Who are the “real immigrants”?

         

We all have heard Donald Trump say that Mexicans are the enemy. That we are criminals therefore, we should be sent back. That we don’t belong here because  are “illegal” and we steal “their” jobs. When he refers to Mexicans he doesn’t just mean individuals coming from Mexico, but people from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and all Central and South America. He minimizes us into one category. In his unethical mind, we are all the same.

Mexico is the enemy according to trump

We are murderous now?

 

      Ridiculous! We are the ones who built the majority of buildings here today. We contribute to this country as much and even more than he does. We all know that Native Americans were the first one’s in the US, who is the real immigrant? Trump is the real unsophisticated one here.

     For my humanities class we studied the novel, Calling for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee, where social structure well structured and emphasized. The empire’s purpose is to be against the barbarians, even though the land they are in is there’s. We understand that many of us are not born in the US, or our parent weren’t, but who have built and helped advance this country more than many native individuals have.

 

A empire is a country; a place where there is unity, organization, control, and expansion (Zissos). Nevertheless, there is a minimum opportunity in the US and Trump has to do a lot with it.  There is just a “man” who has power, and knows he does, to harm us just because he can.

           Stay humble, Stay positive, Stay united. We can and will overcome this.

                                                                Viva mi gente!

Unity

                                                      Works Cited

Trump, Donald J. “When Will the U.S. Stop Sending $’s to Our Enemies, I.e. Mexico and Others.” Twitter, Twitter, 10 July 2014, twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/487316463204986880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Ftime.com%2F4473972%2Fdonald-trump-mexico-meeting-insult%2F.

Coetzee, J. M. Calling for the Barbarians. Calling for the Barbarians, Penguin Books, 1982, pp. 1–156

Can we have a change for the better, instead of the worst?

 

     I recently filled an online survey of my experiences as a Latina female in a university, such as UCI. One of the questions referring to my future career goals asked, “Do you expect to have disadvantages for being a Latino/a in the workforce?” The question after that came to be, “Do you feel at a disadvantage being a minority in your university?” I did not know what to answer. My answer was the “unsure” button. I wasn’t unsure on the feels I had for college, and I had no doubt of the obstacles/discrimination I will eventually face, but these questions had me thinking of the disadvantages females, especially female minorities, face today.  

     Although we as a society have come a long way and surpassed many barriers, females are still patronized because of their gender. Instead of living in a country that grants support to minorities, we live in a country that seems to want to drown us down even further. Unfortunately, even the President of this country views women as less. Even the person who is incharge of making this country “better” believes that women should not be in certain job positions. In October of 2014, Donald Trump posted a tweet that stated, “The woman who is the Secret Service Director looks like she is way over her head.Why can’t the president appoint the best and the brightest? Just a few years before becoming president, Trump views on women were that women were not competent enough to be in a position such as a Secret Service Director. Females have no intelligence to be in that such of position. The president of today does not support women. Another post again occurred where Trump stated “Maybe I’m old fashioned but I don’t like seeing women in combat.” According to him, women are the the brightest to be in political positions nor to help protect and fight for the country. It is so depressing to see the kind of patronizing society women live in today, and that’s without mentioning what he has to say about Hispanic women.

Trump’s Post

 

     Besides having a president that does not encourage female power, jobs in the U.S reflect the acceptance of females in certain job positions. Jobs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) have the lowest female statistic job reports. As of November of 2017, Women fulfilled 47 percent of U.S jobs, but only 24 percent were in STEM careers. Meaning that 76 percent of males were in STEM careers and leaving women as minorities in this job position. Although there are many reason why this can happen, people may say women might just not have an appetite for STEM careers, when we have numbers from 24% vs. 76% something else is going on. According to, “Economics & Statistics Administration” by the U.S Department of Commerce, states that, “Women with STEM degrees are less likely than their male counterparts to work in a STEM occupation; they are more likely to work in education or healthcare.” Why are women more likely to work in other jobs that are not STEM? Can it be because women get rejected on their job application because of their gender or because males wish not to work in the same atmosphere as females? Can it be that when it comes to decide between a male and a female job application the male application is prefered over the female? According to Jeff Gradmeier’s article, “Young women in STEM fields earn up to one-third less than men” states that, “Overall, 59 percent of women completed dissertations in biology, chemistry and health, compared to only 27 percent of men.” Women are taking and graduating with the same, if not even more courses than males, but they are still underpaid and under employed in these fields. Is their biases in this fields? Why can these number be equal or be at least one integer of a difference? Why does no one put an end to this situation or speak out loud. It is time for not just women, but the entire society to put a STOP to this kind of “difference” and “discrimination” that is given to us as females.

