John Richardson

Immigration


Mexican immigrants make up a large part of the US population and contribute much to the lower class. However, many of these immigrants are in the country illegally. Many people are against having them in the country illegally and think they should be deported. It is against the law after all, so why would they enter the country illegally in the first place? The truth is, they are in danger of gang violence and harsh conditions that come with the poverty of their corrupt country. It isn't an easy task to just immigrate to the US. That takes time and there is no guarantee that they will be allowed in. So because of the immediate danger people from Mexico enter the country illegally. A large part of immigrants end up entering the country legally, but they overstay their visas. Departments in immigration are of course trying to stop this, but some of there methods may not be very humane.

There have been many debates on what the best plan of action for keeping immigrants out should be. Building a wall is one of the most talked about, however, that doesn't take care of the illegal immigrants that are already in the county. In 2014 illegal immigrants made up about 3.5-3.8 percent of the population. That translates to roughly 12.1 million people. In order to try to catch them, there is an official policy to use children trying to enter the country as "bait".

When children attempt to enter the country they are detained in a shelter. A family member from the US has to come and sponsor the child in order to let them in. For this reason, the government is deliberately keeping children in these shelters for an extended period of time until their family comes to get them. Here is the worst part. As soon as they scan the family members fingerprint and find that they are an illegal immigrant, they are arrested, deported, and separated from their child. It's like immigration is holding children hostage to lure illegal immigrants into a trap and they are still separated from each other. This very situation happened to a 17-year-old boy trying to reconnect with his father. When his father got there, he was immediately deported, and the 17-year-old attempted suicide. Immigration does not care about the effects separating families have on people. 

Studies show that separating children from their parents can be psychologically harmful, especially in young children. It is believed that because the children are in these shelters, they are far better off than being back in Mexico. This may not be true. The shelters are in bad condition, and not have a parent makes it even worse. When put under stress, kids need someone to entrust and talk to. Because they don't have this, they don't know how to cope. This affects the development of the brain and puts these kids a high risk of PTSD, anxiety, and depression. This is especially harmful because a lot of the children already have PTSD from bad experiences like gang violence and sexual abuse back home. Stacking all three of these disorders on top of each other can be so difficult to deal with, especially without a family. 

Mexicans immigrate to the US for a better life. This includes a job or an education. However, this is no easy task. Even when one has money, resources, and speaks English, getting an education requires a lot of effort. It becomes increasingly difficult for immigrants who may not speak English very well. Having the kind of money to pay for a college education is very rare among Mexican immigrants as well. as you can see in figure 1, some immigrants get by with high school education, but figure two shows that the number of immigrants in or near poverty is very high. When you put the language barrier, money barrier, and the fact that many of these children could have PTSD, depression, and anxiety, the chances of even the slightest bit of success seems very small. Separating children from their families has a lasting effect on them. It is already extremely difficult for these immigrants to support themselves, so taking their family away in despicable, no matter the situation. Mexican immigrants are an important part of the US population and we should be uplifting and helping them, not separating them from their families.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Huffington Post
Buissnes inisder 
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Link : figures 1 and 2
USA Today

The most important things that lead to success ranked in order:

1. Opportunity
2. Hard work
3. Skill
4. Luck

Opportunity is first because no matter how good you are, it won't matter if you don't have any opportunity. Hard work is next. I placed hard work above skill because I have heard lots of success stories and important people say that hard work will get you further than your skill. I placed luck at the bottom because it is true that you have to be lucky to succeed, but in order to be lucky or increase your chances of being lucky, you need to be hardworking and skilled first.

2.0 Empathy in Rats

According to an Article from Science Magazine, rats also experience empathy. It is often thought that animals are not smart enough to experience more complex emotions and that all they do is based on instinct. However, research in an experiment with white rats shows that rats will save other rats from drowning. The rats are even more likely to save them if they have had a bad experience with water as well. Food was also included in the experiment. The research shows that 50-80 percent of rats chose to save another rat over the chocolate. The article says that to chose to help others over a necessity (food) suggests that empathy exists as a biological trait similar to what humans have.


Science Mag. 

John Richardson

The Telephone

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The invention of the telephone was one of the most influential phenomena of its time. When it became known that people could communicate with each other from opposite ends of the US as if they were just a few feet away,  it sparked the interest and excitement of many. Soon people all over America would have the telephone in their lives and it only continued to grow. 

The date that the telephone, meaning tele- "far" and phone- "sound" was invented is not actually clear. Around the late 1800s, several people were working on creating a telephone and this lead to arguments in court, but in the end, Alexander Grahm Bell got his patent through first. So while it can be argued that Gham Bell may not have invented the first telephone, he did receive the patent. This lead to his team creating the American Bell Telephone company which later evolved to the American Telegraph and Telephone company. This name is more commonly known today as AT&T. In 1900 there were about 600,000 phones owned by people, and in just 10 years, this number had shot up to 5.8 million. AT&T had a monopoly in this industry and the effect of this company thriving continues all the way to the present day. In 1913, the Kingsbury Commitment was put into place. This was an agreement between AT&T and the US Attorney General to provide long-distance services to independent phone exchanges. By 1927, the transatlantic telephone cable was laid down. This connected phones from New York and London. This was now a global phenomenon. 

