Daniel Cragan

Professor James

ENG 170 22

23 September 2020

“Interview Summary and Response”

          America is a country that was mainly built by both immigrants and their descendants. If you are not Native American, then at some point in your ancestry your family arrived in the U.S.; whether because of job opportunities, persecution, or a myriad of other reasons, immigration is so important to this nation. When many of us hear the word immigrant, who do we think of? My mind generally leans toward South American or Latin American countries, as that is a huge talking point in modern politics. So imagine my surprise when my friend, Cedric Raber, who is a white American, speaks English perfectly, and likes the same things most Americans like; was actually born in Hong Kong and later moved to Germany. When given this assignment, I immediately thought of him, as he doesn’t sound or seem like someone who came from another country, and the questions that I asked him on September 6th, 2020 (found in the appendix), are likely to give an interesting viewpoint when compared to many other immigrants’ viewpoints.

          To start I asked him a little bit about America, and what he enjoys about living here. To give a little context he is almost completely of German descent, and both of his parents grew up in Germany. When asked about America he said that for his family it wasn’t that big of a transition. He was young when he arrived here, and already spoke a bit of English. His parents were taught English in school, and speak fluently. They found soccer to be popular where they moved to in America, so they managed to bring their long time European hobby overseas. As far as what Germany offered that America did not, Germany has free healthcare, something my friend actually misses. Their reason for leaving wasn’t because of anything wrong with Hong Kong or Germany. Rather,  his dad, a biochemical engineer, found a better paying job in New York. The point I am trying to make is that not all immigrants have to be escaping something, or come from a country that treated them horribly. Too often in the news we see stories about people families split up because they come over illegally, or see the lines at the border fence where people struggle to get documented. However, my friend shows that an immigrant can be anyone, with any background, who can come here with any purpose.

          Knowing that his answers might be lacking a long story, I decided to ask my last questions about the misconception around the cultures of Hong Kong, Germany and even a misconception he and his parents had about America. First, he told me that people generally think, “Hong Kong is a lot like China. In reality, Hong Kong is very different… the people are very progressive and open. They also have different values and culture”(Raber). Until the more recent protest happened in Hong Kong, I might have believed this misconception too. It wasn’t until I saw the lack of “freedom” China was beginning to give the people, did I really begin to see the difference. Secondly, he wanted to defend his prior point about missing Universal Healthcare in Germany, because the quality of healthcare in Germany and the United States is comparable, but is much cheaper in Germany. This is something that I never really thought about, due to never having had to personally pay for a medical bill, but the cost of healthcare in Germany and a lot of European nations is far lower than in the U.S. He says that many Americans assume that, “[If] healthcare can be provided universally, it compromises its quality. While this is sometimes the case, in Germany it generally isn’t”(Raber). Finally, I asked him about his misconceptions about America, and he told me that he was surprised to see how conservative the U.S. was in comparison to Hong Kong and Germany. He said that his parents held many ideas that seemed conservative in other countries, were closer to the middle left or true middle when in America. 

          I genuinely believe that this interview helped expand my view on immigration in the United States. My friend helped me clear up many stereotypes about people who come to America, and showed me the opposite side to that of a refugee. We generally don’t ask people who come from first-world countries about the differences in culture because we tend to assume they are like us. Yet, once you ask questions and dig deeper into their lives, you can find that people all over the world have many differences and similarities, and America is the ‘melting pot’ for all of them.

 

Work Cited

Raber, Cedric. Interview. Conducted by Daniel Cragan, 7 September 2020.

 

 

PowerPoint Link

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1hKOUh537gpf-saW100eWDM9ozNL6SZQCuftEWGxNhrY/edit?usp=sharing

 

 

Daniel Cragan

Professor Phillips

ENG 170 22

September 22 2020

Rhetorical Analysis Part One (Therkelsen)

  1. The thesis of this article is that we, as a global community, need to help asylum seekers and refugees to resettle in proper living conditions. This needs to be done by the leading countries in the world, like the U.S. and countries in the E.U., as those countries are capable of providing a better life for refugees. 
  2. Summary of headliners…
  • RESTRICTIVE REFUGEE POLICIES CAN ACTUALLY GENERATE HUMANITARIAN CRISES

The purpose of these paragraphs is to illustrate the hard life of a refugee, beyond even the borders of their native countries. Even after they make it to a country like Turkey, the challenges of finding a new life are immense. These “safe haven” countries are often brutal in their own right, and many refugees die trying to get to places like Europe from these countries.

