 I did do my dissertation research on Chinese grad students in the US. They're not necessarily immigrants per se, but you know, I did quite some research on immigration as a result of that. So, yeah, I'm currently, you know, trying to write up something on immigrants. So that would be, yeah, definitely. Well, Henry just joined us and he was one of the researchers who was in the earlier session talking about immigration. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, Cynthia. Nice to meet you as well. So nice to meet you. So, so you are doing immigration research. That's a very interesting important topic. Talking to me, Cynthia, talking to me or to party. Yeah, to you. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm doing internet. But mostly as I was chatting with party this morning, mostly in the Caribbean and Central America migration process toward the United States. It's very localized. Yeah, but, but that area, I think, you know, I was trying, you know, it's, I mostly I did some like background info, you know, information check. I apologize I stood like in casual dresses. Yeah, it's just, you know, I could just grab something in the morning. Anyway, so, so yeah, it's, it's, I think immigrants from all of the world have a lot in common coming from the Caribbean area, Asia, Africa. You know, it's, it seems to me that, I mean, I'm kind of like citing the literature. Early immigrants had a lot in common with African Americans, you know, they were from slaves and everything, but nowadays I guess it's mostly technology high skilled. A lot of them are, and then a lot of them are still in the low skilled work workforce and they kind of like compete with the local immigrants who are concentrated in the low pay low paying jobs and that. And so, actually, in Canada, the top five immigrants are coming to Canada mostly from South Asia, from South Asian countries, I think is China, China, India. And I don't remember the other three but they are highly highly highly educated. I think it's the majority of them are highly educated, that's the immigration policy, right. Yeah, feel the, the quota. And the other thing they're doing is the speed, what, how do they call the speed path to permanent residence if you land, and you are doing a degree a master PhD degree. After the second or the third year, you qualify to apply as a grant as a permanent resident the logic is, you're here, we know, we know you're going to become highly qualified. You are young, because within the young, so they speed up the process. That's, I think, yeah. Yeah, yeah, but but there are also a lot of me immigrants from from Asia that are in the low paying jobs. And, yeah, so I think it's kind of like two extremes. And, yeah, and in terms of the high, highly skilled immigrants and, yes, that's the case. And, I mean, you know, they came with education, or they came for education at Wednesday. I think that the immigration policy has changed. I mean, you know, it's has, it's always the immigration policy for for people from Asia, you know, like, you know, if you're highly skilled and everything have the skills we need, then you know, you go through a process that you will get your. Yeah, as I was chairing with Friday this morning, well, Canada made 450,000 new immigrants every year from now to the next five years, because the last two senses, the last two cents of 2021 2016. The growth has been the growth of immigrant entering Canada, otherwise the population will decline because becoming all population. Right, right, right. Yes. But I mean, you know, I think that it's, it's, it has, it changed for better since 1965. Although, there are a lot of issues there I think I kind of remember read something like you know, diplomas from Asian countries from other countries, the third world countries are not as good as diplomas in the US. And I think there are, there are certain, you know, like bottleneck issues, although Asian immigrants are the fastest growing immigrant population in the US. Yeah, I guess, you know, I guess it's immigrants are just contributing a lot, you know, historically and presently. It's, it's also, it's also really complex as as it is, for example, with people that we would call Latinx. For example, I have a good friend she's a sociologist actually may or may not know where I don't have to name her. She's from Argentina. She's a Spanish last name. She has blonde hair blue eyes and a PhD. That's a far cry. I'm somebody who's picking tomatoes in South Florida and living in the back of it. Yeah, for sure. That's one of the problems with this and I would suspect that that even the term Asian is even more complex, because at least with respect to Latinx people were talking about one language plus maybe, you know, local dialects or local languages in a place like Jabba's a lot, or the Amazon, we talk about Asians I mean, I've been to I started going to India a lot in the last 10 years or so. And other than COVID, which has knocked me away from going there for the last four, I made about 10 trips there. And the first time I went, I said, Well, you know, I can't be American, who doesn't know the local language so I guess I have to learn Hindi. And then I went to Calcutta in town that I had to learn Bengali. Angalore in town that I had to learn Tamil. And it's also Gujarat and Marathi. And I can go on and on. And actually India, Palestinians are technically considered Asian, although realistically, two things come to mind. One is there really is no such thing as Europe and Asia. And that's just racist construct. And the other is that much of what we call the Arab world is probably more African than it is so called Asian, but that now was standing it's very complex to take somebody from Northern Siberia, who, who, you know, lives in the Arctic Circle, and somehow put them in the same, expect the same refugees from Cambodia, you know, it's, it's, so it's very, very complex, but the, the, the Western mind, if you will, the Western capitalist mind is a better way to put it. Just look for easy answers. You know, certainly, 75 or 100 years ago, the Chinese immigrants for the killing in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, some extent Chicago, we're not considered the model minority. There are racist stereotypes about opium dens and Chinese tongues carrying knives and stuff. And the same thing is true even now when they talk about Jamaicans, Jamaicans, and on the one hand they're considered a model minority and the other hand they consider drug dealers. It's all very flexible about how they, how they do these things and, you know, it's a lot of it is labor market stuff we know that. Right. And some of it is very intentional some of it is more like semi intentional. Try some stuff or whatever works they keep doing it. But, but that that doesn't always end up in a good place. Because the people that make policy fight among themselves and because they fight among themselves it creates a lot