24 Replies to “Week 5 – Race/Ethnicity and Migration”

  1. Isabel Wilkerson- the long lasting migration
    “When the migration began, 90 percent of all African-Americans were living in the South. By the time it was over, in the 1970s, 47 percent of all African-Americans were living in the North and West. A rural people had become urban, and a Southern people had spread themselves all over the nation.”
    This migration affected African Americans greatly because so many migrated for a better life, and they did anything it took to get the better life they deserved.

    1. Isabelle Wilkerson – The Long Lasting Migration

      “When millions of African-Americans fled the South in search of a better life, they remade the nation in ways that are still being felt.”

      This quote to me means that because of our ancestors, we have many opportunities today. There act of braveness led to our uproar, and more specifically to our equal rights.

  2. Even in the places where they were permitted, blacks were relegated to the lowest-paying, most dangerous jobs, barred from many unions and, at some companies, hired only as strike breakers, which served to further divide black workers from white. They were confined to the most dilapidated housing in the least desirable sections of the cities to which they fled. In densely populated destinations like Pittsburgh and Harlem, housing was so scarce that some black workers had to share the same single bed in shifts.
    When African-Americans sought to move their families to more favorable conditions, they faced a hardening structure of policies and customs designed to maintain racial exclusion. Restrictive covenants, introduced as a response to the influx of black people during the Great Migration, were clauses written into deeds that outlawed African-Americans from buying, leasing or living in properties in white neighborhoods, with the exception, often explicitly spelled out, of servants. By the 1920s, the widespread use of restrictive covenants kept as much as 85 percent of Chicago off-limits to African-Americans.

    The two previous quotation is considered as an evidence of a bad treatment from the white over the African America. Housing and work are the most important thing for living. People with color faced a real discrimination at work and the distribution of houses. The white consider the black people as a danger. The black were isolated from the white. They lived in very bad and poor neighborhood where the condition were so bad. The people with color couldn’t have an access to any job as the white. All kind of dirty job and hard job had been given to the African American with less money. The problem that the black people in the current time is an extension of the discrimination that they faced. The people with color still manifest there right to be treated as the white. The black movement from the south to the north was not easy at all for them. They had a lot of difficulty to integrate in the white society. The integration was almost impossible because the white keep isolate the black from them. The black succeeded to speak up for the African American that still lived in the south.

  3. Merely by leaving, African-Americans would get to participate in democracy and,by their presence,force the North to pay attention to the injustice in the South and the increasingly organized fight against those injustice”( Wilkerson P2). After civil war, even the black people got freedom through documents,they still encountered a lot of unequal treatments and descrimination. In order to escape the reality, many people left for the North. They pursuited their dreams and achieved a lot of successes in different fields. In the meanwhile, they were still fighting for the equal rights by protests and movements. More and more people heard their voices and paid attention to the black people’s injustice. Now there is still a long way from Civil war to civil rights for the black, at least they are on the right path.

  4. “The desire to be free is, of course, human and universal.”
    We want to be free and have the choice to do what we want. This feels like an illusion because society is constructed in a way that you need to conform to it in order to make it. Black people in the past didn’t fit into the societies of North or South. It’s not that they were not able to conform but whites didn’t allow them to integrate or become a part of their society. The way i see it is that the North fought to release blacks from slavery in the South. However, when black people decided to migrate North, the North aren’t as welcoming and ironically act just like the South.

  5. “Out of such turmoil arose a political consciousness in a people who had been excluded from civic life for most of their history. The disaffected children of the Great Migration grew more outspoken about the worsening conditions in their places of refuge.” (Wilkerson)

    Many African Americans migrating had experienced much hostility and restriction throughout there lives as property, which was the only way they knew of living. But now with their children who are strengthing the ways their parents have tried to do for them can do it more successfully than ever before, they have come to realize their own worth. Some people in politics are listening to their children, and that gives them hope of a better future.

  6. “[…]Where can African-Americans go? It is the same question their ancestors asked and answered, only to discover upon arriving that the racial caste system was not Southern but American.
    And so it was in these places of refuge that Black Lives Matter arose, a largely Northern- and Western-born protest movement against persistent racial discrimination in many forms. It is organic and leaderless like the Great Migration itself, bearing witness to attacks on African-Americans in the unfinished quest for equality. The natural next step in this journey has turned out to be not simply moving to another state or geographic region but moving fully into the mainstream of American life, to be seen in one’s full humanity, to be able to breathe free wherever one lives in America.”

    Great Migration is the product of desire and faith in freedom, liberty and equality. It is the foundation, the first step, the beginning of a continuous fight against racial discrimination. Racial discrimination might no longer be defined geographically in the form of slavery, but it still exist in American life. And so the movement is no longer moving to a different states or regions of the country, but move into the light of equality.

