Before reading Children of Immigration I had put a surprisingly small amount of time pondering immigration. In retrospect, this is unacceptable seeing as I am the son of an immigrant (for those of us that don't consider New Brunswick to be "Maine pt. 2"), I probably should have spent some time investigating the issues. Going into reading the book, my views towards immigrants were by no means negative. But the book gave me some more perspective on the matter.

I found the 2nd Chapter had the largest effect on my views. By analyzing immigration through a historical perspective, the book highlighted many of the similarities and differences between the immigrant’s experiences at different points in time. It is sad to read that while the immigrant experience has varied widely in terms of location and motivation, there has been little variance in terms of the reception they received.  The lack of growth in our collective attitude towards newly arrived immigrants is disheartening. I would hope that we would have experienced more growth over the generations.

It was also interesting to see the different types of immigrant experiences there are. People tend lump them in as one entity and while I didn’t do that prior to reading this book, I admittedly underestimating the wide array of pathways immigrants take to this country.

While the general attitudes and misconceptions towards immigrants was a downer, it was uplifting to read that many children enter this country with an enthusiasm towards education and optimism for what the future holds. I plan on adding to this blog after class discussion because its such an interesting topic and I would love to add more when I get other people’s perspectives.