While learning information about the Quasi War of the 1700's, I repeatedly heard the name "aliens" given to the people. It actually bothered me to hear people being called that because when I think of an alien i think of an unidentified human-like "thing". It doesn't matter where they are from, but all people should be equally called humans. These aliens were give no rights and were very limited as to what they were freely able/allowed to do. Since these times, the world has changed rapidly and almost all people of any country have been given many more rights throughout the years. The only part of this that concerns me is that the authors who published their textbooks, still refered to the people of forgein countries as "aliens". Meaning, the people that were called aliens at the time are still being refered to that, even in today's society because "it's just something from the past."
2 comments:
hey sarah i really think you make a great point in which it is really truely degrading too human-beings who come into this country looking for a new start or a better, richer life and they are instantly stamped "different" or are instintly put into a category of judgement and its just funny b/c the whole basis on the USA is that everyone is welcome here and we're all originally from other countries so i dont see why we have to ridicual people who come here. I understand that some people come here illegally and our cities are getting more and more overpopulated and i really dont know how to feel on our immigration policy but i can fully agree that "alien" is not the right word to call "these people"
al·ien /ˈeɪlyən, ˈeɪliən/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[eyl-yuhn, ey-lee-uhn] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun 1. a resident born in or belonging to another country who has not acquired citizenship by naturalization (distinguished from citizen).
2. a foreigner.
3. a person who has been estranged or excluded.
4. a creature from outer space; extraterrestrial.
Theres mutiple definitions for many words...the first definition given by Dictionary.com actually is not offensive at all. You may believe that calling someone an "alien" relates them to extraterresttrials, but others may simply think of people coming from different countries, its all about connotation
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