Alison Aaron

English 170

Professor James Phillips

Sep. 23, 2020

         Survey Summary and Response 

The world’s refugee crisis is a topic that does not seem to be emphasized by today’s American students and teachers too often. Coming into college I didn’t even know what a refugee was. So I wondered about other college freshmen, do they know about the refugee crisis today? Do they understand how severe it is? I created a survey consisting of eight close ended and two open ended questions (see appendix) that reveals just the brim of what college students understand about the refugee crisis. I distributed the surveys on September third and received all my responses in one day. I asked 18 freshmen at SUNY New Paltz, all 17 to 18 year olds, what they know about refugees and some insight on how bad they really think the crisis is. 

I started the survey by asking some general information about the students. The survey consisted of 18 students, 11 females, seven males, five 17 year olds and thirteen 18 year olds. The first few questions tested their basic knowledge of refugees, i.e. do you know the definition, how many are in the United States, how many are in the world? etc. Fifteen students said they do know what a refugee is and three said they kind of know. This is where possible bias comes into play. Because the question is asking if they know what a refugee is and not to define a refugee anyone could say yes, they do know, when they actually do not. Based on personal experience, I do not think 15 students do know exactly what a refugee is, but because this is the data I got, this is the data I am working with. 

The next set of questions are scale questions asking how bad the refugee crisis is in the United States and in the world.

Figure 1

This question is more of an opinion question depending on who you ask. Even if you do extensive research on how severe the refugee crisis is, the scale will never be factual. The purpose of these questions was not to see how much these students know, but to see how they prioritize the refugee crisis amongst other world issues. Most students think the refugee crisis is worse in the rest of the world than it is in America, but they still think it is pretty bad here too. Eight students rated the issue in America as an eight out of 10, and 10 students rated the world refugee issue as 10/10 with the lowest rating at seven. Overall, this data does not show much in the scale of what these freshmen know, but it shows how important they feel this world issue is.

The last set of questions were not related to knowledge or the refugee crisis, but it catered to the students themselves. These questions asked about important people, places, and material possessions these students have in their life and how they would feel if they lost them. Although we will never be able to empathize with the millions of refugees in this world, these questions were designed to slightly open the minds of these students. When refugees leave their homes, they do not get to go on a luxury vacation, or move to the quiet suburbs with all their precious belongings and loved ones. These people have to leave almost everything behind, including their home, their bed, their teddy bear, their jewelry, and even some loved ones. 

Many of the students that took the survey said they would feel lost, sad, depressed, not themselves, distraught, empty, and heartbroken. Some students said they would not be fine but they would not be broken either. Some said they would not want to live anymore if they lost everything. Some said they would go crazy or they would not have anything to live for. Even though these people had to only imagine this life for two minutes while completing a survey, they still felt like this life would be unbearable and cruel. 

Although I still do not know how much college freshmen do know about the

refugee crisis, I have a base to work off of. It seems that overall most freshmen do not know the exact statistics, but they do understand this is a serious worldwide issue. Getting these students to open their mind for a few minutes, about something they probably would not think about on their own, opens up a world of possibilities for significant change.

      Appendix

Refugee Survey Questions

 

  1. Do you know what a refugee is?
    1. Yes
    2. No
    3. Kind of
  2. On a scale from 1 – 10 (1 being not serious 10 being very serious) how bad do you think the refugee crisis is in the United States?

1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8   9  10

  1. On a scale from 1 – 10 (1 being not serious 10 being very serious) how bad do you think the refugee crisis is in the world?

1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8   9  10

  1. How many refugees are there in America in 2020 (rounded)? – 
    1. 10,000
    2. 4,000
    3. 20,000
    4. 8,000
  2. How many refugees are in the world in 2020 (rounded)? 
    1. 50,000,000
    2. 20,000,000
    3. 70,000,000
    4. 100,000,000
  3. What is your most prized possession? (List one item).
  4. Who is your favorite person in the world?
  5. Does where you’re from matter to you?
    1. Yes
    2. No
  6. How would you feel if you lost one or all the things/people from the last 3 questions?
  7. How do you think losing these things would affect you or your future?

