Census Bureau, 2007). However, Asian Americans are not a homogeneous community. On the contrary, they represent a very diverse population, with regionally and culturally specific language, dialects, traditions, and beliefs. Moreover, each cultural group was drawn (or pushed) to the United States by different motives. Most early immigrants—whether Chinese, Japanese, or Filipino, for example—sought employment as unskilled labor.
These statistics show that ethnic minorities have made up the majority of additional voters, presenting the importance of ethnic minorities in the US political system. In 2000 Whites had the highest registration rates with 72% of Whites registered to vote. Although Black registration rates did increase by 4 percentage points, Black registration was still lower than Whites at 68%. Hispanic registration rates were lower still at 57% and remained unchanged from the 1996 Presidential Election. API registration rates went down from 1996 to 2000 by 5%
Some Americans do not understand the true reason why they tend to choose our country to start over in. Immigrants constantly face discrimination because of the color of their skin, the sound of their voices or simply because of the way they look and their beliefs. Instead of discriminating, we should as a whole, welcome them with open arms and try to establish equality with immigrants. Over the past four decades, America has been challenged by a massive flow of immigrants, particularly from Asia and Latin America. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, foreign born people compose about 10 percent of the nation’s population.
They also are ineffective at representing their constitution because out of 650 MPs, only 147 of them are female, and even fewer are ethnic minorities which means they are not effectively representing the population. Secondly, MPs are effective because they scrutinise and hold the government to account with questions. They can scrutinise the opposition, or if they are rebels for example, Nadine Dorries, they can scrutinise their own party. Recently, MPs have become even more under the Speaker John Berkow who has allowed increasing amounts of urgent questions, 25 in his first year. There is also the 10 minute question time, and ballot box at the end of Question Time.
Equal political voice and the opportunity to participate in democracy are certainly valued ideals, as generations of Americans, from the colonists of late eighteenth century to women of the early twentieth century, have fought for their place in this country. Every vote is crucial to the development and maintenance of America, representing the voice of the citizens for politicians to act upon. Unfortunately, the American people are heard unequally and unjustly. The gap between who is and is not able to partake in United States politics is steadily increasing. The privileged and well organized wealthy upper class of this country dominate the polls, the majority of the U.S. is not represented in election, further slowing the progress of political reform.
Some family-based immigrants may be highly educated or skilled, but the vast majority of admissions are made without regard for those criteria. The immigrant population reflects the system's lack of emphasis on skill. Nearly 31 percent of foreign-born residents over the age of 25 are without a high school diploma, compared to just 10 percent of native-born citizens. Immigrants trail natives in rates of college attendance, associate's degrees, and bachelor's degrees, but earn advanced degrees at a slightly higher rate (10.9 percent, compared to 10.4 percent for natives). Illegal immigrants are the least-educated group, with nearly 75 percent having at most a high school education.
Not much has changed since 1899 when Onoto Watanna and Sui Sin Far—the Eaton Sisters—confronted the dreaded binary that seems perpetually to define Asian Americans as either "model minorities" or "bad subjects," as those who either collaborate with or resist corrupt American racial practices. A century later, the "mainstream Asian American intellectual class," inclusive of "academics, artists, activists, and nonacademic critics," still struggles with this rhetorical burden, at times incapable of collapsing this problematic binary, other times intentionally reaffirming it for personal gain, so argues Viet Thanh Nguyen in Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America. Moreover, according to Nguyen, Asian American creative writers
(2005) found that Asian Americans are underrepresented, occupying 2.7% of the total characters, which is less than their population percentage, 4.4%. Most of the Asian Americans are characterized as holding high-status positions requiring intelligence and advanced degrees (often in the sciences), which might reinforce the model minority stereotype. The complete invisibility of Asian Americans in situational comedies that generally feature family and domestic settings might strengthen the foreigner stereotype that Asians do not represent the ‘‘American family,’’ and they are not seen as neighbors or friends of families. In addition, the other peer ethnic-racial groups have four times as many romantic or familial relationships as Asian Americans, perpetuating Asians as asexual and isolated (Yuen et al., 2005). With an effort to explore the connections between racialized power and politics of TV representation about the images of Asian Americans, Hamamoto (1994) made a comprehensive study of television programs spanning five decades and covering every genre.
Hispanics in California and across the United States have had a difficult time assimilating to American culture over the past decades. This problem of non-assimilation has had a big impact on Hispanics overall to include gangs, drugs, high school dropout rates, teen pregnancies, crime, and poverty, to name a few. The problems are most prevalent among Mexican and Central American Hispanic youth. While the majority of immigrants that journey to the United States come with good intentions seeking for employment and to improve their lives, the children of such a particular group of immigrants does not always attempt to raise the level of success in their generation. Most immigrant parents are not involved in their children’s education due to cultural
Asian American Gerald Trahan ETH/125 July 21, 2011 Jere Wilson Asian American The Asian American population of 17.3 million people in the United States as of 2010, which comprised of 5.6 percent of the total population in the United States, was a higher number then I was expecting. And also 2.6 million people that are Asian American that are five and older speak Chinese at home and more so after Spanish, Chinese is the most widely spoken non-English language in the United States. Fifty percent of Asian Americans that are twenty-five years or older have a bachelor’s degree or higher level of education, where it compares to twenty-eight percent of all Americans in that group. This number almost doubles all the other groups. Eighty-five