of confusion in whole situation but Alan you're mixing something so interesting and those of us who are immigrants, the homogenization of our experience. I keep saying the moment I cross the border, I become Latin X Latin Latin X or whatever. I stopped being a particular space out of the 23 countries, the same thing happened with Africa they become like African and all the difference between exactly what you're talking about you know it's not the same situation but yeah that's a very interesting process. You know, I tell my students like I grew up in the East Coast, mostly. And then moved to the Midwest. And I tell, I tell my students that 40 years ago, just 40 years ago, not to mention longer we had no, there's no concept of Latino. In New York City, there were Puerto Ricans, and there were Dominicans, not too many Mexicans you couldn't find a taco in New York City. Chicago is Mexican Americans a few Central Americans Puerto Ricans. And then I tell them that I actually have only met one person in the world, whose family name is Latino. And his name is Giuseppe Latino and he's Italian, because Latino was not a Latino name Latino was an Italian name, which shows you how, you know, again the imagination of people which, which is all set against so called white happens to be and then people are allowed to become white. You know the Irish eventually the Italians, generally the Jews, more or less. And probably some section of the Spanish language community as well. Although, they're kind of fussy about who they let become white because we already see now a huge, huge assault on Asians, the East Asian should say, you know, attack after attack after attack on the streets. And it's terrorism really. You know, I mean, a black child in Buffalo or anywhere else. And now a child of Chinese or Japanese descent or Vietnamese descent has to read a newspaper and wonder whether somebody's going to blow up their school. The chances of it happening are small. The, the terror in their mind is very profound. And so, you know, there's that as well, but I know on my campus for a while we had a large number of students from India from China, because they are a money maker for the school. And the students from in state cost the university money students from out of state bringing money. And that pretty much came to a dead stop when Trump had elected. Yeah, you know, and then, of course, COVID aggravated and more but also because a student from. I've been China, for example, doesn't have to come to the US anymore to get a degree in engineering because the universities are now developing graduate programs everywhere so it's not necessary for some to come here. It's, it's, it's not easy to predict how it'll play out. National politics coming in everything from Russia on the one hand to Turkey and the other and everything in between, you know, South Africa, all these so called secondary countries are becoming bigger players. You know, and, and in China is ascending, or at least descending more slowly than the US is. I wonder how, I wonder how remote learning is going to change all of this as well. Yeah, that's a new factor. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, I mean I would imagine. I live in Kansas and I teach in Nevada. So, I'm sure that you can have people, not only attending all over the world, but you can have access to instructors from all over the world. I think that it has. I mean, I think schools are fighting that like crazy right now. They're desperately trying to keep live classes going and desperately trying to keep. You know the building as the center of the school but I see a lot of pressures towards. You know, I mean gasoline is astronomical in most places. And, you know, all of these inflationary things are going on and, you know, it's just better from the point of view of global warming and pollution all that for us to be less mobile less, less, you know, and becoming more expensive to maintain. And even though they're sort of desperately trying to continue the traditional model. I suspect that we're going to see more and more remote learning and I think it's going to shift. And I would guess, I mean I kind of even hope that that would be make it more global and more cross boundaries and that you would be able to not only have students from other countries taking classes, you know, in different countries, but also have lectures and researchers and so forth. You know, offering courses. That's very interesting. The universities here are trying more of the hybrid model, but you know who who are complaining the international students, I am paying four times what the Canadian do, but I'm still going to get some training, and which I'm paying this for the savings of the netting with other people. Meanwhile, the local, I mean, Toronto, Greater Toronto, they want hybrid, exactly what you are talking, they want to be able not to drive, not to commute, not to do a lot of stuff, because it's cumbersome. And after two years of a pandemic, sort of we switch very lightly and almost everybody wants the Zoom process. I'm smiling because of the puppy. Was it a cat or dog? Yeah, my cat, he was knocking the cabin at the cabinet in the bathroom because he just moved and I needed to take care of him. I saw a tail go behind him. I had to leave just now just to take care of him. He's very clean. He's a clean freak. You know, every time he puts I need to clean up. It's good for the smell and everything. Yeah, thank you. You serve him well. I'm sorry about that, but he thinks he's a human. I mean, I'm a little pessimistic about the positive aspects of remote learning, because my instinct is generally whenever the policymakers come up with something is not for our good. And remote learning to solve global warming. You know, they don't really care much. Some of them may care about it now, but I think they're mostly they don't. I think it's more that, and again, it's not the same in every country. Certainly, the, there is an economic crisis. There's no doubt about it. I mean, you can have a party on a Titanic and eat good food. And therefore pretend that the boat isn't sinking. Certainly in the West and certainly in the US, especially the fact that they're, they're keeping the body alive by jacking so many drugs into it, which is to say that that is like giving a starving person emphatomies so they can get up and dance. And it pretends that they're somehow healthy again. And that's what basically this massive debt is. And I think that along with that comes a, how can I put it. One of my friends calls it smashing grab capitalism that is comparable. Capitalism. We're the gangs will just go into a jewelry store smash the glass grab something in our way. You know, as opposed to the old imperialists, the older blessable ease the old mass murdering racist, but they build libraries. You know, they build bridges. Now, we've been heard of Elon Musk's name 15 years ago, and $200 billion is inconceivable. You