of our flawed system and Trump’s hatred of immigrants. Despite the bad experience some migrants have shared that come through their travel through Mexico, there’s been talks about naming the country a ‘safe third country.’ I’d if that happens, it would be legal for the United States to send asylum-seekers there while their cases or pending. Or, they could send them there permanently instead of granting them access to the United States.

When it comes to Mexico and how it treats its migrants, how safe is safe? As human beings, whether past or present, why is it so hard for us to allow everyone a place to utilize their rights and freedoms?