STEM reports

 

     Now in terms of Hispanic Females or Females overall in college, are not only a minority, but are TREATED like such as well. From college to the work force females overall are treated differently. The Bureau of Census reported in 2012 that Asian females have 78 percent of a higher education participation and credential than other women. White women had a 57 percent, Black women had a 46 percent, and Latinas had a 39 percent. Although there are many factors to why that can happen, the fact is that society does not help minorities as much as they should.

     After giving theses question much thought,“Do you expect to have disadvantages for being a Latino/a in the workforce?” and“Do you feel at a disadvantage being a minority in your university?” I would say ashamedly yes. “Ashamedly” not because I am ashamed of being who I am, but ashamed that society, that this country, cannot work together and be united as one, but instead treats everyone differently to feel better of themselves and to dominate over other. While there’s many resources in campus for any kind of “conflict” we as minorities face, the “resolution” the administrator tell us does not work, because every Latina experiences discrimination in various ways and various forms. Yes, the world is not perfect, and yes there will have to be obstacles that we have to face, but it seems as the entire country is turning their back on its own people. My proposition is to improve the situation for minorities in campus and stop any discrimination that we see occur if we can. Not just to stay quiet, but to speak up and try to make a difference in at least one life. One life can make a huge difference. One life does make a huge change and it only starts with one that initiates an entire movement.

Bibliography

Grabmeier, Jeff. “Young Women in STEM Fields Earn up to One-Third Less than Men.” Ohio State News, 10 May 2016, news.osu.edu/news/2016/05/10/stem-gap/.

Trump, Donald J. “Maybe I’m Old Fashioned but I Don’t like Seeing Women in Combat.”Twitter, Twitter, 25 Jan. 2013, twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/294907627299799040?ref_src.

A Change for Females in Society today!

We was women have come a long way. We have gradually been accepted to society. Women today are CEO’s, Doctors, and even actresses. Women now have the freedom to express their feelings more openingly than before, however, like everything in this world, things are not perfect. Women still get looked less upon males for things such as job titles. Women don’t get paid the same salary than males do, even though they have the same experience and job title. Women today are still discriminated and manipulated.

Female vs. Male salary

This occurs everywhere in society today, even when seeing a movie, females are manipulated by males. In The Tempest by Julie Taymor the main character in the film is Prospera who is characterized as a female. There’s a scene where her slave, Caliban, confronts Prospera and yells at her. In this scene he looks at her eye-to-eye, which is a sign of equalness. Caliban, her slave, challenges Prospera, even though he does not have power in Prosperas island. Her as a male challenges his master. Everywhere in society women are challenged, manipulated, and discriminated for their gender! As if being a woman is a defect and makes a women weak. However, WE as women must keep proving society wrong!

Prospera and Caliban Scene

We have to stop the manipulation by working harder than we have. Keep studying, getting a better education, a better job title, a better assignment, and becoming involved in society.

Women are leaders, women are nurturers, women are hard workers, women are amazing, and we must believe it. Yes, there will be times were obstacles get in the way, but the key is not to give up because of it.

In law enforcement we see a lot of discrimination against women. In this job title there is more males than females. There are many reason why that can be, for example, females might not be interested in law enforcement, or because law enforcement does not accept as much female applicants as males. Believe it or not, there’s a lot of injustice in society, but the majority of individuals are blinded to see this, or the thought of speaking up frightens and disconfonts them. We need to stop with this comfortability. Males are “preferred” among society compared to females. The option we as females have is keep working as hard and even harder than we have in these decades. Females should support one another, we should be united and not in opposition for silly things. Do what you are passionate about, and be AMAZING in it. Don’t give up, we can change society, and we will if we work together, united and without violence.

Women United

 

Works Cited

“Table 74.” FBI, FBI, 19 May 2014, ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/tables/table-74.

“Do Men Really Earn More Than Women? – Infographic.” PayScale, http://www.payscale.com/gender-lifetime-earnings-gap.

Language can be a source of Motivation or Oppression!