Works Cited

Figure 

 

 

Power Point Link

How-much-do-college-freshman-know-about-the-refugee-crisis_

 

 

 

ENG 170: Rhetorical Analysis, part 2

 

Therkelsen, Jessica. “A Global Perspective on the Modern Perils of Seeking Asylum.” Human Rights, vol. 45, no. 2, Sept. 2019, p. 8.

Gale General OneFile Permalink:

  1. In your own words, what is the overall argument the author presents? How directly is it stated?

Countries that are less well equipped to accept refugees are the ones that are accepting the most refugees, because they are closer to the countries people are fleeing from. Organizations (such as HIAS) that are prepared to help refugees are very important because the countries that could be well equipped to take in many refugees aren’t. Organizations can help and encourage these countries to open up their borders more to safely support more refugees. All of this chaos is causing refugees to lose their rights and continue to live in unsafe conditions.

The argument is stated directly. Therkelsen uses logos and pathos to explain and describe the problem at hand and then concludes in a few different sentences why refugees aren’t getting rights. She also explains what bigger and more powerful countries should do to help.

  1. Why did the author choose to study this topic? How do you know?

Jessica Therkelsen chose to write this because she is the director of legal protection at HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society). She wants to use her position of knowledge to share the importance of this problem and encourage others to support her organization.

  1. What is the writer’s purpose: To inform? To persuade? To criticize? How do you know?

Therkelsen’s main purpose is to persuade, but she does this by informing and criticizing. She criticizes countries such as the U.S.A, Germany, Britain, etc that they aren’t doing nearly enough as they can and should be doing to help asylum seekers gain safety. She informs the audience about the issues at hand and how HIAS and other refugee aiding organizations can help solve these problems. She informs the audience of this to persuade people to support these organizations, specifically HIAS, anyway they can i.e. donations, volunteering, etc. She doesn’t directly ask for help for these organizations but she strongly explains their importance so the audience feels the urge to help. 

  1. Who is the author’s intended audience? How do you know? What does the author assume about the audience?

The author’s intended audience is probably people who are open to helping others: this being college students looking for possible career ideas, people just outside of college looking for a job, or adults who are willing to help anyway they can. Therkelsen is advocating for help for HIAS and the refugees of the world and if people aren’t even slightly willing to lend help then it’ll be a lot harder to convince them to help. College kids, especially today, are usually advocating for all human rights; they also are brand new adults who most likely don’t really know what they want to do with their future. If this article can reach out to enough college students that find this topic interesting and want to help, in a few years there will be plenty of fresh graduates looking for a job at HIAS and other similar organizations. Other adults looking for a job or who just want to help can reach out and share donations or volunteer hours to support the cause. The author assumes that the audience will be willing to reach out and help, but that may not always be the case.

  1. How does the title/subtitle affect the reader? What about subheaders, figures, photos, etc.?

Using the word “perils” in the title will leave a strong effect on the reader. Peril is usually associated with chaos and destruction. Using this word in the titles will intrigue readers to believe the refugee crisis is more serious than they think. Words such as “crisis”, “wrong”, “abusive”, and “crucial”, in the subheaders, constantly remind the reader of the importance and severity of this topic as the readers move through this article.

  1. How does the writer arrange his or her ideas, e.g., chronologically?

Therkelsen arranges her ideas in a way that will most effectively use pathos to persuade her audience to help. She starts off with a story of a teen named Ahmed who escaped Syria from bombings, which he lost all his family to. He is now waiting in Germany to meet with his cousin but his asylum claim is taking a very long time to process. Ahmed’s story is told very abruptly, seeming as if Therkelsen doesn’t care. Therkelsen does this to show how Ahmed is only one example of millions and how most of these refugees are treated as a process and not as if they’re humans. She goes on to use pathos to explain how mixed up the countries are: the countries that are well equipped have the worst regulations and laws and aren’t helping the refugees enough, but the countries not well equipped are taking in millions of refugees. She ends the article explaining the importance of organizations like HIAS and how they need help from anywhere they can get it. She does this so by the time she asks for help the audience is most impacted with feelings of sadness for refugees and asylum seekers, getting the most help she can get.

