Citizen Journalism | September 13, 2007 | 9 comments

Not Born in the USA: A global picture of illegal immigration to America

source: http://www.tomarken.com/VID00019.AVI

Image
lauraling
Help us build a picture about illegal immigration in America that goes beyond Mexicans. Who are the people living in the US that come from Asia, Africa, Europe, South America and beyond? What unique situations do they face? What threats do they pose? Post your research, suggestions, and personal stories here so that we can better understand the wider picture of illegal immigration in America.
  1. groups:
    Citizen Journalism
  2. tags:
    Citizen Journalism,  Illegal Immigration,  In Production
  3.     
    |

9 comments // Not Born in the USA: A global picture of illegal immigration to America

  • astanhope
  • cwhite
    • 0
      cwhite  

    • I, too, am interested in the clustering of ethnic groups in the US. Greeks that own restaurants in NY, Brazilian pizza shop owners/drivers in SF, Filipinos in South San Francisco/Daly City, etc. It's interesting and understandable how a small group of people can grow roots in an area and continue to draw other friends and family from their home countries.

    • 4 years ago
  • saskia
  • sloan
    • 0
      sloan  
    • Image

    • I'm always fascinated by the "clustering" of immigrants -- illegal or otherwise -- in certain regions, industries, or whatever. Especially when the clusters are hyper-specific. We were just talking about this down here and Ofer mentioned that all those crazy mall kiosks are always staffed by Israelis (this is related to Saskia's comment above) -- many of them here on "tourist visas." A little googling revealed this article. The first couple of paragraphs alone are fascinating; how do people find OUT about the opportunity to come to the U.S.? In internet chat rooms, apparently :-)

    • 4 years ago
  • saskia
    • 0
      saskia  
    • Image

    • An interesting, and huge, portion of the Los Angeles immigrant population is Israeli. Flocking to the San Fernando Valley, working in fields such as construction, and moving, the recent immigrants from Israel work mostly in shopping mall carts and selling 'oil' paintings door-to-door. It's a pretty sizeable and often forgotten about population, as well as an affluent and mobile one (it is fairly common for young israelis to come to LA (or NY) for a year or two to make some money between the army and the beginning of their university studies).

    • 4 years ago
  • lauraling
    • 0
      lauraling  

    • Thanks for this article on undocumented Filipino migrants. Your research sparked something in our producer Tracey who recalled a highschool classmate of hers who's Filipino and has been living in the US illegally since we was 6 years old. Her parents came to the US on a business visa. When their visa expired, they just stayed here and have been living in America ever since, illegally. Tracey contacted her and she let us interview her--without showing her face. We'll be posting a clip soon...

    • 4 years ago
  • cerissa
    • 0
      cerissa  

    • Saw this youtube video about the threat of terrorists from other countries crossing over the Mexican border to the U.S.

    • 4 years ago
  • joanneshen
    • 0
      joanneshen  
    • Image

    • I'm glad to hear you guys aren't just focusing on Mexican illegal immigration. I'm a sophomore, majoring in Asian American studies, and recently went to talk given by this immigrant activist who talked about the crappy working conditions of 12 million undocumented Filipino workers in the US. Here's an article about her talk--maybe she'd be a good person to talk to.

    • 4 years ago
  • LaurenCerre
    • 0
      LaurenCerre  

    • My local paper ran a great series about this South Korean college student who wracked up credit card debts and was tricked into immigrating illegally.
      She was promised a job to work off her debt but instead she was forced to work in a "massage parlor." Apparently, it's a pretty common phenomenon.
      Check it out.

      http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/10/08/MNGAULL53D1.DTL

    • 4 years ago
more from Citizen Journalism:
from the community

top videos