    Language is powerful it is used for strengthening, controlling, and even commanding. Language can be used to make another individual feel better, give a condolence, or even hurt someone. As seen in many movies, and heard of in many poor or wealthy communities, language can be used to help or destroy many people/environments. Language can be used as violence, thus we as a community need to use our words to help and encourage others instead of causing damage. I acknowledge that we cannot change everyone in this world, but we can speak up or intervene whenever we see someone getting yelled at and insulted in a way no human should be treated. We do have voices and speaking up can change someone’s life drastically.

-Suzy Kassem

     A simple word can impact a person’s life. Language is used everywhere and anywhere. In school is where it is often seen that children hurt others verbally. There are many incidents where students call others, “fat” or “ugly” yet no one does something to stop them. Most of the cases teachers don’t see these incidents as important and do nothing about it. About 70.4% of school staff see these situation and only 20% of these incidents are stopped or taken into serious consideration.  In school I was one of those victims called horrendous words and no one helped me. I use to use my recess or lunch breaks to help teachers instead of being outside where I was exposed to being called hurtful words. I wished someone helped, but no one did. Language can be used to hurt someone, and it is. There needs to be more people speaking up and putting a stop to this type of violence. Although I did later learn to stand up for myself and get to where I am today, many do not have the resources I did, which leads them to hurt themselves because of the internal pain.

     There has been many incidents where vulgar language is used to hurt another individuals and as time proceeds it leads to horrendous endings. On January 14, 2010 Phoebe Prince committed suicide after being viciously abused thru verbal and electronic attacks. Students in her school called her out, called her hurtful words, made her do embarrassing things, and no one stood up for her. Not all people are raised like we are. Not all people have the confidence nor the courage to stand up for themselves, many don’t find a way out and resort to extreme measures to stop the pain. Many people have problems at home and in school/work, it does not hurt to say a kind word to someone to make there situation better. You never know if that, “you look beautiful/handsome” helps that individual out. I encourage you to use language to comfort or aid someone instead of oppressing them. Langue is taken thru many empires. Language is the only thing that always reminds. It doesn’t matter what type of language, it is always there. This is why we must speak up and encourage someone whenever we can instead of bringing them down. We must think of the words were going to say before saying it.

-An end to bullying

 

Works Cited

Barrett, Lisa Feldman. “When Is Speech Violence?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 14 July 2017, http://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/opinion/sunday/when-is-speech-violence.html.

“Domestic Violence.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 18 Feb. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence.

“List of Suicides That Have Been Attributed to Bullying.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Feb. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicides_that_have_been_attributed_to_bullying.

WE must stop Police Brutality?

     The role of a police officer is to protect our society. They are granted a lot of power, too much power perhaps. Over the recent years we have begun to see more police brutality captured in cameras and shared all over social media. Police always has some way to protect themselves and never be wrong. We allow our society to grant police so much power that sometimes they do abuse from. Why is it that we allow police brutality?

    In 2017 there were 25% of black people killed in the hands of a police officer and 17% of the hispanic population. Is it because police officers aim for minorities? All over history any person with higher authority rules and can get away with their wrong doings. In the 15th century the Inca ruled over The Andes and could do whatever they wanted, Now in the 21st century Police can do whatever they want and get away with it. In my criminology class my professor said, “If a cop walks in class right now, we pretty much have to do whatever he wants.” coming from a criminology professor this means a lot. Police are given too much power, if there ever happens to be a case of using self defense on a cop, the victim will never win. Our society helps out the federal authority to a significant cost over the minority.

    In July of 2017 a video went viral all over social media. It was a police officer brutality acting a hispanic women who was selling graduation flowers to people stuck in traffic. In the video the officer is shown grabbing the women by her arm and legs, pulling her hair, and putting his hand over her mouth. How can a women of 52 years old cause such a threat to a young officer? The horrendous part of it all is that the women had charges pressed on her, but absolutely nothing happened to the officer. He simply said his side of the story and everything was fine.

    This brutality goes way beyond the physical damage these officers do to these people, but the mental damage and humiliation they cause them. Another cause were a officers targeted a man just because he was hispanic arises in September of 2017. A man and his family were leaving a courthouse and undercover agents targeted the man and refused to answer the hispanic man when he asked who they were. After a humiliating scene they created, they simply said it was a “wrong” profile. It goes way past that. Discrimination, brutality, and humiliation all cause by these officers is way out if hand. Where is the protection of state? Living in a country that even our own authority can beat us up with no reason and get away with it is horrendous. Although there are some good officers society needs to stop viewing only one side of the paraonama and look at the dark side that society usually tends to ignore. We have to speak out and make these incidents aware. We all are people, we don’t deserve to be beaten or be patronized by officers because of the fact that we are minorities. Police brutality needs to stop.

