Week 5 Blog Post Response

**Trickle-Down Sociology: Immigration Tension and Reform**

Recently, one of my family members brought to my attention a newspaper article in the San Jose Mercury News, about a letter a reader wrote in response to a derogatory article fueled by the recent controversy over immigration policies and reform.

Many of you may have noticed and responded to the rising tensions caused by the AB-1070 Arizona state bill that was recently passed along with lesser known provisions, legalizing racial profiling. The effects are all around us, on the news, in our schools, our families and classrooms, tainting the Cinco de Mayo celebration, even the result of one class discussion recently brought one of my instructors to tears as they addressed to students their own connections to immigration issues and discrimination.

What are we proving as a nation in regards to punishing those who wish to succeed in a country built upon immigrants? That being "illegal" is a form of social deviance although the factor may be out of one's control? Even punishable by law? This brings me to what my instructor had mentioned in our class discussion of immigration policy, as those who were undocumented were once granted amnesty if they had been in the country for at least 10 years, had not committed any crimes, and/or had children or relatives that were citizens, which sounds like a reasonable law to me. Unfortunately, this has not been in effect since the Regan era, with at least 2 decades since amnesty was granted to anyone.

How and why was it possible for this change to be made as a result of changing societal and economic structures? And how do governent policies shape our perception of societal deviance?

This in part may be due to the changing demographic and perceptions of immigrants, slowly shifting to more negative ideals, and interactions based upon stereotypes and commonalities.

The fact is within the last 20 years, generally resources have become more scarce such as education and employment particularly in the last 5 years in part by both inflation and population growth. In the most economically prosperous eras such as most of the 80's and late to mid 90's, immigration was hardly noticed or even considered an issue. Entering the 00's with 9/11, the wars, and gradual falling economy, the topic of immigration became and increasingly prominent issue. Now many are forced to compete for resources such as jobs, education and healthcare, leading to cultural identity and classification to be considered more crucial to ensure the distribution of resources. This leads to tension and hostility as some believe immigrants "take our jobs" use "our schools" and "our healthcare".

These sentiments "trickle-down" (in the words of the "great Ronald Regan"), influencing many particularly the youth in social institutions, cultural expressions and celebrations, and most importantly how we interact and perceive others.

For instance, many of you may have heard or the conflict at one bay area high school over Cinco de Mayo celebration, where some students, not of Hispanic decent, chose to wear American Flag T-shirts, to which the students of Mexican decent took offence and protested by walking out of class due to the fact that no one wearing American flag shirts was punished, but were simply sent home. Parents of the students who wore Am. flag shirts were upset at the principle for sending their children home, while parents of the other student were upset expecting further action to be taken if this "act of defiance".

This is proof of how deviance can be viewed from many different perspectives. One group of parents viewed the actions of the principle as deviant, while the other vied the students as deviant. This shows that the concept of deviance is relative based upon the context of the culture and/or environment.

As another example, their have been instances at colleges were particular groups students participated in "Boarder" or "Cookout" parties in which they dressed in accordance to the societal perception or stereotype of Hispanics and African-Americans, and took part in various activities. Many were outraged as they believed this was an apparent display of deviant behavior, while the students who participated merely stated they were exercising their "right to free speech".

These students may have participated in such behavior because the felt or view it as socially acceptable possibly due to the current social climate or cultural tension (or simply because of "group think"!) as our perceptions of other cultures, are often shaped by the environment around us, including media, government policies and even the economy, causing a change or shift in the definition of deviance.