Tag Archives: racism

Look Good, and Get a Job?

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by Kyungyeon Chung

One thing I have personally noticed recently while attempting to write curriculum vitae both in English and Japanese is the requirement of attaching a photo on Japanese CV. It was actually a refreshing shock for me that photos – like the type you would attach for passport application – were not a requirement at all when writing a CV in English. I think this may have originated from differences in cultural practice whereby in Japan, more emphasis is put on how ‘appropriate’ and ‘decent’ you should appear. This idea that appearance is quite a big matter in such formal processes as recruitment procedure, however, can result in much more pervasive outcome than simply putting a little more effort in ironing your suits. In South Korea, the ultra-competitive job market has encouraged so many young college graduates, females in particular, to go under knife of cosmetic surgeons.

How has the competitive job race related to the increasing popularity of, and almost-blindsided trend following cosmetic surgery? With much vulnerable and unpredictable economy conditions, it has been more and more widely believed that good looks give you an edge in securing jobs or marriage. According to an article in one mainstream English-language newspaper in Korea, over a quarter of college students are said to consider cosmetic surgery for this reason, according to a recent survey by an online career portal site (Kwaak, 2013). In one survey of over 600 job-seekers, conducted by one clinic reported that around half of the job seekers are getting surgery exclusively to get a job, including non-operational procedures such as Botox or filler injection (The Chosun Ilbo, 2009).

Unfortunately for recent graduates, it is increasingly becoming a very common conception that such procedures are now being perceived as “investment” before entering a competitive race to market yourself better, for your own sake. Amongst the tide of young women receiving the procedure, those unable to afford, those with physical disabilities or with a darker skin are excluded further (Kwaak, 2013). Many of cosmetic surgeries’ ultimate aim is to give the patients certain types of features that are distinctively considered ‘beautiful’ by the set ideal of beauty as perceived in South Korean society today. The definition of ‘beauty’ here is closer to a Caucasian face. One Korean cosmetic surgeon, in a comment on what has been the most demanded facial ‘type’ by patients, said that “(t)hey are seeking to have westernized face, high profile nose, slender nice cheekbone, and mandible bone” (Lah, 2011).

In the chapter “A Colorstruck World” in Shades of Differences, Verna M. Kieth argues that complexion operates as a form of social capital that can be converted to human capital assets (p. 29). Just as light-colored skin is more preferred than darker skin in many aspects in the American society, in case of South Korea, the most-frequent judging standard by which preferences are given is the Westernized standard of beauty. Having phenotypes and skin tone that fit this standard, even by going under knife, are ‘rewarded’ with more stable job opportunities. Whether this hypothesis is true or not will be very difficult to attest – yet it will act like a self-fulfilling prophecy, an ‘assumed truth’ as long as people believe in it.

References

Kieth, V. M. (2009). A Colorstruck World. In E. N. Glenn (Ed.), Shades of Difference (pp. 25–39). California: Stanford University Press.

Kwaak, J. S. (2013, June 5). Making a case for cosmetic surgery. Korea Real Time. Retrieved from http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2013/06/05/making-a-case-for-cosmetic-surgery/

Lah, K. (2011, May 24). Plastic surgery boom as Asians seek ‘western’ look. CNN. Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/19/korea.beauty/

The Chosun Ilbo. (2009, November 30). More Koreans pin job hopes on plastic surgery. The Chosun Ilbo. Retrived from http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2009/11/30/2009113000646.html

Skin Tone and Achievement in Education

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by Sten Alvarsson

There is a clear relationship between skin tone and levels of achievement in education. Lighter skin tones achieve higher levels of education and employment on both a personal and family basis (Keith, 2009). Advantages and disadvantages of skin tone relative to a particular group or individual within a society are based on perceived ideas of beauty and status and their associated connotations. The advantages of having lighter skin can be passed down through family networks, as children receive the privileges of the structure they are born into.

Educational advantages of a lighter skin tone relative to others in their environment can be present from an early stage. Teachers can judge students with greater attractiveness to also have greater levels of intelligence (Keith, 2009). Since skin tone often plays an important role in perceived attractiveness, teachers may have higher expectations, give out more encouragement and give higher marks, amongst other preferential treatment, to lighter skinned students resulting in superior academic performance.