 

Works cited

“Police Brutality.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Jan. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_brutality.

“Video Showing Rough Arrest of Street Vendor in Perris Sparks Outrage.” KTLA, 18 July 2017, ktla.com/2017/07/17/video-showing-arrest-of-street-vendor-in-perris-sparks-outrage/.

Tegna. “Latino US Citizen Says ICE Profiled Him in Confrontation Outside Courthouse.”KGW, 21 Sept. 2017, http://www.kgw.com/news/local/latino-us-citizen-says-ice-profiled-him-in-confrontation-outside-courthouse/477482121

DEFEND DACA!

    Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), otherwise known as Dreamers. These individuals are given the opportunity to work in the U.S. and get an education. Many dreamers use this opportunity to go to college and become what they always desired. They don’t harm any of us. They want to establish a career here, pay taxes, work, and help progress this country. Now that Donald Trump has put an end on DACA, many students and graduates fear that all their hard work has been for nothing. All the progress they have achieved has been thrown away because they have been taken the opportunity to prospare. I ask you to help us defend DACA, although Trump already has put an end to it, our voices speak louder than his. We are all one voice and we will be heard if we all protect Dreamers.

Defend DACA

 

     Dreamer are future Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers, and Entrepreneurs, putting an end on them is like taking your heart out of your body. You’ll have no function, no air, no purpose. Dreamers deserve the right to enhance their dreams and provide for their families and themselves with new opportunities. These individuals don’t harm nor are criminals, on the contrary, they are people who desire to take action and make a change. Please be open minded and help us #DEFENDDACA.

Dreamers are the future!

Works Cited

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lorraine-c-ladish/what-being-hispanic-or-la_b_8289880.html.

Why Women Immigrate.

   

      Today I read Virgil’s epic poem, The Aeneid. One of the essential roles he emphasizes is about gender. Virgil focuses on the idea that males are the only individuals who have power, authority, and can uphold an empire. On the contrary, Virgil displays females as the cause of destruction. This reminded me on the perception that society still has on women today, where we are supposed to stay home and take care of the house and kids. Of course society likes to think that we have passed that idea and that we have evolved. Yes, we do have women in political offices, and occupying the position as doctors and lawyers, however, we also have women coming into this country running away from the notion of being nothing in a society and being treated like garbage, immigrant women These women are forced to play along with this horrific norm, and this country and society shuts the door right in front of them. Women in many other countries are not given power, education, and a chance to prosper. Our country chooses to patronize them as well by sending them back to their county instead of helping them out here in the US. All I ask is for society to give immigrants, especially women a chance to live and have another opportunity here in the U.S. versus deporting them back to a country fulfilled of oppression.

     Our country needs to understand why these individuals, in particular women immigrate here. It’s not to steal, or do anything of what Donald Trump states. It is to live what they cannot live back in their country, without getting horrendously beaten up or even murdered if they don’t follow males diction. In countries outside the US, male dominance is prioritized, and if a woman does not do as told they must suffer the consequences. The image below demonstrates the reported assaults of women in other countries.  Violence and Assault on women outside of U.S. Picture

 

   

     When women get to this country, they have an illusion of starting a new life, and having a new opportunity, and then someone like Donald Trump gets a hold of them and sends them back regardless of the danger that will arise when deported back. When women are in their native country, the most likely welcoming she will get is her death. Today’s society is unaware or seems to ignore this aspect of the jeopardy these women are in.

     Society has to stop thinking they are dangerous immigrant women. We are all equal and because they are from another country does not mean, they don’t feel what you and I feel. We must put an end to inequality for women overall, and help those women who immigrate here. Instead of hurting them, society needs to help end this norm on women, and help whoever comes through that border and stop thinking the way Trump does. We are all equal, Women deserve the chance to live and not to be sent back to a country who treats them unequal, and won’t let them prosper. I implore you to use your voice for these women, especially to put a stop to deportation. Use your voice, let’s fight together against this crucial cause.

 

Women equality

 

      So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

-Genesis 1:27

 

Works Cited

Virgil, Robert Fagles, and Bernard Knox. Virgil The Aeneid. London: Penguin Classics, 2006. Print.