know, absolutely inconceivable to imagine and it's fake money. It's only because people bought stuck in his company. It's not like he has $200 billion worth of highways and factories and oil wells. And what goes along with that is the. I don't want to say I don't it's not conspiratorial it's trial and error, but the pattern nevertheless emerges that there's, there's less of a concern for actually indoctrinating this I'm talking about the US. We're not indoctrinating the young people into even patriotism into anything use them at all. We're not even, we're not the young people today aren't even learning about the rich dead white men. Not learning anything. All that matters is that they become cogs in the machine and so education has become much more a small group of people have to understand philosophy and culture. Much larger group of people have to be trained like cogs in the machine, like workers on an assembly line, and then the great mass. Good luck for them. Yeah, so I think that remote learning plays on that as well. I mean, I've taught race relations variations of it for 3040 years. And I say to my students, the biggest impact that you're going to have the biggest way that this university will help develop better understanding isn't from a fake Martin Lucy King days. So when someone gets up and gives a talk about peace and love and ignores talking about racism, or even my class, I said that's not it. It's, it's when a Filipino student, and a black student and a white student they're all studying together for their nursing exam, because they're worried about whether they can remember all the different parts of the body that that's that's what really creates globalization from below. And while it's true, we can use this technology as we're doing at this very moment to try to create that. I think that the fact that a student from, you know, Shanghai and a student from Runaway and a student from Palestine and the student from France are all sitting in a zoom together, learning something about fluid mechanics. I don't know that that necessarily is really creating global understanding that much. I think it's just, they're trying. It's just a variation of automation. They're finding other ways to try to cheaply produce as many engineers as they can. And even the even the sciences, I don't know my son is a physicist and I know biologists, and I know chemists, and they say those fields are all drying up because they're being replaced by engineering, because it's almost like the concern is no longer the concern is how can we glue these things together. Now I'm being absolutist about it. There are obviously elite universities where that's still encouraged, which is why actually the elite universities are more tolerant of critical thinking. Because I remember at University of Chicago in particular the biology department there was completely dominated by radical Marxist, you know, the old Marxist. And Richard Levin, he's one of these names but anyway, they did a whole lot of work on it because the powers that be need to have somebody able to tell the truth. The elite schools will will allow that, but the great master schools like mine which is a branch campus of Purdue, you know its main purpose is it's not even to teach patriotism anymore. The main purpose is simply job training job training job training computer center on campus is called a customer service center. Yeah, community college it's even worse where I teach at a community college and we're constantly being told that if we don't produce X number of enrollments and don't. We actually are having to make sure that we cover our expenses with our tuition now for the human behavior department. And we're under, you know, every year, we're hearing, well, it's possible that we're going to do away with this major or that major. And the administration is totally into how are we going to do business partnerships and, and, you know, and the sociologist in the human behavior department are all talking about certificates that we can do for applied sociology. So that you know and there's just this real push to connect your, your teaching to a job outcome. And instead of looking at it as a low cost way for students to move on into four year colleges and beyond. It's now becoming the focus to be the trainers. What can an AA degree get you kind of mentality, right and student success and customer service you know that kind of thing. The room is criminal justice. Oh yeah, I was doubling sociology up all over the US. And the Southeast, especially this was I graduated from University of Florida, and my department is now called the Department of sociology and criminology. Yeah, it's and when I would go to meetings in the late 90s and early 2000s regional meetings like the Southeast sociology conference and so forth, all I mean like 90% criminology discussions and some of it was good I mean there was, you know, our department had rattled it. I don't know whether you know his name or not but he's the guy who did a lot of work on the death penalty. And so there's, you know, some good work that comes out of the criminology, but a lot of those people were just like how do we build better prisons. How do we, how do we keep more people in smaller spaces, kind of stuff. So, you know, there's an even this worldwide, though, left the other side of it. So that, for example, again, we had over the years probably 1000 students from China or the course of five or six years. And it's a relatively small campus 678,000 total. And what I found was that a lot of the students reminded me of US students in the 1950s. That is, they actually are being taught patriotism, they are being taught cultural values, they are being taught soft and not so soft forms of nationalism. There is a lot of ideological training that goes on, and a lot of the students themselves were optimistic, much more optimistic than American students. You know, US students, I should say, and generally, generally hopeful about the future. And, and generally, actually very humanistic. And, you know, very, very much interested in social justice issues, but at the same time, very patriotic, incredibly patriotic as US students were in 1950s, you know, we're, we are ascending, not necessarily dominating it's not like they want to take over Iowa, you know, Florida, but the idea of, you know, we're going to take our place now. And, you know, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a less obviously malignant form of nationalism. But it's. And remember, and remember, Alan, remember when the United States needs cannot get the fever, you know, so whatever happened, the state of really a big and that Canadians are white Canadian mainstream Canadian are not very patriotic, they are not, but they are more and more are not similar in that discourse that we need to be all the city. Are you in North America where I see. I'm, I'm in Washington state. Yes. I'm close to Canada. So, yes, in