The telephone leads to so many things, such as the gramophone, the first wireless phone by Motorola, or the feeling of being connected from anywhere to help people transition from the city to the suburbs. However, the most direct effect is the job opportunities it provided. With the telephone came the switchboard. Telephone companies needed people to operate and manually connect incoming calls to the people they wanted to talk to. Operators mainly consisted of teenaged boys, but they seemed not to possess the right qualities for the job, such as politeness. Graham Bell suggested that women would be better for the job. In 1878, Emma Nutt became the first female operator. This sparked new job opportunities for women and pretty soon, this field was dominated by women. People enjoyed their "soothing" and polite voices better than the teenaged boys. However, women had to go through a heigh, and voice test to become an operator. They also got very little pay, earning just $10 a month working 54 hours a week. This lead to the women going on strike. The business came to a standstill and they had no choice but to give the women a wage increase. 

Elon.edu Imagining The Internet
History.com History Stories
Britannica.com Telphone
Time.com Emma Nutt

Cnet.com Telphone

John Richardson
G Block
The Truth About Thanksgiving 


After Halloween has ended, and all the candy is gone, the next thing everyone starts to think about is Thanksgiving. What’s not to love about Thanksgiving? The warm decorations like a cornucopia with corn and other foods spilling from it, or the turkeys, ranging from the most detailed sculptures to the kind you can make from your handprint. It is believed by many that these symbols of Thanksgiving like the turkey, the pilgrims, and Native Americans originated from the first Thanksgiving. However, much of the Thanksgiving story that people believe today may not have actually happened, or at least in the way it's being told. 

Most people believe that the first Thanksgiving happened in 1621 after the Pilgrims sailed over on the Mayflower and had a successful harvest. One can imagine the Native Americans and the Pilgrims sitting around a table eating turkey, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie, but the truth is, this story has many inaccuracies. The first one that should be addressed is that the Pilgrims didn’t actually call themselves Pilgrims. They were known as Separatists. The Second inaccuracy is that the Native Americans might not have actually been invited to the first Thanksgiving. The third is that there is no evidence that turkey was served and they didn’t have the ovens to make pumpkin pie. Finally, what we call the first Thanksgiving, wasn’t really the first Thanksgiving. It was very common in Native American culture to give thanks after a harvest that ended in success. 

Thanksgiving started to be made official around the time of the civil war. Hale stands out as one who was pushing Congress to make the fourth Thursday of November a holiday to give thanks. Hale wrote many letters to Congress regarding her wishes and by 1854, 30 states and US territories had jumped on board by celebrating this holiday, but it was not official yet. Finally Lincoln agreed to make Thanksgiving a national holiday because he thought it might help heal some of the wounds created by the civil war. 

One might ask themselves how all the misinformation about the “first” Thanksgiving came to be. Part of the blame is on the school textbooks. They did not provide a clear and accurate view of this holiday, but what really caused misinformation to spread was major food companies and the media. Adds were being created to cause people to associate Thanksgiving with certain foods. They also “implied” that many of these foods existed and were present at the first Thanksgiving when they weren't actually there. Even though these adds twisting the truth, they cause foods like turkey and cranberry sauce to sell around Thanksgiving time. Despite all the inaccuracies, the Thanksgiving holiday was created to give thanks and it has been a huge success in that regard. 


https://shannonselin.com/2016/11/thanksgiving-1800s/ 

NYTs: Everything You Learned About Thanksgiving is Wrong (Links to an external site.)

History.com:  Abraham Lincoln and the "Mother of Thanksgiving" (Links to an external site.)

Smithsonian:  The Invisible Way That Marketers Set the Menu for Your Thanksgiving Feast

https://blogs.loc.gov/teachers/2012/11/library-of-congress-primary-sources-and-thanksgiving/

12 years a slave

The New York Times writes that 12 Years a Slave stands out from the many movies about slavery because of its accuracy. The movie draws you in from the beginning as the main character, Solomen, has his freedom snatched from him and taken into slavery. They say the director constantly moves the film forward, so the audience does not get caught up in too many emotions; your attention is on Solomen and what is happening at that moment. They also tell us that Solomen's story provides a great "double perspective" because he was once a free man and a slave.

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Slave Narratives

I read about a girl that was born into slavery. She recalls the memories of her childhood and how that evolved into realizing she was a slave. While the act of slavery is undoubtedly immoral, not all slave owners treated their slaves in horrible ways. The slave by the name Linda was born into a household with her mother, grandmother, and brother. She describes her childhood as not being that bad because her mistress was nice to her. However, when the mistress passed away and Linda was transferred to another owner, she then realized that her happy times as a child were over. 

Are slaves more likely to stay in the owners family after the owner dies?

How old do slaves have to be to start working, and how are they taken care of when they are babies?

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