oral spaces and exchanges

Sujet du devoir

Bonjour, je passe mon oral d'anglais dans pas très longtemps et cela me serait très utile qu'on me corrige mes fautes. Merci d'avance :)

Today I am going to talk about spaces and exchanges. We can define an exchange as an act of giving or receiving something in substitution of something else. This notion deals with the geographical and symbolic areas that all societies occupy and the interactions between men and different societies. To introduce this notion I choose to speak about immigration, and especially the American immigration. Indeed, the united states are one the first country of immigration. There are many reasons that can explain why so much people come to this country; it can be for ecological situations, economic issues, political instability or even minority persecutions. Nevertheless, it’s not because immigrants manage to reach the USA that they life is changed right away. Indeed, the immigrants had to face a lot of dangers and difficulties on their way to America. What difficulties do immigrants face when they arrive in a new country and especially in the United States? That is what we are going to ask us by focusing on three different examples of American immigration: the Mexican/American wall, Ellis Island and finally Angel Island.

I The Mexican/American wall
First of all, immigration between Mexico and America started in XIX century because USA needed workers but in 1994, Bush, president at the time decided to build a wall to prevent drug’s traffic and stop immigration in Arizona and California. After, the wall extends during Obama presidency; it is currently 700 miles long. Furthermore, during his campaign, Trump promised to build a wall with Mexican money but they refused so he taxes the money Mexican send to their country. This wall is the perfect example of the difficulties immigrants and especially Mexicans face when they try to enter in a new country to have a better life, to find a job. The wall is highly secured, Trump armed it so it is very difficult for Mexicans to climb it and moreover it became dangerous, by trying to reach USA, they risk their lives. We saw in class an iconographic document which was taken at the Mexico-United States border. On it, there is a panel on which is written CAUTION with children who are crossing the road. It shows the difficulties that immigrants face, they are force to rush, to escape from the police for impeach prisons. That is the first difficulty that immigrants face when they arrived in a new country, the difficulty to cross the border.

II Ellis Island
Secondly, we can talk about Ellis Island to illustrate other difficulties. Ellis Island was a crossing point for migrants during the XIX century, twelve millions of migrants passed to this Island where they were inspected to see if they were allowed to cross the border or not. However as it is said on one audio document we heard, the immigrants had to face a lot of dangers and difficulties on their way to America. During the crossing you could contact a contagious disease that could prevent your entry into America. Indeed, the medical examination was very strict. They were also had to pass an interview when a legal inspector asked you several private questions like are you an anarchist or who paid for your passage. Furthermore, migrants were considered inhuman, treated like animals. The legal inspectors since they were not familiar with long European names cut your name in half or made a brand new name, like they had no consideration for you. During the crossing, you travelled in a tiny room with no windows and no ventilation. However, not everybody who passed through the port of New York had to come to Ellis Island. The wealthy passengers who had money and paid an expensive ticket were not treated equally; they had special treatment such as a very quick medical examination. Ellis Island shows other difficulties for migrants with the way they were treated.

III Chinese immigration
Finally, we can talk about Chinese immigration to illustrate immigrants’ difficulties. We saw in class in a extract of a document called The Ellis Island of the West that in 1882, congress passed the Chinese exclusion act which prevented immigration and naturalization on the basis of race and restricting Chinese immigration for the next sixty years. This shows other difficulties, link to the race. We can also talk about Angel Island, the equivalent of Ellis Island but in the West, used to process mainly Asian immigrants to the United States. Those migrants faced the same difficulties than migrants who passed to Ellis Island.

To conclude, people immigrates to USA in order to have a better life and they do it even if they had to face a long trip and that they have to live friends and family. They face a lot of difficulties, the difficulties that we have talked about. Moreover, when they manage to enter, immigrants can also face racism.