Understanding the Mothers Of “Anchor Babies”

As much of the democratized world knows, America’s presidential campaigns are well under way and have sparked controversy due to the blatant ignorance expressed by select individuals on highly sensitive topics. Throughout the past decade, contentious statements have spanned topics from abortion to gender or sexual identification to insufficient payment of job-holders. But during the past few years, racial and ethnic identification have begun to receive universal attention. In late August, Republican candidate Jeb Bush dealt with well-deserved criticism after using the term “anchor babies.” This derogatory phrase refers to, according to the Oxford Dictionary, a “child born to a noncitizen mother in a country which has birthright citizenship, especially when viewed as providing an advantage to family members seeking to secure citizenship or legal residency.”The imprecise implication and pejorative sense of the term are only two of the many problems that the presidential candidates are guilty of in informing the general public of their immigration policies. There is a great misunderstanding that has yet to be clarified regarding the idea of having the child’s status determined by where the mother decides to have her baby. Assuming that a child’s birth also involved the participation of a the “mother’s” significant other, it is not solely the mother’s crime for wishing for the best circumstances in comparison to their original country. One would be inhumane to disregard the best intentions of a parents as the act of wishing to “free-load” off of a highly developed country’s resources. As assumed by a majority of the population, the obligation of a parent is to nurture the child, no matter the socioeconomic circumstances. It is not only hypocritical but also repulsive for influential American figures to disregard such a fact and for them to also not recognize that the American populace is not merely comprised of Caucasians.The United States has been heralded through generations as the nation of opportunity and diversity, the country that has been the champion for basic human rights. Without proceeding to blatantly slander select presidential candidates, it is odd to see that the future leader of the American democracy may be an individual who does not truly believe in an aspect of the betterment of the common peoples. No, the common people are not all Southerners who will chant the American anthem, but rather the people who fled their mother countries perhaps to fulfill their personal agendas, which is in many cases to provide a “better life” for their children. Jeb Bush said that “anchor babies” were “frankly more related to Asian people.” Similarly, GOP front-runner Donald Trump made a multitude of inflammatory comments on immigration and “anchor babies” within his speeches, which portrays that his knowledge of the American people is questionable and even faulty.Now, was Bush wrong about the phenomenon of Asian individuals immigrating to the United States when expecting a baby in order to secure American citizenship? No. However, it is not his affirmation of the phenomenon that was problematic, but in context, the ignorance with which he said it. As an American citizen, I do question the expertise he has on such instances, as well as his familiarity with the lives within various foreign entities. Is Bush aware of the one-child policy in China? Has he been victim of the exacting educational systems within countries such as the Republic of South Korea or China? Has he ever tried convincing various nations that the American education system is not all superior? Has he not witnessed the examples of parents sending their kids overseas to attend a private institution and an American university, a credential that would not only heighten their social statuses but also secure futures in their mother countries?What has been surprising to see and quite idiotic of the presidential candidates not to do has been to mobilize the Asian-American vote. As history has proven, the Asian-American population has the power to transform a previously negligible candidate to one of prominence because of the vast numbers it has within America. If one were to analyze Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency campaign, he logically utilized the Chinese American population to add more individuals to his side. Now, this was not only a highly tactical move but also a perceptive one. The Chinese Americans within that time were not only consistently ignored by political bodies but had also begun to gather together to create multiple organizations dedicated to the ostensibly useless motive of gaining a national voice. Roosevelt indirectly promised a better future for Asian Americans if he were to become president and with those few words, the Asian American population was secured.This is not to say that Roosevelt did not fulfill such promises, but he left much work to be done, especially for a country that is to this day ambiguous with its national identity. “American” refers to a citizen within this country’s borders, yet there is a regrettable repetition of the lack of understanding of who were America’s original people. The so-called majority were also immigrants at a point in time and for this to be ignored is inexcusable. The presidential candidates who are perhaps educated and yet more uniformed of the realities beyond their private educational institutions must halt their repulsive behaviors and ascend to the challenge of addressing the use of such derrogatory rhetoric, not to mention a dire need for educational reform. The identification of a millennial depends on the reform of education and societal views upon racial, ethnic and social economic classes, a reform that should be unquestionably headed by the future President. There must be a recognition of the hardships immigrant families endure to secure better futures for their children, as well as the dear ones they must leave behind to venture to America. Understand the mothers of the babies you so indifferently call perpetrators of a “crime” you have never lived through before this nation becomes even more irreparable than she already is.