I’ve lived here for quite a few years now, but people still ask me sometimes: “Why did you come to the United States?”. Liberal mentality, prosperity, peace and justice for all – it is all a part of it. I wanted to utilize the fundamental American postulates myself: have a comfortable family life in my own house with enough money from my own business to retire with when time comes. I guess the answer to that question is very simple and straight forward: “To live the American Dream!”.

Just so happened my first homework for the English class is to analize a political cartoon. What a coincidence!

1. The point of this cartoon is to expose some ridiculous rules and practices, applied to the visitors at the US border, which need to be changed as soon as possible by reforming the entire immigration system.
   
2. You would need to know and understand the current immigration laws and issues, have had experienced the customs as a non-US-citizen, be involved in an interest group or politics in general.
   
3. Security check and visa approval process are definitely exaggerated by the cartoonist. The business visitor guy appears to be completely naked, with numerous approval stamps and a tow tag, which most certainly doesn’t happen very often in the day-to-day life.
4. The irony of this cartoon is hidden in the words of the customs worker. How could you possibly enjoy your life after you have been practically humiliated and morally destroyed by an immigration officer? The answer is: you have to try!
5. The goal of this drawing is not to be funny, but to reveal the bitter truth about today’s immigration policies. More than that some people, who might have gone through something like this, might find this cartoon offensive.

Last Thursday was the last day of my first college class here in US. The final exam is over with and even though I don’t know my final grade yet here’s what I think.
I really enjoy being back in school. I couldn’t tell if it’s hard for me or easy, because I was so paranoid to the point where I would wake up every day at 5 AM to study and read some chapters. Some people say it’s an overkill and I take it too serious, but you know what? This is my only chance to actually graduate and I will not let anything ruin it.
The class was about US Government system and Politics, so it is not something I would know from some previous experience and I had to learn everything from the very beginning. My teacher was a very nice old lady, a professor of political science, who takes her job quite seriously. She told us up front that she would not tolerate any cheating and that we would need to take notes in the class. The course lasted 3 weeks, we had to be there Monday through Thursday from 8 AM to 11 AM. There were two exams: mid-term and final, and there also was a short paper you can find posted here in my blog a couple of weeks ago.
I’ve honestly learned a lot. Starting with the branches of the government and the president to my civil rights and liberties and the Martin L King’s movement. There was a fair amount of historical facts involved, so now I have a better understanding of what’s going on in this country and where is all the patriotism coming from. More than that – it’s amazing how much politics are ivolved in every single aspect of people’s life here. Even my Community College has some sort of a government, president and democratic elections.
Looking forward to my next class!

The following is my first research paper for the Politics class.

Introduction.

As people of liberty from all across Utah, we believe that our principals are to welcome legal immigrants, offering them hospitality and justice. While we recognize that immigration policy is a complex and delicate issue that divides people of goodwill and the Immigration Laws are ever-changing and extremely complicated, our beliefs obligate us to stand with immigrants in their struggle for justice as long as no immigration law is violated. As soon as the Immigration laws are broken it becomes an issue for the country as a whole and for every single citizen individually.

The mission of this statement is to propose some major changes to the immigration law and to promote the immigration reform as a solution, we believe absolutely necessary to resolve current immigration problems. We confess that far too often we have remained silent.