PBS "New Americans" blog

         In this particular reading, the “New Americans” are Arab people. The main person it is focused on is a determined woman named Naima. It also follows her brothers and husband Hatem. They are all Palestinian and come from a town in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Naima is the focus of the article and she wants to come to America to break away from her conservative ways and struggles. She has to deal with taking three taxis and crossing a checkpoint everyday just to get to her university. Her experiences are horrible, ranging from bombing to poverty and she just seeks to get away from it all. Naima wants to expand her horizons and experience the wonder of America for new opportunities. Naima mostly fears that she won’t be able to get what she wants out of life in her current area and has to overcome challenges such as having enough money and going to school. Once Naima did get to America to be with her husband, she truly understood what it was. Originally, she perceived America as being some holy land that will instantly get you a job and make you happy. When she got here, she realized that her English is weak and it is very hard finding a job. She also realized that it is very boring here because everything is so unfamiliar and there’s no family for her. Even her mother leaves as a result of boredom. America is not an easy place to live and unfortunately, Naima learned it the hard way.
            I respect people like them very much. Naima pretty much dropped everything she had and went to America with barely any knowledge of it. People who migrate here deserve respect for coming to a place with so many unknowns. More importantly, it’s the people who do the migrating and become very successful that deserve the most respect. It’s one thing to come here to live, but it’s another to come here and become successful. A lot of people here don’t even become successful. All in all, I think highly of them and they have my respect. 

Five Faces of Oppression

According to Iris Marion Young who wrote the “Five Face of Oppression,” the five faces are exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence. These five faces of oppression have a very strong connotation of conquest and domination. Young tries to explain these five and how we face them in our everyday lives. Young does this by breaking each one down and pointing out their issues and injustices and identifies what it is to be oppressed and how. Exploitation is when something is put on display or seen a certain way, marginalization is how we are and what sets us apart, powerlessness means having no control, cultural imperialism is when a culture or country is dominated by another culture or country by law, and violence is just destruction and physicality.
            I particularly identify myself with exploitation. I have held this face of oppression almost all of my life. My secrets, desires, life, and needs have all been exploited throughout my life. I believe this oppression is something that everyone has experienced in their lifetime. It is very hard to go through life without something of yours being exploited. It can be as little as letting people know how much you make, to something very big like letting people know your sexual orientation. It makes me feel very powerless to stop it because usually you can’t control what other people exploit. That can later lead to violence which can lead to marginalization and then it’s just this big cycle of constantly changing faces of oppression. It is hard to overcome an oppression such as exploitation because once something is exploited, it’s there for the whole world to see. I believe that in order to conquer it, you have to deal with the hardships that come with it. Nothing is easy in this world and everything comes with a price. Therefore, to conquer this oppression, be vigilant, wary, and smart.