  • THE GLOBAL PICTURE: THE WRONG MOMENT TO BACK AWAY FROM INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

These paragraphs tell us about the data collected about refugees around the world. However, it makes sure that we understand that it’s the story the numbers tell us, and not just the numbers, that makes helping refugees important. Just because the numbers say that there are about 70 million refugees in the world, it doesn’t tell us what happens to those 70 million people.

  • MODERN AMERICAN ASYLUM POLICY IS ABUSIVE AND DOGGEDLY MISSES THE BIGGER PICTURE

The article claims that the U.S. is violating human rights, doing things such as taking children away from their parents, leading to some children being found dead or permanently separated from their families. It also says that of all the countries in the world, the U.S. has the capacity to take in refugees, yet they choose policies to reduce this. 

  • IT IS ALWAYS LEGAL TO ASK FOR ASYLUM

The article points out that in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), all asylum seekers are allowed education, work, freedom from descrimination, etc. However, counties like the U.S. are seemingly offering asylum seekers the bare minimum, even cutting some rights out all together.

  • HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATES ARE CRUCIAL IN THE FIGHT FOR FAIR ASYLUM

The article wraps up by explaining that what we are doing now is not enough, and that activists are having a hard time doing their jobs. The common people of countries that offer asylum need to help as well, because they, in the end, are able to influence their country to make popular decisions in politics.

 

 

 

Daniel Cragan 

Professor Phillips

English 170 22

6 October 2020

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

        Have you helped anyone recently? Was it holding a door for someone when walking out of a restaurant, pushing a broken down car to its destination, perhaps the cliche “helping an elderly person cross the street”? Whatever it is, the important outcome is that you made your day and the other person’s day a little brighter. Yet, I wonder why we choose to help make a person’s day a little better, when our country is consistently ruining the lives of millions of people around the world. In Ai Weiwei’s documentary “Human Flow”, he shows the brutal reality of the refugee crisis, allowing me to make a statement saying our county is literally ruining the lives of millions. It takes headlines from news articles we see everyday, but puts them in front of images that relay what the article they are a part of talk about. The images, more so than the words, stay with people longer. Currently, there are about 75 million refugees around the world, and the United States allows in about “20,000” refugees in 2019. Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) activist, Jessica Therkelsen, passionately argues that asylum seekers need more help from America, and the E.U. Therkelsen’s article, “A Global Perspective on the Modern Perils of Seeking Asylum”, uses the stories of asylum seekers in tandem with evidence from the United Nations, to show that the U.S. and E.U. are not doing enough to help asylum seekers, and that the common citizen needs to step up and help their fellow human beings.

        In order to understand why the U.S. and E.U. aren’t doing enough to help asylum seekers, we must first understand who Therkelsen is writing to, and why this audience should read the article. As I mentioned previously, Therkelsen is a member of HIAS. HIAS is the “oldest refugee resettlement agency in the United States and is one of many organizations that represent asylum seekers in the United States, including along both sides of the southern border”(Therkelsen). Using their extensive legal and human rights programs to protect refugees, they were involved in the case HIAS vs Trump (2019) when Trump placed travel bans on Muslim majority countries. The article also says that HIAS has helped over “750,000” people in 16 countries. Seeing how large HIAS’s resume is, Therkelsen knows how much bias this creates in her article. Therefore, we can deduce that this article is not meant for a common person, rather a person who wants to know more about the refugee crisis and how to help. This is more evident when she talks about Ahmed, a Syrian refugee whose family died in bombings, all except his little brother. “I want to get to my cousins in Germany. Do you think that’s going to happen? They can’t keep us here like this. It’s not right”, a heartbreaking interview in which his question may never be answered (Therkelsen). Many refugees like Ahmed ask if they will be saved, but their claims are deprioritized. The E.U. leaves countries like Turkey to take in refugees, a country that needs to sustain itself as well as millions of people coming in every year. What is explained in the article is that the E.U. has “eternalized” their border to the Greek Islands in an attempt to force refugees away from far western countries like England, France and Germany. Combined with the interview and question Ahmed asks, is an appeal to the reader’s pathos, and sparks their interest in the article and the movement. Through this method, Therkelsen is able to achieve her article’s purpose in giving people who want to learn more about the refugee crisis, a motivation to learn more. At the end of her article, Therkelsen says, “Speaking with Ahmed that day in the Greek refugee camp, it was hard to know what to say. Yes, this situation is completely unfair. It’s unethical, unsafe, and illegal”(Therkelsen). She clearly shows pain in her writing, and while using diction like “illegal” may seem strong, it is important context to her style of persuasion and motivation.

