Immigration Study Essay Example for Free

Immigration Study Essay For many immigrants, becoming an American has been shaped by Americans and the American governments identification of them racially. Latino and Hispanic immigrants are one race in particular that often has trouble adjusting to life in America. Most Latinos that wish to come to America have a much different view of America than Americans do. They see America as this wonderful place with endless opportunities, money and freedom. Yet, once they actually come to America, Latinos usually find it is not what they had expected. Many of them struggle to find jobs, struggle to find a place to live, and have a hard time fitting in. America may have a far better economy than Mexico, but Hispanic immigrants rarely get the jobs or the pay that they hope for when they come here. It can be nearly impossible for some immigrants to find work at all; sometimes because of their race and other times because of their lack of experience or their lack of education. Many Latino immigrants get stuck with jobs that most Americans do not want, like fast food restaurants, housekeeping jobs, farming, and landscaping. These jobs rarely give good pay, forcing them to get two or even three jobs just so that they can afford to feed their families. In the book The Circuit, Francisco Jimenez writes about his family struggling to make it in America many years ago. Jimenez writes about leaving Mexico to come to America as a child and constantly having to move in order for his parents to find work. In one chapter Jimenez says, â€Å"After stopping at several places and asking for work, we found a rancher who still had a few cotton fields left to be picked. He offered us work and a tent to live in. It was one of many dark green tents lined up in rows. The labor camp looked like an army settlement†(Jimenez 54). Like many immigrants today, Jimenez and his brothers had to work on the farms instead of going to school to help support his family. On top of trying to find jobs and money, immigrants also battle with fitting in. They are looked down on by many Americans because they are a different  race with different traditions and cultures. Americans frequently accuse Hispanics of taking all of the available jobs; leaving none for anyone else. In an article entitled, â€Å"Is This a White Country or What?†, Lilian Rubin talks about the way white Americans and natural-born citizens feel about immigrants. Rubin writes, â€Å"For whites the issue is compounded by race, by the fact that the newcomers are primarily people of color. For them, therefore, their economic anxieties have combined with the changing face of America to create a profound uneasiness about immigration†(Rubin 227). Several white Americans are also afraid that Hispanics and other immigrants are going to overpopulate in America; making it less of a â€Å"white† country. Rubin explains, â€Å"Americans have always worried about the strange rs who came to our shores, fearing that they would corrupt our society, dilute our culture, debase our values†(Rubin 227). Hispanics are too often misjudged for trying to find jobs and for coming to America. They must live in a country where a majority of the population tries to segregate them from the white society. In another article called, â€Å"Best of Friends, Worlds Apart†, Mirta Ojito describes two friends who drift apart because they are different races. Ojito writes, â€Å"The two men live only four miles apart, not even 15 minutes by car. Yet they are separated by a far greater distance, one they say they never envisioned back in Cuba. In ways that are obvious to the black man but far less so to the white, they have grown apart in the United States because of race. For the first time, they inhabit a place where the color of their skin defines the outlines of their lives-where they live, the friends they make, how they speak, what they wear, even what they eat†(Ojito NYT-3-1). For Latino and Hispanic immigrants, leaving their native country to come to America is not always what it seems. They face a lot of disappointment when realizing that America is not the perfect place that they pictured it to be. Losing hopes about getting the â€Å"American dream†, they must fight to find jobs, jobs that normally do not pay well at all. For immigrants, finding a place to live and raise a family can be an extremely difficult, especially in society where white people are seen as superior. Some children have to give up their education to help their families make money. For most Latinos and Hispanics, coming to a new country means leaving behind important  traditions to find their place in a white country. Works Cited Jimà ©nez, Francisco. The Circuit. New York: Scholastic, 1997. Print. Paula, Rothenberg. American Culture, Identity, and Public Life Course Reader. Worth Publishers, 2013.