terms of immigration, international students and everything. I was just reading a book from probably 10 years ago, saying that Canada has more open immigration policies compared with us as compared with its past has become more and more open to immigration and immigrants. But in terms, you know, because I guess it's because of its, you know, immigration history, it has, it has, it has been more restricted compared with Canada. People who eventually get their permanent residency and citizenship in the US is only 50% of that in the in Canada. So I'm not saying are like, you know, what is good what is bad. It's just, I think, you know, there's the, there's the comparison between immigrants, before the turn of the 20th century, which is, which were mostly from Europe and then the 20th century Well, you know, from Asia, South America, Africa, and it was the change in 1965, but it is still, it's still very restrictive. I think part of the patriotism that we see in students or immigrants from Asia, China is from that because when they, when they travel, they see the restrictions you know when I was in the US from 2007 to 2014. I had to apply for a visa every year to go back to China, and then come back to the US. And because I was in the social sciences was not really bad for for students in science from China. They often were checked. They could not return to the US to continue their study, because they were in a very sensitive area, you know, like, I don't know, like, maybe computer science or biology or something like that or whatsoever. So I think it has become better now, since that the policies has become more friendly, you know, compared with, you know, to the period from 2017, and, and, and even earlier. So, so, but I guess you know there's a lot of, you know, there are a lot of things that you can you you experience on a daily basis. That makes a few that you're not really, you know, I mean, you know, China has very open policies in terms of people traveling to China. So like, you know, the visa is very, is very easy. You don't even have to show up, you know, there's no interviews and everything. It's very, of course, you know, China wanted maybe still wants people to come to China to go to China to invest in everything. But at the same time, I think, you know, like, this is not, it's not reciprocal in terms of traveling policies in terms of I think people, you know, like people you interact with probably are friendly and accommodating and everything. But when it comes to things that would impact your life in very serious ways like, you know, not being able to finish your degree in the US, not being able to, you know, like, get your, I think, you know, there are very good stories but there are also a lot of you know, a lot of, you know, policy issues that that is restricted to a lot of people. And I think, yes, in general, there is the internal reason for Chinese students like, you know, there's the education, you know, the civic education. So, some people take that very seriously, some people don't. You know, it's a whole spectrum in terms of attitude towards that as well. I think it's the same for US students as well. Some students take that very seriously, some students are more critical, you know, like, so I think it's a mix. You know, with COVID, sometimes I feel like is all the news are read new real, like, you know, I was just like a little poetry on Atlanta shooting, it's not a shooting even real. I mean, by asking, is it real? I mean, like, is it really that bad? Or it's just like, is the technology, you know, I do see a lot of advantages of technology as a result of COVID, you know, because we are able to connect today. And it's free, you know, I sent the link of the conference to many to different organizations, you know, different chat groups and things like that. And people can just, you know, like they learn about the meetings and they can just, you know, log on to participate. I think that's the good thing. I benefited a lot as a result, you know, because I lost my job because of immigration status during COVID, you know, August 2020. I couldn't go back to China because of the lockdown. I couldn't stay because my immigration status and everything like that. But I was able to take advantage of all the virtual conferences. And yeah, and to continue with my work. And the bad news is that, you know, after a while, you feel like, you know, because of all the scams and I think the security is becoming better. But then you feel like, you know, you're not really having a life, you know, like, you're not able to meet somebody in the coffee shop and cry, you know, in his or her arms. And like that, or laugh together, you know, which is the, which is also was expected. But I think, you know, if, you know, as COVID is easing, I think, you know, when people's when people can meet in person, we can still, I mean, technology can still be taken advantage of, right, you know, for people who cannot travel like me, I had, you know, since December 2020, I had been, I mean, I'm kind of still, I'm kind of like gearing up in terms of being able to work for pay a little bit, but it had been exhausting in all, you know, all aspects of life. And so, so, so yeah, and technology helps, I mean, you know, students are willing to use technology and work it helps me and everything. So I think there are there are there are just the, you know, the whole COVID situation just exacerbates all the issues. In terms of, you know, like in societies, race, gender class, criminologists in prison and I was also I was, I was detained for 20 hours. Because I, you know, I was worried about my own security and me and my ex both called the police and to fully armed police officer male officer showed up. My ex was fully armed. I was the only one and everything wounded injured and called the police for my own security. And I was taken away, and I was misled about my medical condition. And so on the last day when they finally dismissed my case online, because I had to have a surgery. I, I, this, you know, it, the fatality, the problem was like a 25% fatality rate. And by that point, because of the misleading of the police officers, you know, they didn't tell me what it was when I was detained. It was, that was it, you know, the surgery was done and they just waited to see whether I was on the, you know, 25% side. And there was no mask when I was detained. I had asked, I had to ask for 10 hours for to change my mask and they had plenty of masks there. And it was November 2020. It was November. And, and, and so and then, and also it was detained. I was detained. There was the legal issue money, you know, and there was, and there was also the charge of domestic violence. Like I said, three fully armed men. I was older than my ex, I was wounded and sick. I was not armed and everything and I mean, you know, like, we had arguments and everything everybody had arguments. There was relationship arguments and everything