Self Test

• Why did America need immigrants during the Industrial Revolution?

• Why are people sometimes uncomfortable with new things?

• What was the connection between canals and railroads and new immigrants?

EQ: Why does America, a nation of immigrants, consistently

resist immigration?

EQ: In your opinion who are the “real” Americans?

Why Open Immigration Is Good For Americaby Vijay Govindarajan  |  Congress's attention will be turning to immigration reform. Immigration is critical to American creativity, both historically and in the very recent past — and creativity, in turn, is important to the world’s economy. Now more than ever, the "welcome mat" for immigrants needs to be out. However, there are scary signs of growing anti-immigration sentiment. Consider the "illegal alien" Halloween kit manufactured by Forum Novelties and marketed by major retailers, including Target, Toys "R" Us, Walgreens, and Amazon. The costume consists of a space alien mask and an orange prison jumpsuit with the words "illegal alien" on the front and a fake green card as an additional prop. The costume is offensive. It suggests the growing anger in this country toward immigrants. Resentment toward immigrants has been growing in recent years, it has been made worse by the economic crisis and rising unemployment in the U.S. The shortsighted reasoning behind that resentment is that foreigners will take jobs that could go to Americans. But we are forgetting two things. First, an immigrant may have skills that are unique and not otherwise available in the U.S. More important, immigrants help make the economy stronger. A talented immigrant brings new ideas that build new industries and helps create more jobs. Just look at America’s computer industry. Consider that the co-founder of Google is Sergey Brin, a Russian. The co-founder of Sun Microsystems is Vinod Khosla, an Indian. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar, who is French. The co-founder of Juniper Networks is an Indian, Pradeep Sindhu. YouTube was co-founded by Steve Chen, who is Chinese. Yahoo! was co-founded by Jerry Yang, a Chinese immigrant. Andy Grove, a Hungarian, co-founded Intel. The companies these highly skilled immigrants co-founded account for many, many jobs. An open immigration policy is a CRITICAL to this country's continued success. Let us hope that the current trend to restrict immigration is just a passing fad.

Video #1 Arizona Immigration LawArizona passed a law allowing police to

check people’s immigration status on the spot. This video was a protest against the

policy. What points did the speakers make about

this anti-illegal-immigrant policy?

Video #2 Mayor Bloomberg made a speech at an Irish-American gathering. He made a

joke about drunk Irish people. Do you believe his remarks were anti-Irish?