        Therkelsen uses harsh, sometimes hyperbolic diction in order to blame the U.S. and E.U. for lack of help in the refugee crisis. She starts a headline with words like “Abusive” and “Doggedly” when explaining American immigration policies. In tandem with her appeal to pathos in Ahmed’s interview, she appeals to the anger in the reader after learning about the system. She explains that the U.S. has banned most Muslim countries from sending people to the U.S., as well as reducing the number of refugees accepted to only “20,000”. The U.S. has also imprisoned people, separating them from their families, and sent people back over the border to a hellish environment. The E.U. seems to be no different, according to Therkelsen. She claims that what the E.U. is doing is violating basic human rights by using tactics to reduce migration. Nearly seven children have died in custody in 2018-2019, after a decade of no deaths. These numbers and accusations are a direct violation of  the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). This document gives basic rights to all people, including a right to life, which is being constantly violated by the world. To add to the sad number of refugees killed, evidence is provided to show that 1,900 people drowned trying to cross the Mediteranean. This all supports the ability to use diction such as “abusive”, “doggedly”, and “tactic to reduce migration” (Therkelsen). This is made all the worse because if a refugee is accepted to the country, they are not accepted by the people of that country. 

        Now that we have been given context towards Therkelsen’s audience and the evidence provided by her United Nations research, we can understand her point of view and persuasion to get people involved in helping refugees. Therkelsen starts her persuasion with the aforementioned pathos and logos, with Ahmed’s interview and the logistics behind the number of refugees in the world. This is to engage the audience with a primary source in the field they may be volunteering in. The tough question Ahmed asks is something to be prepared for in this field of work, and it makes the reader wonder why their country isn’t helping these people. His plea for help and her response in saying how unjust the laws of the western world is, show the irony in politics. We claim to adhere to the UDHR, yet we split up families, allow children to die in custody, and force immigrants to cross deadly areas to get to safety. This is more than enough evidence to condemn the U.S. and E.U., but Therkelsen goes further. Her diction choices have shown us that hyperbolic diction is allowed to be used in this argument. Then she helps us understand that people can always seek asylum. “The right to seek asylum is found in Article 14(1) of Eleanor Roosevelt’s 1948 brainchild–the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, quoting the UDHR itself for the first time (Therkelsen). They are legally allowed to seek dignity, safety, and rights to protect them in that country. This would be a great document in a perfect world, but in reality, finding those who accept a document like the UDHR, or even know about it, is sadly scarce. Refugees are seen by some Americans as a burden, or are afraid they will take jobs away from them. A mystery to all of us and a question we should ask ourselves is, “How is more than 20,000 people entering the U.S. a burden”? 

        After proving that the U.S. and E.U. are not just doing the minimum for refugees, but actively seem to be avoiding helping refugees. Therkelsen’s main point is reached at this level of understanding, where she advocates for help in saving refugees. The claim we established is that her audience is people who are interested in the refugee crisis and potential solutions to it. In her last paragraph she asks for our help, the world’s help, seemingly recruiting us to aid. She says that we can do this without having to even join an organization, simply by staying informed and voting for the government to pass laws to help refugees around the world. Those who are her intended audience are tasked with spreading awareness of both refugees and leading nation’s inability to help them. Which is why she says the common citizen needs to stand up and help their fellow human beings. So I ask again; Have you helped anyone recently? Perhaps the next time you think about who to hep, the refugee crisis will be the first thing to come to mind.

Work Cited

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, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A628283319/ITOF?u=nysl_se_sojotru&sid=ITOF&xid=8e1e7ffa. Accessed 6 Oct. 2020.