and, you know, we were talking about marriage and, and I called the police for real concern, you know, I was wounded I was bleeding I was, I was thinking, you know, it was the middle of them, you know, it's 10pm in November. I was asked to leave at that, you know, two days. It was like I needed police officer to at least to escort me, you know, and so that that that is what I got. But anyway, so it was quite. I mean, you know, like, I'm not without a life experience like that. Probably comparable to that or maybe even worse or whatsoever but it's just the fact that, you know, at a certain point I was just telling people nothing makes sense. So when you watch TV, you are educated, don't expect anything in return when you do good things for other people. In my case, you know, you know, particularly in several cases where a life threatening situation happens. I got into that situation simply because I was risking my life for others. So what is it, what is this about. And so I mean you know in sociology like you know attributes matter right gender race class and everything in China, there's no race, or like you know it's not as intense as in the US. Gender is China is a highly gendered country. But gender network was, I mean, at least you know in my in my area, you know, it was American studies and started everything America. So, so, so I do think you know like the reality we live. And what has been taught and everything. I mean, it's not like you know we are teaching everybody to be a treason to their country, or treason to their family, you know, you know, treated to their family or whatever. But I think you know there's, you know, there's a position for educators, right. And criminology, sociology and everything. And so I mean of course I have a lot of good experience in my life as well otherwise I wouldn't be, it wouldn't be to continue. You know, the my education, even my life or whatever. It's just that you know that there's just so much waste in terms of human talent, human life, and everything or just like you know, if all the efforts could be combined, trying to, I think human being probably has already colonized more than many. So yeah it's just, you know, yeah it's just, it's, I think you know the discussion about COVID is really valid. I mean I would just like amaze by how you know it's of course it's for my own sake, for my own very survival, physical survival, a spiritual survival and everything but at the same time it's from you know, more than 20 years ago when I was in China I was reading a magazine published by some intellectuals. And so at that time they're saying that how women are treated is not only the issue of women like you know, women like girls, children, you know like infant side of girls. It's not only they lose their lives and everything, it's human are losing 50% of the brain power. And so it's the same thing, well China now is kind of adopting two child policy, three child policy because of the distortion of the population in terms of age. And then it's hard for people to give birth now because for all kinds of reasons. One of the reasons is that you know like, you know, the child bearing age women are just small in number, I mean you know that's the kind of like direct evidence of like how many lives were wasted, you know, and so, so, so yeah I mean you know, it's you know class and everything so it's, I think it's you know it's it's, I think I don't know whether it's right or wrong but where immigration is, is concerned is about the immigration policy in the host country Canada US. It's about internal policies within the country that have immigrants, you know, going to this, the, you know, the, the left back, you know the countries that the home country. So I think you know it's, it's, it's, it's immigration is not a very easy decision and internally make immigration as well and, and so I think in the US there were several huge like internal immigration like in 1930s the internal immigration for African Americans. So yeah it's just a family around but some thoughts and I love the, the talk in a way. I think, I think one of the things that moved me from being to use labels I don't like labels from being liberal to being radical if you want to call it that was coming to the understanding that there are other people who will power don't care. I don't care. So you could give them every logic argument in the world it's like coming upon somebody who's, whose brain is completely, completely disoriented with drugs or alcohol, and they come up to you on the street with a gun. And then you have to explain to them. Don't you realize that I need this money for my family. And also, do you realize you're setting yourself up. That's not going to get anywhere. I think I think what's happening in US, you know, I mean, I taught many students for 45 years at a state university that's very multicultural, basically. I was in Chicago in an area that's basically dying. The Chinese industrial area around Gary Indiana it's called. And I think I think the culture of, of declining capitalism. Now one could argue capitalism has been declining since 1900 or so. But with so many with a lot of unevenness here and unevenness there, and the US certainly got a big boost when the rest of the world burned down in World War two. And that allowed the American century to go on for 20 years or so until Japan and Germany rebuilt, and then China became ascendant and even places like Brazil and Turkey. You know, began to develop. But I think the there's an expression of capitalist use which is dead money drives out good. As humans, we know that you plan for the future. And capital is philosophy capitalist ideology pretends to mimic aspects of the modern world with respect to science. In other words, you're not going to get an A unless you work hard. You're not going to earn money unless you work hard. You don't work hard cause cause and effect. Okay, well, as long as you're not too mechanical about it. Cause and effect is reasonable. We want a material world we don't material scientifically based world we don't want a world based on where mystic spirits decide with good and bad for you. But the problem is that the myth of capitalism is therefore that profit and the social good are somehow related. They're parallel to your reward in life because you work hard. The dynamics of capitalism are more like the dynamics of a monopoly game. For that matter, the dynamics of capitalist sports, so that the short term, almost always supersedes long term. You know, I have a friend of a working class woman who was born and raised in Gary, and very difficult circumstances. And she came to me one day she said, you know, the sociology course talks about how low income people don't know how to plan for the future that present oriented develop a whole culture of poverty nonsense. She said, you know, she said, but if I don't take care of today I won't have it tomorrow. You know, so that's my choice, you