Music is all around us. It can be found through some of the simplest sounds like the wind blowing chimes, rain hitting a tin roof, bull frog croaking, crickets at night, and even a hound dog howling. Music can be used in various ways.  It can be used during worship, celebrations, and communication between others. In some cultures, music is a part of their daily life. In Africa, tribes use music to chant and praise God and ask for help before battle. When Africans were sent to the United States to work as slaves, they would sing in the fields to help kill time but that was also how they would communicate to each other. Later on when the slaves were introduced to Christianity, they would sing to honor God and thank him for being loving. Gospel uprooted in this time. The Africans already had strong core values in music before they immigrated to the United States. However, when they did migrate they brought these values with them and they incorporated it into their lives and they shared it with others around them. When Africans migrated to the US, the suffrage they faced was fair greater than what we were taught in school. Their learned musical ways taught to them while in Africa was a lot about what they felt and thought. When they were in bondage and suffering every day, they used music to express the pain they felt. When slavery ended in 1868, the “songs of the South” didn’t end. Instead the people forced in bondage had formed a cultural identity as a group. They bonded because only they would fully understand what it was like to be in their shoes. Because of that hardship, they were able to connect with everyone in the nation with a similar story. Before they knew it, the connection had advanced to other parts of the world with similarities. The Us was not the only nation that housed slaves and to this day slavery still exists in some nations. But the connection of slavery and music created a huge music phenomenon. The emergence of Jazz and Blues music was huge for the African American population in the United States. Jazz and Blues became really popular when slavery ended but African Americans were still faced with segregation and the notion that they were different. The music helped them spread the word that they did not like being treated so badly but it was the legal version. It was looked down upon when African Americans protested so they also were able to communicate their feeling of suffrage through music with out being punished and imprisoned. The music made the Whites extremely unhappy but everyone had freedom of speech and the Whites did not necessarily have to listen to that music.

   Since the beginning of time, living organisms have migrated all over the world. But in today’s society, the term “migration” has caused some issues. When people hear the word migration, their mind automatically assumes it is people who are completely different from them, permanently traveling from one country or place to another. However, migration can have many different meanings. When looking at migration in nature, birds migrate down south every year during the harsh winters. Fish and other aquatic species like whales migrate all over the ocean in search of food or warmer water to have their offspring. Migration does not just involve people, it is much larger than that. It affects every living organism on the planet. The reason migration has become such a hard and prevalent topic to people in the last century is due to the fact that people do not like change and when new people with different values and beliefs come into a place with other values and beliefs, the two collide. Change can be scary and unknown. When two cultures merge it creates a mesh between the two and some old practices may be lost and replaced with new ones. These new people coming in are from different nation states. A nation state is a sovereign state whose citizens all share a common language and descent. For example, when a group of people from Latin America come over to the United States, the group has some things in common. They likely share a common language and similar culture and values. So when a group of these Latin Americans meet another group from the same nation state, a community forms. Change may also occur because the people may be from different regions and have different traditions like holidays, foods, and clothing worn. These people not only hold on to their previous culture, language, and values, but they also embrace the “new” culture they have stepped into. In this case it would be the American culture. Since places like London and the United States have become huge melting pots full of different cultures and ethnicity, the original traditional values of the land have changed and embraced other traditional cultures in the form of food, holidays, clothing, and language. For me, this has helped shape my understanding of migration and nation state. Because if it wasn’t for people moving around and bringing in differences, the world as we know it today would not exist. By understanding and acknowledging the differences of cultures and celebrating them with groups we identify with, it makes us as a whole feel connected to something much bigger than ourselves. Everybody in the United States celebrates St. Patricks day every year regardless if we have any Irish decent. Everyone on that day feels connected to the Irish culture. If it wasn’t for the Irish migrants that came to the United States during the civil war, this holiday would not be celebrated by the US and other places around the world like it is today.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton