The movement of people in and out, across and through what is now Alaska is as old as humanity itself. Some 14,000 years ago, people moved across the Bering Land Bridge (now under water) down into Alaska. There is some evidence that communities may have arrived in Alaska by boat as well as by foot. In the eons since then, of course, there has been constant movement of people in and out of Alaska and neighboring nations, including Russian missionaries, American missionaries, Canadian fur trappers and traders, merchants, gold miners, oil pipeline workers, university students, cannery workers, timber workers, coal miners, railroad workers, and most recently, military workers. While debates rage in urban Alaska and the rest of America about undocumented workers from Latin American nations, the face of immigration in Alaska looks quite different. In terms of ethnic immigration, we have fewer Latino/a (aka Hispanic) immigrants, and more Hmong and Japanese compared to the American Midwest, for example. We have more ethnic Russians than Vietnamese. Much of the movement into Alaska have been other Americans moving up here for work. The oil pipeline in the 1970s and 1980s brought a huge influx of other Americans into the state for well-paying jobs. Many of them stayed. The recent military build-ups have brought other Americans into our state. In the past, Filipino and Japanese people moved here to work in the Southeast canneries. Most of the immigration (movement of people from their region into a different region) into Alaska are men, resulting in the most lop-sided demographic sex distribution in America. Conversely, most of the emigration (movement of people within their same region) out of rural Alaska are women. Immigrants and emigrants tend to be younger, and are often single. However, the most recent waves of US military emigrants tend to be families, with or without children.
Movement of people in and out and across Alaska is contentious, like movement of people are elsewhere in the US. But the arguments for and against movement differ. In this section, students will explore immigration, migration, emigration and Alaska. Some questions we will explore include:
- why do people move to Alaska? Why do people move out of Alaska? Why do Alaskans move within Alaska?
- what ethnicities are represented among Alaska's contemporary migrants? How do the contemporary streams of people differ from historical immigrants?
- Why is immigration different for men and women?
- How does rural Alaska adapt to the newcomers? How do the newcomers adapt to Alaskans?
- What does immigration and emigration bring to rural Alaska? What are the costs to rural Alaska? Do rural Alaska communities benefit equally from immigration? Do some rural areas pay a larger cost for immigration than other communities?
- How does racism and ethnocentrism shape immigrants' Alaska experience? How do the newcomers cope with discrimination? How are rural Alaskans (especially Alaska Natives) affected by newcomers' racism against them?
If you search { "moving to alaska", blog } in Google, you get 252,000 results. Obviously they are not all blogs about moving to Alaska, but there are many people who have chosen to share their experience of moving here, some of whom have continued to blog. Here are a few I found...
ReplyDeleteMoving to Alaska
Ats Alaska
Living in AK
1/3 of teachers in Rural Alaska are from outside so this is a major influx of outsiders playing important roles in Rural Alaska, affecting most communities.
ReplyDeleteIn 2006, Alaska had 344 schools eligible for the Teacher Loan Forgiveness program, which means teachers who work at these schools can have some or all of their student loans forgiven. This and the lure of Alaska helps bring southerners up to teach. (source Alaska Teacher )
This first article is about how many outsider teachers come to Alaska unprepared for the realities of bush life, and offers some ideas for solutions. A newsletter by the Alaska Rural Systemic Initiative, 1999
This second paper is much more academic, recent and political The politics of education provision in rural Native Alaska and links educational service provision as a mode of post-colonial assimilation and encapsulation in Native Alaska"
I know this is the immigration section, but post-colonialism is due to colonialism which is about new people coming to the state and assuming control. It is all connected.
This paper from 2009, The effects of female out-migration on Alaska villages
ReplyDeleteThis paper links female out-migration, to less children, and in some situations eventually to school closures and overall village decline.
The Alaska Immigration Justice Project is a non-profit agency that provides low-cost immigration legal assistance to immigrant and refugees who have come to Alaska
ReplyDeleteIn the Anchorage Daily Dispatch, there was an article of an refugee named "Mary" and her experience with working with AIJP to become a citizen of the United States.
Alaska Immigration Justice Project
http://www.akijp.org/
Article:
http://www.anchoragepress.com/news/without-papers---undocumented-immigrants-in-alaska-face-plenty/article_a460a7e4-529a-5b3a-8e63-aa84de72a731.html
Climate Refugees of Newtok, Alaska
ReplyDeleteWith the changing weather conditions, as many as 180 native coastal villages in Alaska are at risks of being flooded or drowned. As sea ice retreats and permafrost melts, residents of Alaskan villages need to act in response to these environmental changes. Unlike refugees in other parts of the world that move due to a single catastrophic event, climate change in Alaska is a slow-moving disaster.
The people of Newtok, on the west coast of Alaska and about 400 miles south of the Bering Strait, are living this slow-moving disaster. Very possibly, within the next five years the entire village will be washed away.
The Ninglick River, which runs around Newtok on three sides before emptying in the Bering Sea, has been steadily eating away at the land, carrying off 100ft or more each year.
The Yup'ik Eskimos have been fishing and hunting by the shores of the Bering Sea for centuries and have a hard time coming to terms being forced to leave their ancestral lands. "A community of 350 people, nearly all related to some degree and all intimately connected to the land, will cease to exist, its inhabitants scattered to the villages and towns of western Alaska, Anchorage and beyond."
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/interactive/2013/may/13/newtok-alaska-climate-change-refugees
Alaska Economic Trends:
ReplyDeleteMigrants of Alaska
Alaska is a state of migrants. According to a paper published by the Alaska Department of Labor, only 38.1% of the population was born in Alaska. Anchorage is the hub of migration both within the state
and to and from other states. "The military, with its
regular rotation of troops and families, is a major
stimulus to migration to and from Alaska; sites of
military bases show higher migration rates than
other locales. The census shows that Alaska
Natives are moving from rural to urban locations.
Immigration from other countries has been
significant in Southeast Fairbanks and the Aleutians."
"While Anchorage and Fairbanks
account for almost three quarters of all immigrants
since 1995, immigrants and foreign nationals are
a bigger share of the population in three areas.
Southeast Fairbanks has seen an influx of Russian
immigration, while Kodiak and the Aleutians
continue to experience Asian and Latin American
Hispanic immigration of fish processing workers."
http://labor.state.ak.us/trends/jul04.pdf
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ReplyDeletehttp://www.rasmuson.org/blog/?p=3014
ReplyDeleteThe link above is to the blog written by the Rasmuson Foundation. This particular post is about a new publication which the is being sponsored by the foundation called "Portraits." It is a blending of illustration and written word recalling experiences of Alaskan immigrants,"intended to lend a human voice to the experiences of Alaska’s immigrant community." It features 5 stories from people who have immigrated to from outside the United States. More information about the publication can be found here, at The Anchorage Press' website: http://www.anchoragepress.com/news/article_bf098c28-979a-11e0-92ca-001cc4c002e0.htmlAlaska
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/21/us/it-s-a-long-lonely-search-for-men-looking-for-love-in-alaska.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
ReplyDeleteThis article by the New York Times comments on the large gap between the genders in Alaska, with interviews conducted with Nome locals about the situation. According to the article, the ratio of men to women in some villages in Alaska is as high as two to one. Furthermore, more urban areas in Alaska tend to have ratios which are less extreme. This is because of the recent urbanization of areas like Fairbanks and Anchorage. They (generally) have all the comforts of cities in the Lower 48, so there are fewer reasons women find that compel them leave.
http://www.econpapers.uaa.alaska.edu/RePEC/ala/wpaper/ALA201103.pdf
ReplyDeleteThis paper discusses migration patterns of Alaska natives in the Arctic. According to Howe et al., "Alaska Native people moving in the Arctic are more likely to move up one level in a step‐wise hierarchical fashion." As in, they are more likely to move from a village to a regional center then from a regional center to a city such as Anchorage or Fairbanks. In their paper, they discuss the factors that affect migration such as subsistence, job earnings, and social aspects. Men were more likely to move straight from villages to cities and job earnings played a larger role in migration. Howe et al. found that in downward hierarchical migration, women were more likely to move straight to villages and that subsistence played a large role in location selection. The research was based on Inupiat from the Arctic Region. It also provides many tables and data from the research.
http://www.eco.gov.yk.ca/fr/pdf/uaa-migrations-circumpolar-presentation.pdf
DeleteHere is a presentation on similar subject matter as that in the linked article above. I would recommend reading this presentation prior to reading the article above. According to this presentation, education plays a large role in moving from a rural area to an urban area while family plays a large role in moving to a rural area. It provides data on migration and economic reasons for migration.