When we really think about it, we are extremely privileged. To us, fifty dollars really isn't a lot. There are many situations where I have said "oh wow, it's only fifty?" For people in other countries, the same amount of money is how much they earn in a whole month. This is one of the biggest reasons people immigrate to the US, and in turn, New York. They come here for better opportunities, such as finding good jobs with good wages. Many of the jobs that Americans think of as beneath them are taken up by immigrants because they are willing to do the work to earn the money. However, there is still so much talk about immigrants stealing jobs, even though these jobs had already existed but no one was working them. That talk of privilege comes back into play here. Because of the fact that we are privileged, we are able to think of these jobs as beneath us, but for immigrants coming into the country who need to find a job quickly and a job that is willing to take them, this is what they need to do. Even if they themselves believe of the job as beneath them, they essentially have no choice; they need to work to survive.

This also makes me think about how different our societies are. For many non-Western countries, the community is what is seen as most important, while in Western countries, like the US, the individual is seen as the most important. The fact that immigrants can come to the US and still find a community waiting for them where the community will do what it can to help everyone, in a country that promotes individualism, just goes to show how hard immigrants work to keep their cultures and traditions alive. This is a very admirable thing.

It is so important to have a support system when immigrating to a country where everything is unfamiliar to you. When I think of my community, I realize that that is an example of the immigrant communities being talked about here. Using my community as an example, Bangladeshi immigrants are able to find help and others like them by visiting mosques and areas like Jackson Heights. This helps them adjust to their environment and they will join this community and eventually they will be the ones helping the new immigrants coming into the country.