know, and I think that the system becomes more and more frenetic. The stock market is impossible to predict anymore except in the sense that some of it is obviously fixed. There's no doubt about that. But for the rest of us, impossible to predict. And that's not wasted on the young. Certainly in the US, especially. That's all I can speak about. I don't want to claim to know more than that. Young people tend to be short sighted impulsive, unable to delay gratification. But they really, really hate dishonesty. They hate hypocrisy. And that's a tremendous asset a tremendous strength. So, when they smell. And again I don't mean all of them because I think that there are some like the four of us here for example, who are fortunate or whatever enough to be able to rise above it and look down on it. They're at a plane looking down on a forest or something. But people that are in the forest and are just struggling on a day by day basis. I think they feel much, much more loss of a sense of control. Again, I'll refer to my education in the early and middle 1960s. And we were supposedly a very negative generation. Oh my goodness, we overturned police cars and we broke with those on college campuses. I won't tell you all my rest. But all of that was optimism. That's the irony of it. People never grasp that the idea was what we do can make a difference. I mean, like capitalism when less and less is based on productivity, when the jobs in the steel factories have now turned into jobs in the casinos, casinos are just cannibalism. People basically just just eating their own self, basically spending money they don't have and leaving that much less to their children, and the money that's made is by vampires by parasites. And it's not wasted on young people. You know when when you went to work in an auto factory, which I did for a while. I hated it it was hard it was it was dirty it was unsafe, but I was building something. And so indirectly that aspect of younger capitalism, which was still vicious and nasty. And murder is imperialist but it wasn't sick. It wasn't decaying from within. And I think I noticed among my students actually starting around six or seven years ago. Attendance began to fall off. I don't require attendance because my philosophy is, if you have a kid is there doesn't want to be there then I can learn anyway. Everyone really wants to learn but has to miss a class for good reason why should they be punished. But the problem is that there for the number of seats. You know, when I started teaching generally speaking most. The fact that Kobe I promise. I started teaching. Most professors in my school which is a commuter school but it is a university sort of a mix of the Community College and University, a branch of Purdue. Didn't be maybe 510% absentees in most classes mine was more like 15% because students knew I wasn't tight on it. By 2014. Mine was more like 25%. And yet this last year since COVID. It's been 40% attendance. I went into one class of 27, and there were four students sitting there. And then another three showed up late. Seven out of 27. And this was an upper level class. Now you have these kids coming out of high school where all they did was zoom the last year and a half. And, you know they say things like what, what do I have to learn about how Spain supplanted England. I'm sorry England supplanted Spain and you know 400 years ago, I said because you have to understand what's happening with respect to China in the US today. It's a historical pattern. I don't need to know all that. They're doing where with foreign language courses are doing where with philosophy, and all those courses even. Even when they taught reactionary pro capitalist material, racist material sometimes. But what under later underlie it was the idea that there's order in the universe. What you do makes a difference. And so my generation who was, you know brought up on all this patriotic and garbage. But we believe that what you did made a difference in the world. And he's a lot of young people today and again I, I would differentiate my Chinese students I had from mainland China, didn't have this as much of this. They still had the idea that, you know, because China's economy was still relatively growing. There are still no closes of 10,000 workers and then a casino opens and hires 800. And the rest of them, you know the gig economy is a no economy. The economy is another way of people just floating. And I think that then cover came along and really exacerbated it. You know, when, when, when I started writing and reading, you know, because I came out of an activist tradition rather than a scholarly one. And when I started thinking about this 4050 years ago I fully expected that lay capitalism moves to the right, because the powers that we become more crisis oriented. And therefore they run out of the ability to convince people and I fully expected that they would probably be an attempt to build a youth movement. As there is an India, for example, run by the RSS, that that has some appeal of my youth. That's not what happened in the US. What happened was not that the young people moved towards a kind of fascism. They just moved towards a kind of nothingism. They didn't, they didn't, they don't, they don't actually believe the extreme national, they're not nationalists, particularly, they're actually more anti racist than my generation was along my college campus. I see students of all the different so called races chatting completely until consciously it's not even like I should go make friends with this it's just like whatever. So, but on the other hand, there's no. So, macro visions at all. It's just like, you know, there's no water in the universe is as postmodernist culture, just hope I can get through the day. And I think that Kobe really exacerbated that, because the sense of powerlessness that people feel makes people therefore grasp. One minute of ducking their head down and hoping the storm passes them. And the other minute, just trying to be diverted. I mean the idea that somebody could play a video game for 15 hours straight. How, how different is that. And then drugs. And even drugs I mean metaphorically just as a sarcastic comment, I joked with my students that when I was in college, if somebody wanted to take LSD, they had to commit for 12 hours, 15 hours. And if they use marijuana, they generally had to commit for four or five, six hours. I said, now what today is drugs, you don't even have to commit for 10 minutes. You know, you're up and you're down. It's like you can't even be committed to the damn job. It's like everything is so short term and I recently came upon an interesting book just yesterday called lost focus, which talks about how the technology, particularly cell phones is just distracting people like crazy. And I think, I think COVID is exaggerated that young people don't know what to believe. They really don't. Yet some of them have had family members