  1. How does the writer use diction (word choice, arrangement, precision, etc.:  Is it formal or informal? Technical versus slang? Are any technical words explained? How? 1st, 2nd or 3rd person?)? How do each of these choices affect the reader?

The structure of this article isn’t informal like a conversation but it’s not too formal either. The paragraphs and sentences are structured in a thoughtful order and are grammatically correct but the vocabulary isn’t too tough and the sentences are generally easy to comprehend, nothing to advanced. The article is written in third person because Jessica Therkelsen is speaking on behalf of all refugees and asylum seekers and HIAS. She is telling their story so the writing is best put into third person.

  1. How complex is the sentence structure and paragraphing of text? Are there fragments or run-ons? Is it declarative, imperative, or exclamatory? What effects do these choices have?

The sentence structure is fairly simple with minimal to no run on sentences, mostly fragments. The article is mostly imperative because the author is explaining the extreme importance that the refugees and asylum seekers do need help. It is slightly exclamatory in the sense that Therkelsen is crying out for help, but she isn’t doing so in a begging manner, she is more so informing and explaining the need for more help.

  1. Does the writer use punctuation to create any effects? Italics, underlining, parentheses? When? 

Jessica Therkelsen used some parentheses to add in extra information such as dates or acronyms. She also uses parentheses to add important citations. In the third paragraph she cites two cases of two different refugee saving organizations (IRAP and HIAS) vs. Trump. She does this to add modern day examples of push back on organizations such as her own. In paragraph 11 she used parenthesis to list off three causes of population growth in refugee arrival centers. She uses parentheses to separate the three examples with the letters a,b, and c. Doing this creates a stronger argument by clearly showing three causes, rather than mixing them together which would minimize the seriousness. She also asks some questions that make the readers question the habits of countries pushing out refugees. In paragraph 14 she ends the paragraph by asking the readers why asylum seekers coming to the US are treated with suspicion and fear. This question is an eye opener, even for people who understand refugees aren’t treated fairly. 

  1. Are important terms repeated in the article?  If so, what are they?

“Refugee” and “asylum (seeker)” are repeated many, (refugee 31 times and asylum 25 times (seeker 13)),  times because that’s who the article is mainly about. The word “safety” is mentioned six times throughout the article. One of the main points the author is making is that most of these refugees and asylum seekers aren’t safe and something needs to change so that they are granted safety. 

  1. Does the writer use dialogue? Quotations? Why/not? What other stylistic choices/literary devices do you notice? How do each of these choices affect the reader?

The writer does not use dialogue or quotations. She does so because she is using logos and sharing facts to back up her argument as to why refugees need more help. Because she is also appealing to pathos to persuade people to help I personally think quotes could strengthen her argument and better appeal to pathos. Although her main strategy is facts and statistics, some quotes from a real person living through this mess could help back up her argument even better.

 

  1. How does the author use sources? How do you know? How do these decisions affect the reader?

Therkelsen cites a few sources at the end of her article. She doesn’t directly cite them into the passage but she has to get the information from somewhere. If she used all the information from her job at HIAS the article could have been more biased and therefore, possibly, less correct. 

  1. What biases/assumptions/presuppositions does the writer bring to the topic? How do you know? How directly does the writer acknowledge/debate other views about the topic?  What does the writer leave out that may be important? What is the overall tone? 

Jessica Therkelsen works for HIAS so she has a bias towards the need to help refugees. She already assumes the refugee crisis is bad, and she probably feels it’s a worse issue than most people find it to be. She leaves out the point of view of the countries housing the refugees. Bigger countries that aren’t helping too much do have their reasons for doing so. Whether they’re fair reasons or not they are there and Therkelsen doesn’t address them.

 

 

Alison Aaron

English 170 – 22

October 9, 2020

(“Rhetorical Analysis of ‘A Global Perspective on the Modern Perils of Seeking Asylum’”)

The process to be granted asylum is unnecessarily long and unorganized to a lethal extent, but why is that? Why are certain countries scared of refugees? Jessica Therkelsen answers these questions in her article “A Global Perspective on the Modern Perils of Seeking Asylum”. Therkelsen is the director of Legal Protection at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), her job requires her to aid refugees and asylum seekers with legal protection so they can safely find a new home. She also educates people outside of HIAS on the perils of the refugee crisis. This job comes with a lot of push back, mostly from governments and their strict laws that keep foreigners from finding a home in their country. Therkelsen identifies the proper audience, purpose, and structure to describe the hardships refugees face and begs for help from anyone who can support HIAS.  

