Immigration and Diversity: Perspectives and Challenges

Immigration, diversity, and discrimination are discussed by individuals with different backgrounds and perspectives in a Middle Ground episode.

### Bridging Divides: A Conversation Between Trump Supporters and Immigrants
* 🛡 Immigrants express fears of discrimination and threats, with one Muslim woman sharing her experience of **receiving daily death threats**.
* 👥 Participants discuss the importance of **mutual understanding and fighting for each other's rights**, with one immigrant emphasizing the need for **unity in America**.
* 🗳 A Trump supporter explains their perspective, highlighting concerns about **illegal immigration** and the impact on **resources**.
* 💼 The conversation touches on assimilation, with one participant advocating for **cultural compatibility as a key aspect of immigration**.
* 🏛 Policy discussions include differing views on the travel ban and refugee policies, with participants emphasizing the **interconnectedness of various issues**.
* 🕊 The conversation shifts to the broader topic of discrimination and humanization, with participants recognizing the **importance of seeing each other as individuals**.
* 🌍 Participants express appreciation for America's diversity, with one Mexican immigrant praising the country's **mix of religions, colors, and people**.
* 🤝 The dialogue concludes with a message of **unity and understanding**, with participants emphasizing the need to **move past biases and stereotypes**.

Those are things we don't want in the United States, and one other thing. There's people with predatory behavior in every– Excuse me, but you get mad at me. But if I could say this, it's not baked into their religion. Trump supporters, can I have you over there. My immigrants, can I have you in the other light? Sometimes I feel anxious about how the other side views me. Uh, so it's not necessarily about the idea of immigrants, but I'm Muslim, and there can be a lot of directed aggression from Trump supporters that I think I felt, and other people in my Muslim community have felt, and that's why I'm here sitting with you guys. I own a clothing line, Magga preneur. This is my clothing line. I'm a political strategist and a political activist, and when I leave my house, I am in fear for my life because every day I get death threats. So I think we both should be able to freely express ourselves. I love everybody, I'm here for everybody.

I'll fight for your right for freedom, but I expect for you to fight for mine too because that's why we're in America. My name is Shastina, so I absolutely love immigration, but I believe that we need to secure our border, and it's the same thing of I wouldn't just let anyone in my car or in my house. Alright, disagreers, come on in. I used to get anxious about how I'm perceived, not just by some quote-unquote other side, because my identity is very apparent in standing in my truth. I think it allows other folks to stand in theirs and to invite people to also learn more about me, rather than be worried about how I'm perceived. I think my group gets represented unfairly in the media. [laughter] Well, I'm a Mexican, and I hesitated because when Trump said that things about Mexicans being criminals and all that, I didn't take it personally because I'm not that. So I was like, that does not represent me. Like, I'll take things, yeah, so that's why I hesitated.

But then I'm like, I am not the only one Mexican individual who's an immigrant. I'm part of all the immigrants, no matter what country. You're from. We can say the same thing for Trump supporters, right? I mean, now we have to. Maybe I wasn't called a racist, but you were called racist. Well, guess what? We're both Trump supporters. So now we have to band together. Could I, could I ask both of you a question, and I'd like an honest reaction to this. In my mind, it's languaging. I'm a writer, and I think if we made a distinction between jihadists and Muslims, that would solve a big problem. That's plausible, and I think a lot of that goes in. It's really the realm of how much people really are interested in understanding that kind of diversification and, uh, allowing the community that does know that really. I don't know, take the lead and initiative and show other people what that's about. I feel threatened by this presidency. When President Trump got elected as president, I was scared, even though I had.

Not a reason to because I'm legal here. Power becomes scary in hands of a monster. Power becomes scary in hands of ignorance, and I'm scared about My people and not only like I said the Mexicans all the good, hard-working immigrants. Yeah, I think the election night was when I felt alarmed. I've been a community organizer and an activist for 15 years now, right? That night It felt like a slap in the face To all of the work that we have always tried to do in terms of humanizing ourselves. My name is Kipasha. I think we realize as immigrants how lucky we are to be here, and that's why we want to create a society That's more welcoming for others to be here. >>You said it was a slap in the face, and I take offense to that because You're saying you work so hard. And yet we work so hard to to Elect a president of the United States that we think will enforce the laws. We'll enforce the United States Constitution, and it wasn't to be racist or it wasn't to

Boot you out of the country, and it was to enforce the First Amendment. It's actually to enforce your freedom of speech. I understand why you're scared. That as a white Trump supporter, I am scared of this presidency because I have lost my freedom of speech. I have lost my freedom of religion. I have lost my freedom to wear this shirt in public just because I have a different political view. Now I'm the enemy in my own country. I think that that's unfortunate about happened to you. But it's almost like you have some semblance of the reality that people of color live with for centuries here. And I've never seen that, and I've never the first time you felt that, right, right. But I'm just gonna let you know that my neighbors are black. I have Muslim neighbors. I have neighbors of all kinds. When we go to the grocery store, and I'm picking out yogurt, I'm picking out yogurt, this looks like someone just like you, but it doesn't mean that you experience the same thing.