Children are highly perceptive to these socialised messages regarding skin tones. When darker skin tones are devalued the affect can be equally as damaging as the extolment of lighter skin tones are advantageous (Elmore, 2009). Adolescents in particular have a heightened sense of self-consciousness in relation to their physical appearance and the socialised messages they receive in the classroom can have a great impact on their academic performance and opportunities for socio-economic mobility later in life.

Research shows that lighter skin tones are often linked to higher socio-economic status to the extent that, “Complexion operates as a form of social capital that can be converted to human capital assets” (Keith, 2009, p. 29). This is supported in research by Joni Hersch which shows that, “On average, being one shade lighter has about the same effect as having an additional year of education” in relation to employment earnings (as cited in Nair, 2010, p. 25). In fact, Keith (2009) highlights a direct relationship between lighter skin tones and increased levels of education. Such research has been questioned by academics like Gullickson (2004) who state that, “Colorism itself might still remain, but structural changes in larger race relations have reduced the advantage it previously gave to lighter skinned individuals” (p. 22). However, Keith (2009) argues that both media images and academic research do not show a decrease in the importance of skin complexion as a marker for achievement.

As has been demonstrated, skin tone is an important marker for achievement in education. Skin tone based social messages, behavioral norms and patterns of thought within the classroom are a powerful force in children’s development. Subsequently, skin tones also play a prominent role in later outcomes in areas such as mate selection, economic opportunities, occupational status and health conditions (Keith, 2009). Therefore, there needs to be a focus on education at a young age working towards combatting skin tone bias in order to lessen its prevalence with each new generation. Ultimately, we are all embodiments of living experiences and an end to skin tone bias would be an important step forward toward an existence without discrimination.

References

Elmore, T. G. (2009). Colorism in the classroom: An exploration of adolescents’ skin tone, skin tone preferences, perceptions of skin tone stigma and identity. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from UMI Dissertation Publishing. (3395695)

Gullickson, A. (2004). The significance of color declines: A re-analysis of skin tone differentials in post civil rights America. Retrieved from http://www.demog.berkeley.edu/~aarong/PAPERS/gullick_asa2003_skintone.pdf

Keith, V. M. (2009). A colorstruck world: Skin tone, achievement, and self-esteem among African American women. In E. N. Glenn (Ed.), Shades of Difference: Why Skin Color Matters (pp. 25-39). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Nair, M. (2010). Social awareness in selected films. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Aveiro, Portugal.

Myth of Beauty: Facial Features and Skin

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by Sheena Sasaki

In her book Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty, Nancy Etcoff (1999) wrote that in many parts of the world, big eyes, high cheekbones, small chins, and full lips are features of beautiful woman, and each of these features combined represented youngness. I believe this is partly true. Cosmetics invented today helps women to have these facial characteristics to raise their self-esteems that they are beautiful. However, the trend of beautiful facial characteristics changes from place to place and time to time. For example, in old time Japan, ‘otafuku-gao’ was considered to be women’s beautiful face which consisted of the followings: round face, thin eyes, low nose, wide forehead, small lips, and very plump cheeks. Nonetheless, less people consider the face with such features to be beautiful in Japan today. There always exists certain trend of beautiful face.

Then, what about skin colors?

Whenever I step into a drugstore in Japan, my eyes always catch the word ‘美白 (bi-haku),’ which directly means ‘beautiful white,’ in cosmetic section for skin.  However, I do not find any word which represents ‘beautiful black.’ This means to me that the concept of beauty, at least in Japan, is naturally tied to whiteness of the skin. Referring back to old literature of Japan such as The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu from the 11th century, women with white skin are considered to be beautiful. Moreover, there exists a proverb in Japan which says, “White skin hides seven flaws.” Thus, beauty of white skin has been practiced for long period of time. This is not only limited to Japan. The world’s famous beautiful fairytale princess Snow White has skin which is as white as snow. Nancy Etcoff (1999) also writes that the beauty of white skin is commonly believed throughout the world and overcomes the beauty of facial features. This brings me to another question. Why is white skin considered to be beauty in the first place?

