Spaces and Exchanges : US-Mexico border, with its positive and negative aspects

Résumé du document

Oral de terminale : Notion d'espace et échanges. The notion of Spaces and Exchanges usually deals with the spontaneous or regular circulation of people, culture, and material goods as in trade. Exchanges may happen between people, like when they give or receive gifts, or across borders.

Extraits

[...] They also often have no social security because they work without a permit. Besides, immigrants must escape the violent police and border patrollers who will send them to prison or bring them back to their original country. In spite of that, the United States could not support itself without immigrants, since US citizens seem uninterested in hard work. This proves immigrants do not steal jobs. Thanks to those jobs, immigrants can also consume in the U.S., from food and housing to transportation and leisure. [...]

[...] To make ourselves an idea of it, we should think about its advantages and inconvenients. This is why we will focus on the US-Mexico border, with its positive and negative aspects. First of all, as one of the longest and busiest borders in the world, it has become a hotspot of legal trade but also of illegal activities such as drug dealing. Since Mexico and other Latin American countries have more unemployment and poverty than the United States, lots of people plan to move to this country to find better opportunities. [...]

[...] Or they can send the money to their families, which helps develop their countries. Besides, some companies or individuals use immigrants as cheap workers, for their own benefit. Another side of exchanges is interesting to talk about: immigrants bring their culture, their language and share it with the local population. A new form of speaking has emerged and is called Spanglish; also, US TV channels are available for hispanophone viewers and advertisements also target these new consumers. To sum up, immigrants do not benefit from their situation as much as they should when we look at all their efforts, but they live better than in their home countries, their families receive money, and the U.S. [...]