We have a certain pride of our Americanism in this country and sometimes we view ourselves not as a separate people, but one entity–several individuals making up one America.
Yet there are many people who do not fit into our inborn understanding of what “American” is. We tend to believe that in order to be an American you have to be born one or permitted to become one by the government. It’s an exclusive club, and we don’t want to see other people getting in because American is something we treasure as a society.
But it was not always this way; we did not always need special permission from a governing agency in order to become an American. It used to be that all you needed to do to become one of us was to come to this country, live here and work here. The pioneering spirit of the immigrant is what built this country, what made this country great.
We need to stop scapegoating our economic woes onto the immigrant population in this country. Many economists agree that immigration is beneficial to a country’s economy and does not cost us any jobs, contrary to what anti-immigration groups say. Immigration is just a flow of labor into an economy, something which can certainly be beneficial.
A good economic concept to keep in mind in regard to immigration is that of supply and demand, because this is the only real control we need over immigration. If there are jobs available for immigrants in this country (demand) then they will come here to work (supply). If there is no demand, they’ll eventually leave as there are no jobs for them.
We as students here at Ferris are preparing to enter the economy after acquiring some specialized skills and credentials. We need to remember that world around us is fluid and ever-changing, never sticking to any one particular model. Immigration is a fact; the government hasn’t been able to really stop it. Immigration will go on and the world around us will continue to change. This change is something we must learn to accept and adapt to.