Immigrant Chicago

Immigration brings much diversity to cities, not only by race and appearance but also by what cultures and traditions they bring to America that everyone can learn from! In my experience, living in the suburbs, I come from a very diverse area and because there are so many immigrants there, it definitely defines my town. I always loved that about my town though, it brought in different values and traditions that people, even the town next to me had never experienced.This country was started because of Immigrants and people need to remember that.

Immigrants face many problems coming to America and being forced to assimilate to certain aspects of our culture in order to be able to fit in appropriately. Not only is their racial discrimination but there is also a lot of negative stigma on immigrants that are willing to work for less doing manual labor jobs (this is more taking place today than it did in the past). Americans look at this as they are taking our jobs and how unfair it is...but in reality would an American amidst the recession who is used to work a 9 to 5 desk job really being willing to lower his standards to do a manual labor job? I highly doubt it!

In another class of mine we just went through a whole section learning about preserving culture and how important that is to other ethnic groups. Americans are highly ethnocentric and as I agree when immigrants come to America they need to understand the basics of how American culture work I would never ask them to give up our culture! If anything it would be neat to spread culture more because it is important! I believe it is harder for Mexicans to assimilate to our culture than it would be for white Europeans solely because of physical features..which is a heartbreaking but true story of our America.

 I enjoyed going to Pilsen and being able to walk around the Mexican Museum. I feel like most people don't even think to go visit museums to broaden what they know about other races and I believe this could help lessen our prejudices. It shows that everyone has their own story and traditions. The day of the dead exhibit was really cool to me, to be able to see that holiday (who most people believe is associated with Halloween) is actually a celebration of lives of people in their family.