Intersecting Factors Race, Gender and Sexuality in...

The United States was founded through means of immigration; immigrants from everywhere and anywhere around the world. Who are they? How did they get here? Why did they come? Many of these questions can be answered when considering how race, gender, and sexuality affect immigration. Immigration means something to different to everyone and for some it forced, while for others, it is a choice. For some it means pursuing the â€Å"American Dream,† for others it may be breaking away from political and religious persecution, but nonetheless, it is always a test. Gender roles, relations and inequalities affect who migrates and why, how the decision is made, the impacts on migrants themselves, on sending areas and on receiving areas. While focusing†¦show more content†¦Sexuality has also determined what the stereotypical â€Å"perfect family† consists of. Certain immigrants seem to be more welcome than others in the United States than others. Erica Rand’s â€Å"Breeders on a Golf Ball: Normalizing Sex at Ellis Island† concerns the normalization of sex at Ellis Island. Immigrants coming from all over bring traditions, as well as â€Å"their sexual histories, fantasies, beliefs, and sometimes partners. Immigrants did then, tourists do now.(444)† Perceptions of sex have often contributed to determining the duration of one’s status as ‘alien.’ In 1910, a law was created to deport any alien convicted of prostitution. A more recent example of this involves the perception of Haitian immigrants as carriers of HIV. They were considered a â€Å"high-risk† group and were soon barred from donating blood. This brought up the idea that the role of sexual characterization defining admissible body and the way that power informs not just the ability to look or expose, but also not to, also known as the à ¢â‚¬Å"privilege of unknowing.† This â€Å"privilege† still impacts definitions and treatment of immigrants. When immigrants travel as a â€Å"perfect family,† they are often given the privilege of a quicker migration process under the privilege of unknowing because it is assumed that they are not trying to deceive doctors and workers at Ellis Island. The concept of a â€Å"perfect family† can by synonymous with a â€Å"nuclear family,† consisting of a mother, father, and offspring.Show MoreRelatedThe Identity And Street Art5052 Words   |  21 Pageschanged our research questions more or less, our group is still all focusing on the identity formation but from different perspectives. We are different from other groups who are researching German identities by focusing on more social, economic and immigration perspectives rather than the arts and media. After one month of interviewing, questionnaires, listening to professions’ lectures, and go ing to art and memorial galleries, we thought we would be much clearer about our original research topics; howeverRead MoreOne Significant Change That Has Occurred in the World Between 1900 and 2005. Explain the Impact This Change Has Made on Our Lives and Why It Is an Important Change.163893 Words   |  656 Pages Smith’s fully global perspectives make clear that even though gender parity has rarely been attained in any society and there have been major setbacks or few advances in INTRODUCTION †¢ 5 many countries, the position of women worldwide has improved dramatically and has very often empowered a substantial portion of humanity in ways that would have been unthinkable a century ago. Jean Quataert’s contribution to gender shifts in the twentieth century focuses more narrowly on the variable