I think even though we eat the same yogurt, but nobody in my County treats people like that. It's just not. I don't think you would be able to say that. I've lived in Orange County up until a few months ago. If I'm at a mall, or if I'm even at the beach, right? I get a lot of strange stares. I even feel like a lot of people after the election came up to me asking me about my positions, my religion, my identity. So what I'm trying to say is like I can actually relate to what you went through because that, to be honest, is a shred of similarity to what people of color, we came here, and then we were born, basically. Sure, I believe in immigration, but I am against illegal immigration. My whole thing is assimilation, right? So like making sure that the cultures match. If you know someone in the Middle East who's Gay, will be killed, right? That's a thing, and it's horrible if someone with that culture is somehow makes it through vetting and comes here.

And then sees a gay couple you know kissing, or whatever. They're gonna freak out, or they're gonna react very differently in a way that, you know, we're trying to move past or not trying to be held back by. So, I believe assimilation is probably one of the most important factors of why we need legal and not illegal immigrations. My thing is about money. An awful lot of people who came here legally don't want illegal people being able to come or get free college. It costs a hundred and eighteen billion dollars in welfare benefits, that's a huge. Why do I have to pay so that Walmart has cheap workers? My name is Ken Hunger. I don't have anything against immigrants. It's a political problem. It's not an immigrant problem. I was an illegal immigrant at one point in my life. I am not anymore, but ultimately we left a country of war, a country where extremism and terrorism was a reality, and this is something that was on a daily oppression towards women. If we don't have legal immigration.

And we'll have that here. We want you to come and be safe. But don't you want that for everyone else? It doesn't matter where you're coming from. I think it might be a misconstrued and/or a misconception to think that the illegal immigrants might bring up the crime rates. And when we're talking about what happens after immigrants or refugees or illegals or anything coming to the state and how can we help them from here? I think that is the real essential question. We have a humanitarian duty to help one another out regardless of if we're Afghan, if we're Israeli, if we're American. We're all humans ultimately. It's so fantastic. But what about our vets? What about our children that are starving? What about our foster homes that are full? What about them? We're not helping them. We're taking in all these refugees. If we can't fix our citizens, how can we fix others? It's just kind of like if I can't love myself, I can't love another person.

It should be easier to immigrate into America. It should be easier, the way time should be shorter, right? But I believe that it's so lengthy not because the process is so extreme. I've I mean personally, I think it's so lengthy because it's mismanaged. Yeah, I think that. Well, that too, but I think it's just like there's a way in a process. That should be put in place so it's not 15 years. Let's say that they fully cooperate, right? Let's say they have everything, they have all the documents, and they're ready, yeah, I think it should be a lot shorter. Do you think make it less bureaucratic, yeah, basically, okay? I mean I think I would agree with that. I just feel like when it comes to Trump, you support the individual, but then the bureaucracy, the Administration, all of that is so painstaking, just so inefficient and in all of this it doesn't really compute for me. So I think we've been in there a year, right?

Yeah, we have so many changes that we want to make so let's talk about a couple of policy things. What about the Muslim banner, the travel ban, the travel ban to me was more about Obama. But it was enacted by Trump. Don't, don't get me wrong. I agree with the travel ban, right, and I agree with refugees. But that's two separate things to me. So what I'm trying to say is that none of these policies that are happening are not to do with one another. They're all intertwined. When we say we support the travel ban, but we also support refugees. But we also want to like help them get vaccinations. And we also want to do that some islands want to well, don't forget. We're funding the same bombs that are causing the Yemenis to have to become route. There has to be a reason, right? So, so it's so, it's all, it's all connected. Right, so, so why are we bombing Yemen personally? I haven't looked into Yemen. I guess I'm missing your point.

Refugees you support. Yes, travel ban this one, ban you support. It's not me. It's not a mother. Yes, I support a travel ban. So we can assess who's coming in. I just think it's important to contextualize like you're saying nothing happens in a vacuum. Yeah, right, and I think that if we start to actually connect the dots like I'm encouraging us to do, then it'll become a lot more understandable. I mean I don't believe anyway. I would like to answer your question about why we're bombing Yemen. We're not bombing Yemen. We're bombing radical jihadists in Yemen who are killing people. That's why we're bombing parts of Yemen selectively to kill people who are doing terrible, terrible things, and there's a tremendous amount of rape happening in England. Taking these little girls, grooming them because they feel they have the right to do. We don't want that here. Those are things we don't want in the United States. And one other thing. There's people with predatory behavior in every, excuse me.