  7. “Until that moment and from the time of their arrival on these shores, the vast majority of African-Americans had been confined to the South, at the bottom of a feudal social order, at the mercy of slaveholders and their descendants and often-violent vigilantes. The Great Migration was the first big step that the nation’s servant class ever took without asking.”
    This quote explains how the great migration benefited the African Americans because they can now move into north states and they thought being freed without looking back

  8. “The Great Migration would expose the racial divisions and disparities that in many ways continue to plague the nation and dominate headlines today, from police killings of unarmed African-Americans to mass incarceration to widely documented biases in employment, housing, health care and education”
    This portion of the article shows us that not much has changed since the great migration. Today we see police killings of young black men, racial division, social inequalities.

  9. Caravan of Hope –

    “Violence is a daily occurrence in El Salvador and it has found a way to reach most of Salvadoran society. Unfortunately, scenes such as the one in the bus have become quite normal, to the point that they don’t elicit much of a reaction from the local population”

    As I was reading this article I realized that when violence is not longer a surprise to a community or a country it makes you see how sad it is from our perepctive . We hear about crimes everyday and we may not expect some things to happen but in their world it’s normal and that’s the reason why the people of El Salvador no longer want to stay there . There isn’t no sign of fixing the issue . The only choice they have is to try to migrate somewhere else so they can better their life’s and it’s not as easy as it sounds . After riding with trucks and even walking through water just to get denied by Mexico is ridiculous because there’s no help and no one to help . And that’s how things get out of control .

  10. -Long Lasting Legacy Of Great Migration
    “The refugees could not know what was in store for them and for their descendants at their destinations or what effect their exodus would have on the country.”(Wilkerson). The refugees had no idea on how they were gonna end up in. They weren’t sure what role they were gonna be portraying in the country and especially in the economic system. Being in this situation could become a struggle for the person.

  11. Caravan of Hope
    “My attempt was to capture photographs that described the desperation, resilience, hope, and day-to-day dynamics taking place along the caravan and in the lives of the migrants taking part in it.”
    This quote describes all the pictures that were taken. Despite suffering and witnessing it all around them, the migrants kept on going in order to have a better life. Risking their lives and putting the little that they have at stake, all they had was hope. This reminded me of how grateful I should be and how a lot of things are taken for granted especially in the United States.

  12. Daralliny Rodriguez
    Professor: Lynn Turner
    “The trains that spirited the people away, and set the course for those who would come by bus or car or foot, acquired names and legends of their own.”

    The Great Migration, was a period were the Black Migrate Northeast and West more than 6 million African Americans left the south between the 1916 and 1970. They were seeking for freedom and a better future for the family. They were seeking to live behind a life of slavery, and ruthless laws like the Jim Crow laws and were kept in physical segregation of public schools, public parks and beaches, and public transportation. drinking fountains, restrooms, and restaurants were segregated, They wanted to be accepted and frees and left all behind everytime they aboard the train to search for new opportunities and to be treat it like every human person deserve to be treat it. The great migration allowes to see the power of love, the fight and willingnes of a race to be accept it and embrace. The movement allowed many womans and mens the opportunity not to proof but to show that they have the capacity to succeed and shine on their own.

  13. “The Great Migration would expose the racial divisions and disparities that in many ways continue to plague the nation and dominate headlines today, from police killings of unarmed African-Americans to mass incarceration to widely documented biases in employment, housing, health care and education. Indeed, two of the most tragically recognizable descendants of the Great Migration are Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Chicago boy killed in Mississippi in 1955, and Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old Cleveland boy shot to death by police in 2014 in the city where his ancestors had fled. Their fates are a reminder that the perils the people sought to escape were not confined to the South, nor to the past.”
    Isabel Wilkerson, The Long-Lasting Legacy Of The Great Migration

  14. “The trains that spirited the people away, and set the course for those who would come by bus or car or foot, acquired names and legends of their own.”

    The Great Migration, was a period were the Black Migrate Northeast and West more than 6 million African Americans left the south between the 1916 and 1970. They were seeking for freedom and a better future for the family. They were seeking to live behind a life of slavery, and ruthless laws like the Jim Crow laws and were kept in physical segregation of public schools, public parks and beaches, and public transportation. drinking fountains, restrooms, and restaurants were segregated, They wanted to be accepted and frees and left all behind every time they aboard the train to search for new opportunities and to be treat it like every human person deserve to be treat it. The great migration allow us to see the power of love, the fight and willingness of a race to be accept it and embrace. The movement allowed many woman’s and men the opportunity not to proof but to show that they have the capacity to succeed and shine on their own.