To properly get the help she needs, Therkelsen first had to decide on the best audience that would follow through with their promise of aid. The publisher of this article is the American Bar Association (ABA). The ABA’s purpose is to eliminate bias, increase diversity, and advocate for the rule of law (American Bar Association). This shows one main audience group is probably lawyers, more specifically human rights lawyers. Lawyers that specialize in corporations, criminal law, or even environmental justice probably would not give HIAS the time of day.

Another target audience for Therkelsen would be college students or people that recently 

graduated from college. College students usually are not set on their major or career plan and 

could be swayed to choose a career path in human rights law, which could lead them directly to HIAS. Even if students did not specifically pick human rights law, many career options can lend them a hand to help educate others on the severity of the global refugee crisis and HIAS. Young adults who just graduated college are usually trying to find a career or a career path that suits them. This article can persuade them to choose a temporary or even a lifetime job that would directly or indirectly help refugees and HIAS. Another possible audience group, but probably the smallest, is adults who are looking to help a cause. Adults who already have a job are probably swamped with work and most of their free time is taken up, but they might have some money they are ready to hand to a needing organization. Money or even volunteer hours are important to keeping up HIAS. These different audience groups are very broad and different from each other, so it would be hard to get this article out to all of them. But, because there are so many different types of people suited to read this article and therefore help, it is easier to get this article out to many people who should read it, even if it is just for the purpose of gaining more knowledge. 

Now that Jessica Therkelsen knows her intended audience, her purpose is to persuade

them to support HIAS and stop the global refugee crisis (as much as they can). Therkelsen informs her audience and criticizes the system to therefore persuade her audience to help. She informs the readers about how the world is mixed up on its solution to this problem. Countries that are very well equipped to take in many refugees, such as the United States, Germany, the UK, and plenty others, are barely taking in anyone and their laws are not properly suited to handle the process of accepting refugees. Just recently the southern border of the U.S. has been separating children from their parents leaving trauma that can last a lifetime. On the other hand, smaller and less equipped countries like Turkey, Pakistan, and Uganda (Therkelsen) are taking in millions of refugees. Turkey is holding up to 3.6 million documented Syrian refugees. Considering refugees from elsewhere and undocumented refugees they have around 4 million refugees total (UNHCR). The U.S. has about 3 million refugees (US departments of state) but with a population about four times the size, leaving the citizen to refugee ratio much tighter in Turkey. Turkey also only has an area of 297,591 square miles, while the U.S. has an area of 3,539,325 square miles (infoplease). That is a lot more space to build homes and create towns for more incoming refugees. Therkelsen criticizes the bigger countries for their lack of resources and support for refugees, and she especially criticizes their laws that slow down the verification and acceptance process into the country. Therkelsen also shames these countries for looking at refugees with “suspicion and fear”, and she questions Americans as to why they see refugees this way (Therkelsen). While Therkelsen is sharing all this knowledge she is simultaneously persuading her readers to help just based on the severity of the information. Therkelsen’s strategic use of criticism properly informs and persuades her audience to stand up and help.

With Therkelsen’s purpose and audience set up, she needs to start her article with a 

strong hook to intrigue readers to keep reading. She starts out the body of her article by abruptly sharing a story about a teenager Ahmed. Ahmed has fled Syria after he lost his whole family to bombings. He is now in Germany trying to meet up with his cousin, but his asylum papers are taking a very long time to process (Therkelsen). Ahmed’s story is told very abruptly, almost as if 

Therkelsen lacks emotion for his situation, which is not true. Therkelsen does this so she can 

show her audience how the government and border patrol feel about Ahmed. He is just another person looking to stay in their country, but is treated as just another number on another asylum request form. Opening up her article like this Therkelsen shows the readers a glimpse of what it is truly like to be in the shoes of an asylum seeker, and ropes her audience in to want to help. 