If it was the period when most of both men and women from the lower and middle class worked outside under the sun, white skin represented wealth.  Hence, it is not hard to predict that men were more attracted to white-skinned women who could spend their money and time on their physical appearance.  Yet, this prediction does not fully fall into the society today where increasing number of people work inside of the office buildings. Many people do not clearly know why they prefer to have whiter skin, or why white skin is beautiful. In this case, I believe “I don’t really know” is the best answer as people say. In this technologized society, media controls one’s sense of beauty and values. As a result, the cycle is created. Women follow similar conception of beauty because someone on the media said it is beautiful, more people follow after because everyone talks of the same beauty, and the media reflects upon and introduces the beauty concept believed by the audiences. The word ‘美白 (bi-haku),’ became too common in Japan to extent that almost no one bother to question the beauty of whiteness.

Reference

Etcoff, N. (1999), Survival of the prettiest: The science of beauty. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Names and things

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by Janic Kühner

I grew up in a surrounding in which I was given much time that I could spend according to what came to my mind. Educators of mine, as part of this environment, exerted few pressure to make me learn since they mostly regarded my output as good enough. Different activities were interesting to me at different points. I started some, stopped others after having lost any drive to engage in them or picked up them up again when my interest came back. Today, most of these actives as such would not earn me an instant yaki-soba. However, I believe that there can be meaning and maybe also value in everything we do, even if it is hard to measure with the rulers we used to use in mathematics class.

People with physical appearances that some might easily point back to an origin from foreign countries were as present in my life as there where those people others would or could not tell apart. Reflecting, grouping people based on an idea of valid relations between physical appearances and who these people actually are, was not a trait that would become significant to govern how I behave. Today, so it is, I believe to not only know that establishing such relationships is in most cases imprecise and too generalising but also that I feel it.

Reading scholarly texts about discrimination that focus on skin colour or race pose me questions that stay unanswered. Why IS this person black if we are talking about the person’s skin colour? If we’d copy to a piece of paper various skin “colours”, would any of these “colours” actually ensemble black, yellow, white? Why do authors talk about, let’s say, “Veracruzanos”, “Asian Americans” or “Germans” as if they were single entities? What is a “lower class” and why does everybody wants to get out of it? Why is it valid to measure lives or the quality of live in occupation, income and “education”?

I wonder, are these questions unworthy of consideration?

Post scriptum:

Making sense of this post as a whole might not be easy. However, I was preparing it with consideration and I would enjoy to hear about any advised reaction.

Colorism in Latin America; Not about Race

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by Oscar Manzano

If you are reading this blog about colorism and you already have prior knowledge on the subject, chances are that you don’t agree with the title of this piece. This may be because Latin America’s preference, or more specifically the preference in México and Brazil, to talk more freely about a person’s skin color as opposed to race may seem like a contradiction to you. Why? I suppose it is because many believe that skin color or other characteristics that we attach to race, in order to be able to identify and categorize people, are indicators of race. It is this idea that I believe is incorrect, which leads me to believe that when Mexicans or Brazilians talk about skin color they are not talking about race as an American might see it. In this context I believe that color talk in México and Brazil is not the equivalent of race talk in America.

My reasoning for questioning color talks being the same as race talks draws upon human history and humans themselves. Humans have always had a history of migration and settlement. This alone prevents us from applying skin color or other characteristics to a certain racial group. So, unless we believe that Whites with certain characteristics grew out of the ground in Europe, and Blacks in Africa and Browns in Latin America and they all remained stationary, then can one possibly make a correlation with race and physical characteristics. However this is not so, and when we hear Mexicans and Brazilians talking about skin colors so nonchalantly, we believe that they what they are really talking about is race.

So if Mexicans and Brazilians are not talking about race, then what are they talking about when they refer to skin color? I believe that when Mexicans and Brazilians refer to skin color, they are acknowledging the great diversity and mixture of physical characteristics that have been as a result of human migration. Not physical characteristics of race but characteristics of human diversity. In saying that color talk is not a talk about race does not mean that colorism is preferred or more desirable over race talks, or that it is immune to social and moral problems that race deals with. On the contrary, the problems that color ideology faces are similar to those that race ideology faces. But the problems are not similar because racism and colorism are the same thing; rather, the problems stem from the fact that we have been socially trained to see physical differences and categorize them under a racial stereotype, confusing color and race.

