Notebook #4
ZINE Title: Immigration: The Promise of a Better Life Meets the Harsh Reality of an Immigrant
ZINE Summary: Thus far, my notebook assignments for this project have been at least somewhat anecdotal in nature, and have focused primarily on my family’s experiences and perspectives on immigration, assimilation, and cultural identity. For my final ZINE, I want to take these anecdotal and theoretical discussions and make them more universal. The project will discuss the fluctuations in immigration to the US over the last century and their likely causes. It will work to illustrate briefly the process by which an immigrant gains residency and citizenship, and the struggles that new immigrants face once they’ve arrived in the country, especially those originally from non-English speaking countries. The secondary challenges of assimilating into US culture will also be addressed, along with the inherent difficulty most immigrants have succeeding while still holding onto their own cultural identity and history.
I really want to ram home in this ZINE that the “American Dream” that the US has been feeding the world for decades doesn’t live up to the lived reality of most of the people who actually come here, and shine a light on their plethora of unique challenges.