Therkelsen then goes on to discuss the way most countries barely try to help. Bigger and more well equipped, first world countries like the U.S. and Germany are not taking in nearly as many refugees as they can. The laws put in effect by these countries immensely slows down the immigration and asylum processing, so much so that borders get clogged with people who probably do not even have a chance of safely and legally getting in. This leaves camps at the borders to harass these families by separating parents and children, taking their clothing, barely feeding them, and leaving them in cages and on floors to sleep. On the contrary countries like 

Turkey, which are small and do not have the proper resources to handle millions of refugees, are taking in millions of refugees. The borders may be easier to get through but the tension between Syrian refugees and Turkish citizens is growing. The Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees noticed a growth in violence towards Syrian refugees back in 2017. Real estate prices are also rising and job availability is decreasing (Crisis Group). 

A problem with getting more refugees to America is the fact that countries that refugees

are fleeing from are nowhere near the US, especially with many people traveling by foot or unsafe sea voyages. This is when Therkelsen wraps up her article by explaining the importance

of aiding HIAS. The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) can continue to and even further support refugees to find safer homes and help evenly distribute refugees throughout the

world. HIAS does many things such as redistribute refugees around the US, provide legal protection and psychological support for asylum seekers globally, and they advocate for U.S. and 

international policy. HIAS works in 17 countries, some of which are the US, Israel, Greece, etc. If HIAS received more support they would be able to represent more countries and more people who need their help. Therkelsen finishes her article this way because her audience has the strongest urge to help just after they took in all the information written. Therkelsen’s structure was very well thought out to be most effective on the audience.

Throughout the article, Therkelsen criticizes first world countries for not helping nearly as much as they should, but she never reasons why they do so. The topic of immagration has been popularly controversial in the U.S. these past few decades and especially the past couple of years. People who do not support immigration reason that immigrants and refugees will take up American jobs and homes, as they are in Turkey. They believe the country will be swarmed with immigrants who some feel do not necessarily belong here. Therkelsen should have touched upon this issue as a counter argument, before the argument could even be made. She had the perfect opportunity to shut these rumors down and further argue her case to support HIAS. As the Crisis Group discovered violence rates have increased, housing prices have gone up, and jobs have been taken by many Syrian refugees. Therkelsen could have argued that the only reason this is happening is because Turkey is not ready for the amount of refugees they have accepted and that this would not happen in the US.

The United States is a huge country with a huge economy ready to handle asylum seekers. HIAS, if it were better supported, would be able to relocate Syrain refugees from Turkey 

into the US. This would help Turkey get a better grip on how they handle the refugees, thus lessening violence rates, lowering house prices, and evenly distributing jobs amongst the Turks 

and Syrians. The other refugees who make it to America will find a steady job and a well priced home, and if done properly American jobs will not be taken and housing rates will not increase. 

Besides not including a rebuttal, Therkelsen wrote a very well thought out article to raise awareness on the global refugee crisis. She thoughtfully balanced her use of purpose and structure to properly educate her target audience and also make them want to help out. Her message was strong and her intent was clear. Refugees and asylum seekers need help all over the world and Jessica Therkelsen just took one very big step into doing so.

Works Cited

Jessica Therkelsen. “A Global Perspective on the Modern Perils of Seeking Asylum.” Human Rights, vol. 45, no. 2, American Bar Association, Jan. 2020, pp. 8–11.

About the American Bar Association, www.americanbar.org/about_the_aba/. 

“Turkey’s Growing Refugee Challenge – Rising Social Tensions.” Crisis Group, 6 Nov. 2017, www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/western-europemediterranean/turkey/turkeys-growing-refugee-challenge-rising-social-tensions. 

“HIAS Resettlement Partners.” HIAS, www.hias.org/what/resettlement-partners. 

“Population Density per Square Mile of Countries.” Infoplease, Infoplease, www.infoplease.com/world/population/population-density-square-mile-countries. 

“Refugee Admissions – United States Department of State.” U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of State, 2 Oct. 2020, www.state.gov/refugee-admissions/. 

“UNHCR Turkey – Fact Sheet October 2019 – Turkey.” ReliefWeb, reliefweb.int/report/turkey/unhcr-turkey-fact-sheet-october-2019.