A second reason as to why racism and colorism share similar social problems is because both are the result of global inequality. This brings up the issues of colonization. Why were White European countries the ones able to colonize? It would be difficult to say that Europeans were able to be the colonizers simply because their skin was white or their race was a certain specific one. It goes beyond that, and the ‘why was Europe the colonizer’ question involves a multi-sided understanding to find the answer to. Possible reasons include the amount of wealth, resources or strength those countries had and as a result, once colonization was achieved, the aggressors implanted various forms of discrimination based on race and color. In this sense it is possible that racism or colorism didn’t create inequality but inequality created racism and colorism.

Mestizaje and the social gap

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by Yuan Mingyang

Villarreal (2010) conducted research on social stratification by skin color in Mexico, and found that people with lighter skin usually have higher education than people with darker skin. Villarreal also found that people with lighter skin usually have occupations with better social status and higher salary. Navarrette (2012) also noticed that the jobs with higher salary are usually for people with lighter skin. The author suggested that people can see people with lighter skin “on television, in politics, and in academia”, while people with darker skin are often found “on construction sites, in police forces and in restaurant kitchens” (para. 11).

What’s more, the ideology of mestizaje in Veracruz, which makes people try their best to “clean the race” and lighten their skin color (Sue, 2009), may further enlarge the gap of education, financial power and social status between people with lighter skin and people with darker skin in Mexico. According to Sue, many people in Veracruz prefer lighter skin and European body features, even for those who are dating people with darker skin. Therefore, a large proportion of people in Veracruz would choose people with lighter skin as their partners. The author also mentioned that it is not acceptable for everyone to marry someone with lighter skin. The author claimed that many partners of men with darker skin who are rich or have high social status usually have lighter skin.

Since Villarreal (2010) argued that there is a stratification of skin color in Mexico, it is a reasonable conclusion that the number of poor people with darker skin is larger than the number of wealthy people with darker skin. Therefore, the descendants of this relatively small proportion will leave other people with darker skin behind, who are expected to be poor, and become people with lighter skin. As a result, the financial gap between those who have lighter skin and those who have darker skin will be enlarged. The situation in Mexico is not like that in the US where White people tend to get better jobs.

In Mexico, two trends of force enlarge the gap. People with lighter skin can get better jobs in Mexico, which means that they are wealthier. In the same time, the skin color of wealthy people is getting lighter and lighter. The ideology of mestizaje gives no chance to most of people with dark skin color in Veracruz, who are treated unequally while still believing there is only one Mexican, since there is race blindness in Mexico, according to Sue.

References

Navarrette, R. (2012, November 20th). In Mexico, racism hides in plain view. CNN. Retrievd from http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/20/opinion/navarrette-mexico-racism/

Sue, C. A. (2009). The dynamics of color: Mestizaje, racism, and blackness in Veracruz, Mexico. In E. N. Glenn (Ed.), Shades of difference: Why skin color matters (pp. 114-128). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Villarreal, A. (2010). Stratification by skin color in contemporary Mexico. American Sociology Review, 75(5), 652-678.

Colorism and affirmative action in Brazil

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by Seimu Yamashita

Reading Edward Telles’ work on the social consequences of skin color in Brazil made me think whether affirmative action is truly justified. The author mentions about difficulties in having affirmative action, especially where to draw the line between potential beneficiaries and dominant group members. Without clear rules for making racial distinction, some people who have not suffered from racial discrimination might benefit from affirmative action. This is more likely to happen in Brazil than the United States since the criteria of race is self-identified in Brazil rather than determined by appearance. In addition, it is very difficult to decide when to end affirmative action. Besides such problems that make affirmative action ineffective, I believe that affirmative action promotes racial discrimination. There are three reasons why I consider it would bring negative effects.

Firstly, affirmative action policy makes racial distinction even more obvious. By officially indicating who are black and who are white, people would tend to take the opportunity to distinguish one race from the other compared to before. People might even consider it right to treat other races differently because the government does so in the name of affirmative action.

Another reason is that affirmative action would make potential beneficiaries looked down upon. For example when someone sees a “negro” (‘black’ in Portuguese) in the university, people will think that they only got into the university through the policy, rather than hard work. This would lead to people looking down on other who are given opportunities. If there is an easier way to get into university for a certain race of people, some people may think those people of a certain race do not try to study hard to normally get into university as everyone else. As another case in Japan against burakumin, some people claim that buraku people should not complain about discrimination against them as long as they benefit from affirmative action. This way of thinking would be totally nonsense and it’s the totally opposite effect to the affirmative action is intended to make. Affirmative action has a possibility to produce new types of prejudice against beneficiaries.