American Treatment of the Indian Tribes Essay -- essays research paper

American Treatment of the Indian Tribes The American Indian lived a life being one with nature. In their way, they understood the ecological demands of the land and knew that if they took care of the land the land would take care of them. They possessed an untouched wisdom living in harmony with the environment. They hunted the land for buffalo, which provided food and clothing for the ages to come. In time they would almost become non existent at the hands of the â€Å"white† man. They would come to lose their land, lose the buffalo and lose their self being and their way of life. Towards the end of the 1800s the Indian territories were reduced by about 95 percent. The U.S. government along with greedy white settlers was the main reason behind this loss of land. The government placed treaty upon treaty on the Native Americans and would not uphold to any of them. Some treaties were made to guarantee safety and permanent reserve for the Indians, but they were not followed through. In most cases the Indians were driven off the land by white settlers looking for gold or rich farmlands. The U. S. government broke some of the treaties by expanding through the promised lands looking for valuable minerals and making way for the expansion of the railways. The U.S. Government in seeking rights to control the land and its natural resources reverted to â€Å"legal† manipulation. In cases were they were met with resistance, the Army was called in to settle the score. The relocation of the Indians from lands east of the Mississippi River to the West represents a dark phase in American history. In the first treaties signed, there were promises of stability for the Indians. One of these sagas is known as the â€Å"Trail of Tears†. This relates to the removal of the Cherokee Indians by the U.S. Army from their native lands in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama. During the journey they were held in camps and then forced to travel over 1,000 miles during adverse weather. This trail led them to the Indian Territory, which is now Oklahoma. This was a catalyst towards the devastation of the American Indian culture... ...mises such as owning their land â€Å"as long waters run and the grass shall grow.† The Indians would have continued to live "until the end of time" if the white settlers had not intervened. The white settlers created conditions that threatened the existence of the Indians. By the late 1800s, most of the tribes had now been almost completely abolished. The Indians were either beaten into submission or succumbed to the many contagious diseases brought on by the settlers. By the start of the 1900s there were less than one quarter million Native American Indians in the country. These numbers dwindled from over half a million in the early 1880s and over five million since Columbus first set foot on these lands. Most of the Indians now were living in the small reservations. Beaten, tired and humiliated, they lived in poverty, alcoholism, and unemployment. They were now forced to live off the government as wards of the state. Once the rulers of the West they now a lost culture, having lost their identities and sense of being. Although the freedom of their ancient way of life has been lost, the religion, culture, legends, and spirit of the Native American Indian will always endure.

Owens & Minor’s Case Essay

What is the value-added by Owens and Minor? Is this value-addition visible? They own and manage the inventory for the manufacture.  They take on the financial risk associated with the function of managing the inventory flow to the hospitals. They care for product returns and carry the risk for that.  They carry the receivables (cash flow issues due to long payment terms of customers; actually a 90 days credit) They carry and manage most of the inventory for the hospitals, which are sometimes even running stockless. They track and verify customer prices for contracted product purchases and monitor agreements between end-users and manufacturers The distribution has changed in a way that hospitals required the distributors to carry more of the inventory and making more deliveries in lower units of measure, while keeping the same originally negotiated prices. This has put a stronger burden on the distributors. Owens & Minor creates a clear value-add for both manufacturers and suppliers. Manufactures usually only want to produce and sell the product before getting it out of the door Hence Owens and Minor takes the full responsibility for all stressful parts of selling a product. On the other hand customers don’t want to buy and own products before they are ready to use it. Thus Owens and Minor also enables them to achieving more efficient structures, while reducing additional costs related to managing efficiently. 2. Evaluate the impact cost-plus pricing has on distributors, customers, and suppliers. Suppliers: Suppliers have no motivation to try to reduce costs and increase efficiencies since profits remain the same. Market demand is not taken into consideration. If a supplier has a markup, which takes the reseller’s price point beyond current market prices, the reseller’s demand will decrease dramatically. Distributors: Services related to inventory management are not included properly, since the percentage they gain is the same for all products. Whether they are cheap and efficiently to handle or rather problematic. Hence costs will skyrocket if customers will ask for additional services (while keeping the same price). They have the drawback of customers engaging in cherry-picking  and only enabling the distributors to manage low-margin, inexpensive products. Customers: Cost-plus pricing lead to a complicated pricing structures, since distributors and customers negotiated separate product prices from manufacturers, introduced incentives, let prices vary from customer to customer, covered some products by contract and some don’t etc. Hence purchasing managers were nearly unable to properly track actual product costs and compare quotes from competing manufacturers and distributors. 3. What effect will ABP have on customer behavior? Provide an example to illustrate. ABP connects O&M‘s fee to the level of the service they provide: Customer is motivated to keep its activities down to a minimum level and only order services that he really needs ­ ABP helps customers to optimize their service-level and hence their costs. Customers who want to extend their service-level can get this because there is a way for O&M to price a higher service-level  ­ They came up with a relatively simple matrix based on two major cost drivers—number of purchase orders per month and number of lines per purchase order. The number of orders was tied to our fixed administrative fees and the number of lines was tied to our variable costs—the number of times a worker had to go to a product rack, etc. It was a very primitive way to identify our fixed and variable costs, but it was effective in showing the customer that they could lower costs. They wanted to show the customer that instead of being locked-in to a traditional cost-plus contract, they could actually affect their service delivery fee depending on the type and amount of service requested, and the frequency and size of each request. In order for the customer to look at ABP as an honest way to do business, we had to share our numbers with them; otherwise they would have viewed it as just another pricing scheme. 4. What are the obstacles to successful implementation of ABP at Ideal? How would you address these obstacles?  ­ Internal systems at hospitals (e.g. budgeting, compensation) were tied to  cost-plus percentages.  ­Product prices with cost-plus percentages were used to determine transfer pricing between hospital departments  ­Technological barriers: Customer has to change to an EDI system (electronical data input) Hospital would have to change its systems and procedures for material handling ­ For a hospital to benefit it would have to be willing to change and shed personnel, equipment and warehousing space.  ­Culture of hospitals (e.g. surgeons have different preferences for many operating room supplies) O&M should address these obstacles with the following:  ­Offering to convert the activity fee to a cost-plus equivalent  ­O&M‘s logistical services should work closely with customers moving to ABP to help them realign processes and institute cost savings.

