Yesterday I was at a small park near home with my daughter and granddaughter. There was an older Asian couple with a young boy there as well. He was using the playground equipment and they were pushing him on the swings and keeping watch as he used the slides, etc.
I thought about the fact that they probably lived with the boy's parents, I was assuming of course that they were his grandparents. In Asian countries retirement age is often at a younger age than it is here in the United States. Extended families, at least in the past, have often lived together in one dwelling and it is a normal practice for grandparents to care for the grandchildren while the parents work outside of the home. With forgotten children in China, where parents are gone to a big city to work for much of the year, the grandparents essentially raise the grandchildren.
Something clicked for me and I realized what I was seeing in real time is "chain migration" or family reunification. Chain migration is something that the 45th administration of the United States wants to eliminate or severely curtail. This is when one member, or perhaps a nuclear family, immigrates legally (documented) to the states. Then they sponsor family members in their home country who migrate in a chain to the states.
If one looks at this through the lens of family reunification then we can see that this is a natural way for people in most of the world to live. South America, Asia and Africa all have cultures in which it is natural for whole families, and several generations, to live together, to help care for one another and the little ones, and therefore to move together when opportunity presents itself.
I suppose this means that chain migration is an industrialized, modernized way to look at the same thing. The United States is certainly a country that puts a premium on independence. Families are mobile, often moving many times for job opportunities in other parts of the country, and we are used to doing this on our own.
I think that perhaps 45 and his administration do not understand the cultural reasons and the cultural value behind family reunification. This is not seen by those who apply to sponsor family members as a way to create a terrorist network. It is a seen as a way to keep the family intact, to not create splinters of the family on different sides of the Atlantic, or between North and South America. Because the modern United States does not function in this familial culture, there is a lack of understanding as to the intent and desire behind this kind of immigration.
This lack of understanding spills further into categories such as putting tariffs on countries in an attempt to force their governments to conform to the will of the government in Washington, D.C., but instead those extra taxes are causing calamity to the lives of the citizens in those countries. And their governments may not care that the citizens no longer have access to health care or affordable food.
I think that our administrations should be required to take missionary training. Not to become missionaries, instead to learn about cultural differences and to be sensitive to the ways in which other parts of the world view the world and one another. Surprisingly, everyone is not just like us.
I thought about the fact that they probably lived with the boy's parents, I was assuming of course that they were his grandparents. In Asian countries retirement age is often at a younger age than it is here in the United States. Extended families, at least in the past, have often lived together in one dwelling and it is a normal practice for grandparents to care for the grandchildren while the parents work outside of the home. With forgotten children in China, where parents are gone to a big city to work for much of the year, the grandparents essentially raise the grandchildren.
Something clicked for me and I realized what I was seeing in real time is "chain migration" or family reunification. Chain migration is something that the 45th administration of the United States wants to eliminate or severely curtail. This is when one member, or perhaps a nuclear family, immigrates legally (documented) to the states. Then they sponsor family members in their home country who migrate in a chain to the states.
If one looks at this through the lens of family reunification then we can see that this is a natural way for people in most of the world to live. South America, Asia and Africa all have cultures in which it is natural for whole families, and several generations, to live together, to help care for one another and the little ones, and therefore to move together when opportunity presents itself.
I suppose this means that chain migration is an industrialized, modernized way to look at the same thing. The United States is certainly a country that puts a premium on independence. Families are mobile, often moving many times for job opportunities in other parts of the country, and we are used to doing this on our own.
I think that perhaps 45 and his administration do not understand the cultural reasons and the cultural value behind family reunification. This is not seen by those who apply to sponsor family members as a way to create a terrorist network. It is a seen as a way to keep the family intact, to not create splinters of the family on different sides of the Atlantic, or between North and South America. Because the modern United States does not function in this familial culture, there is a lack of understanding as to the intent and desire behind this kind of immigration.
This lack of understanding spills further into categories such as putting tariffs on countries in an attempt to force their governments to conform to the will of the government in Washington, D.C., but instead those extra taxes are causing calamity to the lives of the citizens in those countries. And their governments may not care that the citizens no longer have access to health care or affordable food.
I think that our administrations should be required to take missionary training. Not to become missionaries, instead to learn about cultural differences and to be sensitive to the ways in which other parts of the world view the world and one another. Surprisingly, everyone is not just like us.
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