1.) In the early parts of the reading, I learned lots of my people’s history (the Filipino people) more than I did in other American history books, and through these readings, it gave me a sense of pride knowing that. But at the same time, I am disappointed that in order for so many of these “immigrants” to come that they had no choice and were brought here by the countries that conquered them like American, Spain, and England although this was the reality all those years ago.
2.) These stories differ from the narratives we hear about immigration since these stories are forced and the people had no choice but to go along with it, their freedom was significantly reduced to nothing at all. Compared to today’s narrative about immigration where people still are forced to go or migrate due to the chaotic nature in their country like a civil war or dictator being topped. But for the most part, today’s immigration is a fairly normal process albeit sometimes it gets messy just like here in the U.S. From my personal experience, immigration was smooth due to my mom having migrated to the U.S years earlier and went through the citizenship process. Next, my father came along and since both were citizens, I ended up being eligible after having been in the U.S for 3 or 4 years.
