Blog Post 8: How does Immigration connect to Cosmopolitanism?

Cosmopolitanism is the ideology that all human beings belong to a single community with a shared morality. In cosmopolitan communities, individuals from different places form relationships of mutual respect despite differences in beliefs, economic status, culture, etc.  Immigration connects to the idea of cosmopolitanism because it is hard for immigrants, especially for people moving to the United States, to feel the mutual respect in a community. The United States is considered a melting pot of cultures but some of its people are not accepting at all to newness and change. A new television series on Netflix called “One Day at a Time”, follows the life of a Cuban- American family and the struggles they face daily with racism, culture, LGBT, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and being from a single parent family. In this particular tv series, the teenage son faces bullying issues at school do to him looking more “Cuban” than the rest of his family. First off how is that even fair to base judgement on looks. However, these characters are third generation Cuban Americans with parents that proudly served in the United States Army. So clearly the family is very American and proud to be in and serve our wonderful country. The community that both of these kids felt apart of (Cuban American) was not accepted by others (particularly whites) just because people do not understand and want to understand. This is clearly a huge issue people particularly minorities face every day in the United States just because they look different. For class we were asked to view the Netflix documentary called Residente. This film gave me a real life example of cosmopolitanism. This particular film enlightened me to better understand our government in terms of supremacy and how it affects people. Looking back in to history, the United States has always tried to dominate the world and push beliefs and culture down other people’s throats. This has been achieved in this particular way by force through weapons and war. People want everyone to be the exact same and think the same way but in reality that is not how the human race is created. Residente has proven that most people in the world believe there is a more civilized manner to this. Cosmopolitanism is about accepting other people’s differences regardless of nationality or beliefs. Immigrants coming into the US struggle feeling this connectedness to their homeland and their new home because so many other people don’t accept the differences. Advocates like Calle 13 are using their platform to spread the word on how to improve and get rid of the harshness against uniqueness. Being different is not a bad thing.