Lastly, it cannot be sure when to finish affirmative action. Ideally, it would be the time when there is no discrimination against a certain race that benefits from affirmative action. However, it is hard to truly admit whether discrimination still exists or not. I personally think there is such time that everyone would agree to finish it.

In conclusion, affirmative action that benefits a certain group of people would not make the effects as it intended. It would promote discrimination by considering that there is official distinction between them. It would even lower the status of the beneficiaries by providing them an advantage, for example, for promotion or enrolling the university because some people may consider all the people of the group effortlessly have achieved it. It would never be fair enough since it is impossible to decide how long affirmative action should last. In addition to the reading that claimed difficulties in making fair affirmative action, I have mentioned three reasons above to claim that it should not exist to make an equal understanding of the race. I believe that a fair understanding against all the races cannot be achieved by affirmative action but by keeping being conscious that all the races are equal.

Race, ethnicity, and caste: Classifying and dividing

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by Naresh Kumar

It is interesting to learn more about race and ethnicity. I never knew before that the issues regarding race and ethnicity are so complex. People from all around the world are affected and for some it is painful to bear the fact that they have been classified, which they are not even aware of. It seems that your career, your position in the society, and other things in life are decided by your color rather than your ability. In the society where the classification of races is huge, it is hard for a person to proceed his or her career in the desired field.

In South Asia, society is divided into castes rather than ethnicity (Mines & Lamb, 2002). There are many tribes and castes in India, Nepal, and in other South Asian countries. However, it seems that these days, people are more influenced by western ideas. I always used to wonder within myself to hear about blacks and whites and used to think, why we judge people by their skin tones. I have never experienced class stratification according to the skin tone but for castes there is so much in South Asian countries. As we educate ourselves, it is not hard to say that there is inequality between people all around the world and that it is done by us. One thing that amazes me a lot is that why do we need to differentiate each other. I guess it is all for more money and more power.

I think that the quota system and affirmative actions as in name of racial preferences can bring no more than gaps and more highlights on race and ethnicity. The history that we are trying to learn can give us no more than differences between us. I am not against knowing the history but I wonder why there are so many inequalities in the past. The sad thing is that most of all take so many things in life for granted. I wonder how the media is playing its role to bring the truth and facts in front of the society. Rather than encouraging, it is doing the opposite by promoting differences among us (Everett, 2008). I guess the motive is profit. Media plays a vital role in spreading information around the world but rather than giving people the facts, it is manipulating them.

I guess the problem is within ourselves, rather than embracing who we are and being proud of that, we are always looking to change our identity, appearance, and everything about us. We need to appreciate and accept ourselves as we are, rather than trying to be someone else.

References

Everett, A. (2008). Learning race and ethnicity: Youth and digital media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Mines, D. P., & Lamb, S. (2002). Everyday life in South Asia. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Colourism in the Philippines: Behind the Veil of Whiteness

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by Adelle Tamblyn

A few days ago, my mother, who is of Filipino and Spanish origin, told me some events that happened to her not too long ago. At church, my mother had met another Filipino woman, but much older. This woman was half Filipino and half Spanish. This woman, on hearing that my mother was also Filipino, started asking about my mother’s background: “Are you 100% Filipino?”. “No”, my mother replied “I’m half Spanish”. The older woman apparently looked at her in a disbelieving manner: “Then why are you so dark?”, she questioned.

Why are you so dark?  What a silly, churlish question, I thought. It seems so odd, I thought. You don’t just ask someone that. But the more I thought about this woman’s question, the more I thought about why she asked it, and what significance does skin colour hold amongst Filipinos?

I began to rack my brains for signs of fair-skin preference amongst the Filipinos I know, whether it was something they said or did. There is one saying in Tagalog: “She could be beautiful; it’s just a pity she’s dark”. I have heard harsher comments on other Filipinos: “Look at her skin colour, and her NOSE! She looks like a maid”. I know one woman who uses a concoction of bleaching creams and soaps religiously. Are these all signs of colourism amongst Filipinos?