die. You know a million now, actually, but I think that that's that's what what COVID is done is. It hasn't caused people to unite together against a common foe. If anything, it exacerbated the fact that the fractures in society and cause people to become even more present oriented. More self selfish more, you know, and not been intertwined with discussion had about technology, because for those of us that you know how to use it. It's one thing but for other people it becomes a master, rather than their than their slaves and and then I think, you know, again, the false dichotomy between accident and conspiracy in social theory. It's a false dichotomy to me it's better understood as trial and error. So there is planning and plotting, but it's not necessarily all done in advance. Things are tried. And if they work, you know, they're allowed to happen. I mean, a good example that is that exploitative pornography, which at this point it's not as if the the Rand Corporation or one of these think tanks sat around and said let's push pornography now. It's more like, Well, I don't know this seems to be keeping people quiet. You know, this seems to be dissipating, whatever kind of rebellion people might have. Sometimes there are plots like flooding Los Angeles with crack cocaine. You know, 40 years ago, but oftentimes it's just we'll try this and if it works, we'll try that and if it works. And so, you know, it's, it's the impact of this has not necessarily meant to bring people together. And it could have been. It could have been, but there's money in waste. Basically, you know the short term money in wastefulness, we see it all the time. And that includes the wasting of humans. You know, the but but even the captain of the Titanic becomes a prisoner of his or her own delusions or illusions, you know, some may helicopter away before the boat sinks. But, you know, I think I think that this is very, this is a world changing event. This absolutely is a world changing event, because it exposes all the fractures in society. It's not just that a lot of people died. And exacerbates international tension, because it's more pressure on all the elites all over the world so you know, not to mention the the other thing we haven't even talked about which is how all these diseases are caused by mismanagement. I'm not just talking about bats or labs in China or something I'm talking about, you know, the question isn't, you know, we're sociologists and social scientists we're not theologians. The question is not what the Genesis or something is. So, all kinds of things happen randomly. The question is why some of them stick and grow. So, the question isn't how did Kobe come to the US. The question is, how and why did it spread so much. You know, in other words what were the social factors. There's going to be the forest in California are going to get dry every year anyway. So the question is what can you do to keep people from wandering around in those forests, building campfires during certain times of the year. What can we do to keep it from happening. You know, it's what evolution is evolution is based on mutation. It's not based on natural selection. Natural selection is the steering wheel. It is mutation. So we can't necessarily control how and why random things pop up. But we certainly can control how and why they spread, or why the suppress. I'll just finish off and I was in college. Now goodness 4050 years ago. We had an old saying that solar power will become widespread. And the wordless find the way to put a meter on the sun. And basically, it took 50 years for this technology to slowly develop until somebody thought they could benefit from it so. So all the things are intertwined. It's intertwined from globalization to technology to get the fact that the kids can witness live streaming of a mass murderer. And at the same time, they don't know what to believe about COVID I had a lot of my students who honestly believed for months into it, that it wasn't real. College students. They refused to believe it was real. And then when they did they, they, you know, technology allowed the worst kind of rumors to spread doctors are faking COVID deaths, and kids would would take those talking points. You know, because they didn't know any better. But you can scratch through pretty quickly. You know, this, this is, this is not just an important event. Biologically, this is a very, very profound event in terms of the decline. You know, decline sometimes go like this, and then sometimes there's a drop. Sometimes it goes like this, and then it's a little bump up, then there's a drop. This is one of those drops. And I think without a doubt, and people did people have responded. I know people in other countries. If we have two people here from South Asia have checked in. I have friends in Calcutta, who took to the streets with masks and hand sanitizer. They went into the poorest communities, and they just do themselves into it, doing what they could to, you know, and some ways they felt like they were, it was a hopeless task. But on the other hand, I'm sure that there were some people that are alive today that wouldn't be alive if they didn't do that. So there were people that rose to the occasion. But it also created a sense of hopelessness. What I do doesn't make any difference. Which is, which was going on anyway, at least in the Western world. You know, not so much necessarily everywhere, because the economy is not necessarily becoming. You know, there's, there's still a, how can I put it, there's still a profitability that comes from labor rather than from gambling, you know, in some parts of the world. Not in the US, but mostly the long term trend is to try to make profits fast. And that becomes like that avalanche that feeds on itself, because you can't slow down. So that, I mean, even McDonald's has to worry about Pizza Hut. They all, you know, even if you're at the top, you have to worry. So that's not wasted on young people who, you know, so anyway, I guess I tied a trillion things together on how successful it was. But, you know, I think, I think this, the cultural impact of this psychological impact of this. I don't want for a long time. And it's up to us to try to utilize this, this experience to expose the cracks in the system, rather than to have people just give up hope, which is really I see that so much I mean the suicide rate. I mean what I have looked at the results yet. In the long term, I asked my students to write a short essay, not personal, except I know it would be personal about why did they think attendance was so low. Why would seven out of 27 students show up and then the required advanced class. There was, you know, 57 students 18 or 22 showing up in some classes. And second of all, what did they think that those students were doing during those hours, which is actually to me the more interesting question. I mean they're still alive. Are they watching TV or they eating or