Secondary Sources Analysis

Annotated Bibliography

Bier, David. “Why The Legal Immigration System Is Broken: A Short List of Problems.” CATO Institute, 10 July 2018, https://www.cato.org/blog/why-legal-immigration-system-broken-short-list-problems. Accessed 23 February 2019

In “Why The Legal Immigration System Is Broken: A Short List of Problems,” David Bier points out several flaws with the current immigration system in the United States. He begins by listing 26 problem and then explains each one of the problems separately. I feel this will be useful for my paper because Diego mentioned how broken the system in.

Bishop, Sarah C. “Model Citizens: The Making of an American Throughout the Naturalization Process.” Communication, Culture & Critique. Sep2017, Vol. 10 Issue 3, p479-498. Kennesaw State Library System, doi:10.1111/cccr.12167. Accessed 23 February 2019

            Sarah Bishop’s article called, “Model Citizens: The Making of an American Throughout the Naturalization Process,” goes into great detail about the citizenship process. She has written with critical tones of the whole process. She claims the process “trains” the applicant to become the “model citizen” She points out some flaws with the process a well which also supports another source I have. I don’t particularly care for the tone she uses in this article but the information and some of the parallels are going to be major points in my final product.

Evanson, Nina. “Colombian Culture.” Cultural Atlas, https://culturalatlas.sbs.com.au/colombian-culture/references-04b30d6c-b391-4785-a93e-30cae59d1e85#references-04b30d6c-b391-4785-a93e-30cae59d1e85. Accessed 23 February 2019.

            “Colombian Culture” by Nina Evanson is a section of the website Cultural Atlas, that discusses all aspects of Colombian Culture. The main part I will be focusing on is the family section. Evanson begins the section showing the importance of family in Colombian Culture. She then breaks the family aspect down into three deeper sections: household structure, gender roles, and marriage and dating. I cited the entire Colombian section because I feel like I might be able to use more than just the family section. It contains a lot of information about Colombian culture. If I end up using only the family section, I will come back ad change my citation to reflect that.

Watson, Cynthia A. "Civil-Military Relations in Colombia: A Workable Relationship Or a Case for Fundamental Reform?" Third World Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 3, 2000, pp. 529-548. ProQuest, https://login.proxy.kennesaw.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.proxy.kennesaw.edu/docview/219816593?accountid=11824, doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy.kennesaw.edu/10.1080/713701039. Accessed 23 February 2019.

In “Civil-Military Relations in Colombia: A Workable Relationship Or a Case for Fundamental Reform?" by Cythia Watson, she describes the turmoil and divisiveness in Colombia’s government. She starts out by showing how the geography of Colombia is what started out the divide. She then goes back to the late 40’s and progresses up until this article was written about the causes of violence and political strife in Colombia. This will be useful for getting a feel of why Diego’s family wanted to come here. It will help me to understand their emotions during that time of transition as well as his dad’s motivation to work any job for any amount of  money when they first arrived.

Source Analysis and Conversation

Name and Author	“Why The Legal Immigration System Is Broken: A Short List of Problems” By: David Bier	“Model Citizens: The Making of an American Throughout the Naturalization Process.” By: Sarah C Bishop	“Colombian Culture” By Nina Evanson	"Civil-Military Relations in Colombia: A Workable Relationship Or a Case for Fundamental Reform?" By: Cynthia A. Watson
Thesis/Main Topic	The immigration system is broken.	The U.S. molds immigrants into “model citizens” though the citizenship process.	Aspects of Colombian culture	Civil-Military Relations
Point #1 and evidence	Too restrictive. We rank in the bottom third of top 50 countries in GDP on immigration rate	Tasks required for naturalization don’t have much to do with legality. Immigrants claim their allegiance to the U.S. in their oath	Family is the most important aspect of Colombian culture. Colombians are expected to put family interests above their own.	Colombia is more of a geographical entity than is it a country. The government has not provided basic services to areas outside the urban and coastal areas of Colombia
Point #2	Static Immigration Quotas. Quotas have not been updated since 1990 while the population has grown 30% and the economy has doubled	Citizenship requirements have helped keep out unwanted immigrants. Quota systems based on nationalities.		This neglect has opened the door for more violence and division. Geurillas, drug traffickers, and paramilitary have all taken refuge in the northwest where the government is absent.
Point #3	Demographic quotas. No country can receive more than 7% of a category’s green cards	Immigrants have to meet certain criteria that naturally born citizens don’t. Immigrants must speak English, citizens are not required to.
Point #4	Immigrants wait in line for decades. Mexican immigrants who just got their green cards have been waiting for 2 decades.	Good Moral Character is ambiguous. Nothing says what offenses prohibit you from having good moral character. Just a list of things that may or may not work  against them.

            This was a difficult assignment for me as most of my sources are unrelated. The only to I could find some parallels between were the ones by Bier and Bishop. They both mention the demographic quotas of the immigration process. I feel like if they were having a conversation, they would be very much in agreement that the quotas are bad for the system in general. Bier would base his argument that it bogs the system down whereas I feel Bishops argument is that it isn’t fair to take in immigrants based off demographics. It was interesting to see different aspects of the same point of view.