Colourism is evident not only in India, but also in the Philippines, Korea, Japan, Nigeria, Pakistan and in South American countries, to name a few. In the Philippines, Television programs are saturated with light-skinned people, a great majority of whom are half-Filipino, typically of the highly-sought-after mestizo/mestiza variety (“mestizo/mestiza” meaning a half-Filipino with fair skin and Spanish-like features). Furthermore, there are shopping malls filled to the brim with skin whitening products in the Philippines. However, this does not necessarily reflect the look of the average Filipino. Nonetheless, the saturation of white-skin ideology in a society whose natural skin colour is typically brown are marginalising Filipinos into thinking that there is only one type of beauty: white.

In the Philippines, skin colour and nose shape are of high importance. In a country where the majority of the people are naturally dark, why are people equating white to beauty?

Whilst some would argue that having mestizas in the media and selling and producing skin whitening products is simply a reflection of what Filipinos want, others would argue that the root of this issue goes much deeper than that. In an interview by Al Jazeera’s ‘The Stream’, Yaba Blay, the Co-Director of Africana Studies at Drexel University, suggests that the desire for whiteness in many countries is due to colonialism. The colonialism argument is not a new one: the idea is that during the time of colonialisation, manual labourers would get dark as they worked all day in the sun; the wealthy and powerful lived a life of leisure indoors, therefore staying fair. The Philippines is no stranger to colonialism: the country has been colonised by the Spanish, the Americans and the Japanese. In line with Blay’s argument, fair skin ideology is linked to power, civility, social mobility and beauty.

The white ideology from colonial times has been passed on from one generation to the next: today, it is perpetuated in the selling of skin-whitening products and constant media exposure to the equation that white equals beautiful. But does it really matter so much that countries like the Philippines see white, fair skin as beautiful? On the surface, fair as beautiful may not seem like such a big issue; however, in a country where the skin colour of its people are naturally of a darker skin tone, sending messages of “white is better” only seeks to suppress its people, simply for being dark.

Link to video referred to: http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201308212347-0022992

Immigrants Should be Commended for their Bravery

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Anonymous student post

The attitude towards immigrants from nationals that I’ve most often seen is one of “you’re welcome.” As if the immigrant owes something to the national. The national presumably allows the immigrant to stay in their country. The immigrant is treated as a guest, and has higher standards in some regards held to him/her. An immigrant has legal barriers to overcome in almost every country. “You want to work here and help our society like a good citizen? Well we’re not going to make it easy for you, jobs are for citizens—never mind the merits of the job candidates!”

Immigrants have to be outcasts for their entire new life. Only their children, grandchildren or even beyond will get a more equal treatment in the eyes of their new society. Immigrants deal with discrimination on paper from the laws limiting immigrants rights, and tangibly in their day-to-day lives. Barnard mentions the attack on Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorean immigrant, who was stabbed to death in a hate crime. Barnard mentions, “Many [immigrants] fear the police because they are in the country illegally; some give false names…”. Dealing with prejudice effects the entire immigrant family negatively. The typical immigrant has many more issues to deal with than someone who is nationalized. They need to learn a new set of laws, adapt to new culture, and possibly learn a new language.

Immigrants should be commended for their bravery in leaving their home country to find a life in a new one. They deserve at the very least to be allowed to work in the new country. Why would we disallow someone from being a service to society? The idea that jobs are “taken” by immigrants is a negative aspect of immigration is comically ludicrous. Jobs are not a finite resource, and for each job that is taken there is less work to be done. Society will always naturally find a place for improvement, and new jobs wont ever stop being created. It is harmful to society as a whole to stipulate who can get a job on a basis outside of merit.

In the studies of bilingualism, Portes shows: “…fluent bilinguals [outperform] limited bilinguals and English-only students in standardized tests and grade point averages, even after statistically controlling for parental status and other variables.” Immigrants who are fluently bilingual have cognitive advantages that could further merit their place in the workforce. According to Rumbaut, 97% of the world’s population are “stayers” only about 3% are immigrants. The immigrant minority has a clear disadvantage and we should not have them thank us and beg us to stay. Rather, the immigrants should be commended for their ambition taking heed in a new country. When immigrants come to a country, they are suffering for the benefit of society. The nationals should be thanking the immigrants.