  15. “The constitution of Oregon explicitly prohibited black people from entering the state until 1926; whites-only signs could still be seen in store windows into the 1950s.
    Even in the places where they were permitted, blacks were relegated to the lowest-paying, most dangerous jobs, barred from many unions and, at some companies, hired only as strike breakers, which served to further divide black workers from white. They were confined to the most dilapidated housing in the least desirable sections of the cities to which they fled. In densely populated destinations like Pittsburgh and Harlem, housing was so scarce that some black workers had to share the same single bed in shifts.”(Wilkerson) The African American was treated unequal because of they race. They had to fight for their freedom in order to live a better life.

  16. The refugees could not know what was in store for them and for their descendants at their destinations or what effect their exodus would have on the country. But by their actions, they would reshape the social and political geography of every city they fled to.

    This article hit very close to home for me, although I am not an African American I do know what it is like to be to migrate for a better life. My family leaving Croatia in August 1995 due to ethnic cleansing was traumatizing. The events that happened during our escape were horrible. Just like the events that lead up to African Americans migrating North and West were scary. This lead me to think how everyone has experienced a certain type of migration, every skin color, most nationalities. And then it lead me to think about how bad people are to one another to cause such misery and pain upon one another.

  17. Caravan of Hope
    “MS: In the sense that some of the migrants spoke about joining the caravan as an act of rebellion against their status quo, allowing them to take charge of their own lives regardless of the uncertainty of the outcome. I also witnessed moments of tension, despair, humor, camaraderie, and a general sense of purpose that comes from leaving everything you know behind for the pursuit of a better future.
    I chose this quote because of the way Moises Saman describes all the emotion and drive these people express just for the opportunity for a better life. I also felt this quote was a perfect description to describe migration.

  18. “They left as though they were fleeing some curse,” wrote the scholar Emmett J. Scott, an observer of the early years of the migration. “They were willing to make almost any sacrifice to obtain a railroad ticket and they left with the intention of staying.” I believe this quote expressed the severity of the situation. Willing to the risk it all on the believe of a better tomorrow. Their travel wasn’t even guaranteed to be successful. For all they knew, racism couldn’t have plagued the new home that they risked everything to travel too. But in their minds nothing can be worse then the southern area they were at.

  19. “The Great Migration would expose the racial divisions and disparities that in many ways continue to plague the nation and dominate headlines today, from police killings of unarmed African-Americans to mass incarceration to widely documented biases in employment, housing, health care and education.”

    The great migration was the first step in exposing what was truly happening in these areas that didn’t accept change or a changing world. Afro Americans wanted equality which at that time would no have happened in the south.

  20. “They were fleeing a world where they were restricted to the most menial of jobs, underpaid if paid at all, and frequently barred from voting…”
    “They left as though they were fleeing some curse,” wrote the scholar Emmett J. Scott, an observer of the early years of the migration. “They were willing to make almost any sacrifice to obtain a railroad ticket and they left with the intention of staying.”

    People during this time were fleeing for necessity and is one of the reasons why people migrate to somewhere safer, and with better opportunities for them to benefit from and their future generations. Colored people didn’t have rights and neither did they have a voice, they were people who were controlled by white people and weren’t seen as someone they were rather seen as property. They were exposed to labor and wouldn’t get paid and that was abuse for them which caused them to want to rebel and leave.

  21. “The desire to be free is, of course, human and universal.”
    This quote spoke to me because of the history behind African Americans. They were brought to this country against their will, help build the foundations of this country yet they are still treated as second class citizens. Its not even like they are asking to be above anyone else either, they want to be treated equally.

  22. The voice that fell silent for so long would become among the most iconic of our time—the voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars, of Mufasa in The Lion King, the voice of CNN. Jones lost his voice, and found it, because of the Great Migration. “It was responsible for all that I am grateful for in my life,” he told me in a recent interview in New York. “We were reaching for our gold mines, our freedom.” The desire to be free is, of course, human and universal.

    I choose this quote because I feel like it wraps the entire article together. Being free and reaching for freedom was the ultimate goal for these people. From my understanding, I believe that everyone should be free and have the right to say whatever they feel.

  23. “The U.S.-Mexico border es una herdia abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleed. And before a scabs forms its hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country–a border culture.”
    -Gloria Anzaldúa

    As an Mexican-American, who has gone through the border time and time again, it’s not the greatest place to be in. Whether it’d be to get in/out, you worry that the slightest mishap will result in the worst. And it doesn’t help that the guards that patrol the border, or even the parking lot if you go through Texas, carry assault rifles. It feels like they may be targeting me at any time, and I’m doing this legally!

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