The Haiti Earthquake of 2010 Scientific and Geologic Explanations

On January 12th, 2010, a country long devastated by corrupt leadership and extreme poverty was dealt another blow. A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti, killing approximately 250,000 people and displacing another 1.5 million. In terms of magnitude, this earthquake wasnt very remarkable; in fact, there were 17 larger earthquakes in 2010 alone. Haitis lack of economic resources and reliable infrastructure, however, made this one of the deadliest earthquakes of all time.   Geologic Setting Haiti makes up the western portion of Hispaniola, an island in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea. The island sits on the  Gonà ¢ve microplate, the largest of four microplates that lay between the North American and Caribbean plates. Although the area isnt as prone to earthquakes as the Pacific Ring of Fire, geologists were aware that this area posed a risk.   Scientist initially pointed to the well-known  Enriquillo–Plantain Garden fault zone (EPGFZ), a system of strike-slip faults that make up the  Gonà ¢ve  microplate  - Caribbean plate boundary and were overdue for an earthquake. As months passed, however, they realized the answer was not so simple. Some energy was displaced by the EPGFZ, but most of it came from the previously unmapped  Là ©ogà ¢ne fault. Unfortunately, this means that the EPGFZ still has a sizable amount of energy waiting to be released.   Tsunami Although tsunamis are often associated with earthquakes, Haitis geologic setting made it an unlikely candidate for a massive wave.  Strike-slip faults, like those associated with this quake, move plates side-to-side and dont normally trigger tsunamis. Normal and reverse fault movements, which actively shift the seafloor up and down, are usually the culprits. Furthermore, the small magnitude of this event and its occurrence on land, not off the coast, made a tsunami even more unlikely.   Haitis coast, however, has a large buildup of coastal sedimentation — the countrys extreme dry and wet seasons cause vast amounts of sediment to travel from the mountains to the ocean. To make matters worse, there had not been a recent earthquake to release this buildup of potential energy. The 2010 earthquake did just that, causing an underwater landslide that triggered a  localized tsunami.   Aftermath   Less than six weeks after the devastation in Haiti, a magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck Chile. This quake was approximately 500 times stronger, yet its death toll (500) was only five percent of Haitis. How could this be?   For starters, the Haiti earthquakes epicenter was located only nine miles from Port-au-Prince, the countrys capital and largest city, and the focus occurred a shallow six miles underground. These factors alone could be potentially catastrophic anywhere around the world.   To compound matters, Haiti is vastly impoverished and lacks proper building codes and sturdy infrastructure. Residents of Port-au-Prince used whatever construction material and space was available, and many lived in simple concrete structures (it is estimated that 86 percent of the city lived in slum conditions) that were immediately demolished. Cities at the epicenter experienced X Mercalli intensity.   Hospitals, transportation facilities and communication systems were rendered useless. Radio stations went off the air and nearly 4,000 convicts escaped from a Port-au-Prince prison.  Over 52 magnitude 4.5 or greater  aftershocks crippled an already devastated country in the following days.   Unheard of amounts of aid poured in from nations around the world. Over 13.4 billion dollars were pledged to relief and recovery efforts, with United States contributions making up nearly 30 percent. The damaged roads, airport and seaports, however, made relief efforts extremely difficult.   Looking Back   Recovery has been slow, but the country is gradually returning to normal; unfortunately, normalcy in Haiti oftentimes means political turmoil and mass poverty. Haiti still has the highest infant mortality rate and lowest life expectancy of any country in the Western Hemisphere. Yet, there are small signs of hope. The economy has improved, helped by debt forgiveness from institutions around the world. The tourism industry, which was beginning to show signs of promise before the earthquake, is slowly returning. The CDC has helped make vast improvements to Haitis public health systems. Still, another earthquake to the area anytime soon would result in terrible consequences.