If I could say this, and you'll get mad at me. But if I could say this, it's not baked into their religion. There are a hundred and nine passages in the Quran where people are told to kill infidels. And in Christians and Jews, there's nothing like that in our Bible, or in the Bhagavad-gita, or in anything Buddha taught, or any other religion I'm aware of in the world until people renounce those values. Then they scare me. I don't think so. I haven't renounced any part of my religion in front of you, so I hope that you don't feel threatened by me. So I'm not sure what you mean by that. And I won't renounce any part of it slam the point that I'm trying to make is that you didn't really answer the question. No, he did. He said the reason why we're bombing him on Yemen is to save the people because I'm assuming that in Yemen. We've Managed to keep out people like that guys remember. This is a video of a trumpet immigrants. We're mixing too much the religion.

Well, I think the race, the Taliban. Yes, yes, that you shouldn't question somebody's religion. I am very religious, very religious, and I'm not putting anything about my religion in here. I'm here to talk about me as an immigrant. You guys are here to talk about Donald Trump's like supporting him, and yes, I've learned a lot. Like you guys are human, too. You have values. Who would have thought, you know, that we would have found common ground and we wouldn't like hit each other right here, you know, because after the media portraying you guys as bad or closest terrorist, whatever, right? I think the media is getting us all in a different light. Yeah, I think that we're portraying ourselves in a very different light, too. I mean, I feel very attacked just now for my religion when I did start to talk about myself as an immigrant. You don't say, you kept talking about the travel ban. It's a Muslim, but that has nothing to do with immigration. It's not a Muslim.

But what I'm trying to just say is that no one should have to explain Muslim Christian Jewish none of the above. What they are to you, but Muslims? Continuously have to defend. Not only their religion, but their humanity. What I love about this country is the Diversity. I just when I came here from Mexico, I just loved how there was different religions, different colors, different people. Like it's amazing. It's it's beautiful, and I don't I don't understand how empty of a human you have to be to discriminate someone just because of their looks. It's it's these pre-programmed thoughts in our head from just media as what I believe just blowing things out of proportion just. Consistently just the outlook on Minorities or the outlook on people in certain situations is just bad once you humanize someone when you're having a conversation. When I and I look past you know whatever these biases that people try to Enact on me right or that I see and I start looking at you as a person.

I start listening to what you're saying. You really realize that it's not that different. I mean, we just, we have different situations, we have different information. But we're all trying to do the best that we have. I think the real interesting aspect that I guess a lot of discrimination is really about is taking this general idea of phenomenon where you can associate, my case at least, like Muslims. Terrorists equal each other and take individuals and group them so easily with that sort of discrimination. And I think that's something that we have to work towards in terms of separating ourselves from doing that. Thank you, everybody. I appreciate you. All right. Hey guys, thanks for watching that episode of middle ground. My name is Taylor, my name is Dan. Please leave us a comment and let us know your thoughts on this topic. We'd love to hear some discussion going on in the comments. Keep it friendly, keep it cool. We love for you guys to get involved in any way possible, so please subscribe, watch more videos, leave comments. We live for that and see you later.

Can Trump Supporters And Immigrants See Eye To Eye? | Middle Ground

Provoke understanding & create human connection.


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Challenges Faced by Different Groups in the US

Immigrants and Trump supporters experience directed aggression, leading to fear for their safety.

There is a need for mutual respect and understanding between different groups in the US.

The media often misrepresents and unfairly portrays these various communities, leading to feelings of anxiety and threat.

The Impact of the 2016 Election on Immigrants

The 2016 election caused fear and alarm for many immigrants and their supporters, feeling a loss of recognition and freedom.

The election also highlighted contrasting experiences of discrimination and treatment between different racial groups.

The conversation touched on the complexity of immigration, assimilation, and the impact on individuals from diverse backgrounds.

Assimilation is crucial for social acceptance of immigrants.

Illegal immigration is seen as a financial burden, costing billions in welfare benefits.

There is a humanitarian duty to help immigrants, regardless of their background, but concerns about prioritizing citizens' needs over refugees are also valid.

The immigration process is seen as excessively lengthy and in need of better management to expedite the arrival of fully documented immigrants.

The Interconnectedness of Policy Decisions

Policy decisions such as the travel ban, refugee support, and military action in Yemen are all interconnected, despite appearing separate.

The individual's point about the impact of bombing in Yemen is being missed, as they believe it is targeting radical jihadists.

The conversation also touches on the issue of predatory behavior and the desire to prevent it in the United States.

Misunderstandings and Tensions Around Religion

The speaker expresses concern about being judged for their religion and emphasizes that they are not a threat.

They feel attacked for their religious beliefs when trying to discuss their experience as an immigrant.

The conversation touches on the media's portrayal of different religious groups and the tension between them.

The Impact of Discrimination on Minorities

Discrimination against Muslims, driven by pre-programmed thoughts from the media, hinders their ability to be seen as individuals.

The key to overcoming discrimination is to humanize people and recognize our shared humanity, despite different situations and information.

The challenge lies in separating individuals from generalizations and working towards a more inclusive society.