I attended the IA Scholar movie night showing of “Human Flow” which took place at 8:30pm in the Smith side basement area of Smith-Steeb Hall this past Monday, November 12th. This event relates to the topic of International Affairs because the movie explored the refugee crisis in different areas of the world. The movie showed the audience firsthand what refugees of different cultures lives are like in various locations around the world. The movie crew followed communities of refugees, lived with them, weathered storms and struggles with them, and sat with them and asked them to share. Refugees would share what was on their mind at the very moment and what they personally have gone through to “attempt” to seek asylum. Some would speak of what they were leaving behind – their ancestors’ land, other family members, tyranny, pillage, rape, and war – in order to start a new life. The risk of death on the trek to what they believe to be a place of freedom and human dignity is a lesser risk than then their almost imminent death in their homeland. The underlying theme of everyone’s testimonies is their want to be seen as human beings and to be treated as such. Something they weren’t expecting in Europe was the amount of opposition they faced. It wasn’t something I was expecting either.
Being surrounded by domestic news about our own refugee crisis in our current administration and the injustices of that, I somehow thought it couldn’t get worse or just as bad as we have in America. I was wrong. In a lot of European countries, they have borders. They have wired fences for the sole reason of keeping refugees out. There was a fact displayed sometime during the documentary that really struck me. There were only 11 countries in the world with borders and walls when the Berlin Wall fell in 1991. Now that number has risen to 40 countries which baffles me. The xenophobic attitude seems to be spreading like a disease which makes no sense to me in America’s case because America is the great country it is because of immigrants. In the film, there was also a great, thought-provoking quote that President John F. Kennedy wrote in his book, A Nation of Immigrants that I loved. Kennedy wrote, “Another way of indicating the importance of immigration to America is to point out that every American who ever lived, with the exception of one group, was either an immigrant himself or a descendant of immigrants.” I’m so happy this film introduced me to this quote because it succinctly puts into words my exact feelings towards immigration.
This film also relates to the discussions about immigration along the US-Mexico border held in my Spanish classes. We talk about the attitude the current administration has about immigration and the affect it is having on Hispanic families and the perspective of American families of what to think of immigrants. We’ve talked about Trump’s order to separate kids from their families putting them into detention camps and what this implies about what America is becoming. Overall, this film opened my eyes and made me more aware of the current world I live in and how I can help to make my corner of the world a little better.