Participant observation
Introduction
The author gives discussions on the theory and methodical concerns that inform the analysis of interviews. Persons interviewed consider the economy of Dominican, reports from migrants themselves, the chances of working abroad, and the US border and enforcement and protection law. The author also explores the migrants’ decision-making process and concludes that migration is a forced choice. Even though these immigrants have not been forced with the decision to migrate, they are faced with challenges and the possibility of poverty, limited access to electricity, water, education, food, health care, and a living wage. The migrants are faced with the choice of poverty, or a journey that is in itself is life-threatening and could only slightly improve that level of poverty. This is barely freedom of choice, and migrants consider that they have no choice. And when they set to migrate, with this perspective in mind, they are confronted with limitations that ultimately limits and resists not only their freedom but also their movement.
Labor migration is a significant issue throughout the United States with high stakes in medical, political, and human factors to be considered. According to the UN Population Division Estimate, there are over 170 million immigrant workers in the world. The majority of the immigrant workers from the minority of the population in the countries that they work in. According to the author, the primary driver of migration pattern is the inequality in the global market. The book gives a participant observation of what the immigrants go through as they try to make their lives better. An example is a minimum wage in the Dominican Republic is $3.5 dollars a day, while in the United States, this is a minimum wage per hour. Meaning that an individual would earn ten times their wage if they were doing the same job in the United States compared to when doing it in the Dominican Republic.
According to the author, the types of undocumented migration are in four categories. One is using a wooden boat called the traditional yola while using the local captains. The second type, which is the preferred form for migrants are the Viajes de familia (family trips). The third type, which is the most expensive and least common, involves travel of a few numbers of persons on speedboats, pleasure craft, tourist boats and sailboats, and lastly, through organized smuggling. His argument is that smugglers and ordinary people should not be prosecuted on equal terms. The book also explores the dangers involved in migration, which ranges from stealing of migrants money by trip organizers, overcrowding of boats, inexperienced captains, bad weather, attacks by a shark, and violence (p. 24).
People understand migration as a way to better their life, which may, at times, be fictitious. There are feelings that persons who have migrated or with relatives abroad experience a better life. This is fueled by stories and media depiction of life experience in the United States. This results in constant attempts to migrate. On the other side, there also exists stories of drowning, underemployment, isolation, persecution, and deaths in a deliberate campaign to deter attempts of migration. Dominican immigrants tend to consider themselves as persons who are responsible. They see themselves as family members who are doing their best to provide for their relatives and themselves. In a few instances, these individuals are involved in years of planning, while in other cases, the immigrants take advantage of an opportunity that has presented itself. News that is deliberately focused on reforming immigration can either halt or propel migration depending on how people will interpret them.
The treatment of persons fleeing poverty is in a similar manner to those engaged in smuggling and organized crime. The resources that are currently in use to get, and prosecute immigrants are ineffective as the offenders rarely end up in a court of law. The media needs to highlight these experiences of human immigration and discredit the few cases that end up being prosecuted. This will, to a large, extend to change the policy directive that currently exploits voter and favor the political career of politicians.
References
Graziano, F. (2013). Undocumented Dominican Migration. University of Texas Press.