they reading or they playing with their cat. I mean, what exactly are they doing instead of sitting in that classroom. And, you know, it's sort of heartbreaking in a way. You know, like I said, I fully expected that young people to be a big move to the right as a country move to the right. That's not what happened. I mean, they're moving to drifting, which nevertheless still feeds the right, because, you know, the right, the right wing is not conservative. I'll just finish up with a quote from Mussolini. He was once asked, Well, what is the actual philosophy of fascism. And he said we have no philosophy. We can do whatever we can get away with. You know, we sit around trying to analyze what's going on in their mind in the city and they're laughing while they just robbed the bank. So anyway, I'm done. Well thank you so much if I can see a little bit. I know Dr. Tawari is here and you all the flow very quickly. Well, thank you so much, Alan. I think it's wonderful to use the young generation as a kind of like, you know, angle to analyze all the issues we have. Yeah, we, I mean, you know, like, when I was in college and everything, I was very hopeful was working hard and everything. You know, the year I entered college was 1989. And so it was, you know, like in China and the recruitment was cut by half at least and everything, you know. So, but I had, you know, like, you know, your personal life and social life always intertwined everything. Yeah. But I think, you know, I think one of the good things about young people is that they are hopeful, because of lack of life experience, but they want life experience I think you know to know where the students are color now is a perfect perspective to understand the U.S. as a society. I think, you know, from the pure research statistics, the younger the people, you know, the younger generation have more kind of like tolerant attitude towards a lot of, you know, like, like immigrants or whatsoever, you know, like, so I think it's a good thing. I think each older generation, like I'm probably now, you know, an older generation as well, compared with students in their early 20s, you know, early 30s or whatever, but have their legacies, as well as burdens, you know, like, you were talking about capitalism, you know, capitalism, of course, you know, has a lot of problems in China it was like 19 after 1978 was it was used to kind of like to get the country out of poverty, because China had the kind of like a state wrong economy, you know, since early 1950s and to late 1970s, and then there was starvation and the more you produce the more you work, the more poverty, the more the poorer the country gets. So, and then, you know, capitalism was introduced as an as an economic system. It seemed to help the country's wealth accumulates but my question really was, you know, is it whose back was it built on like, you know, like, it seems women probably will pretty much like, you know, the new, you know, there were no slaves system but a lot of women girls, you know, in the infant side and then women are not welcome into the workforce if they're welcome, you know, they have to work harder to keep that job because they have to give birth to children and all kinds of things, you know, it was quite, I mean, in the end, poverty rates decreased, which is good, but I think a lot of people did accumulate wealth because of the hard work. I don't want to deny that. At the same time, a lot of this is like a guinea box, guinea butter was opened up. And so, and all the other issues are intertwined, but I think, you know, COVID, because the older generations like, you know, the old ideas and everything. Like I said, there's a lot of legacy. There's a lot of assets there. But at the same time, you know, the younger generation have their own hopes and the also have. So I think it's, it would be a great wonderful research topic to work on. And I, I, I yield my, I mean, I think I like to have Dr. to worry to talk. Stop. Good morning, and good day to everybody at the outset. I express my, you can say a big sorry for joining a bit late because due to this time specific gap. I had some very important work back at my institution so I could just now get to time to join a lot of you. So, apart from listening to Alan, I couldn't get a year to any other talks, but nonetheless, since the presentation is already over there on the website. Let me introduce myself. My name is Sanjay Tiwari. I come from India. I happen to be the managing committee member of the Indian sociological society. It is the effects body of the professionals of sociology back in India. Now I've been associated with this body for almost 20 years, and I am a board member elect of this of this society from 2018 terminating to 2023. Then apart from my role as a sociologist, I'm also a sports sociologist, I happen to be a honorary director of the UP athletics association, and I'm also an athlete also. So, all these to start upon, and since today's topic and today's virtual conferences basically, you can say centered around the global political economy and we talk about the economy in the sense of COVID pandemic. And what lessons can be did we draw and what lessons can be discussed or rather debated as far as positive COVID is concerned. So, when we try to study the impact of the COVID for me as an Indian and healing from the you can say the largest democracy of the world. It was, it was for me to decide as to what should indeed we discuss today in the panel and what should be put forth for our viewers to listen and talk about and discuss and learn something that how come India tried to come out from this. You can say the COVID impact of the COVID. So there were many, you can say narratives very many discussions which came into into place, but for as far as for me. The prime thing which came into my mind was to discuss something about reducing inequalities. We also try to address the post COVID and the inter COVID scenario here in India. So, since it, it was a it is a bigger population and Cynthia is already discussed about something about China also. So, since she also knows and you also know that we have to come back with the issues of a huge distribution and distribution of the natural and other resources to the population at large. And then already there has been some inequalities in as far as the distribution concept is concerned so it was from for me to sub to decide a topic and I thought that it will be better for me to come out and discuss something about the the free ration distribution, distribution scheme, which was lost. You can say just post COVID, COVID really entered in our societies, you can say post March 20 or April 20 or something like this. So, for me as a sociologist when I talk about food and other things and I see food as a means of reducing inequalities. I, but I, my concept goes that from a sociological perspective. Food indeed make marks a social difference. When we talk about food, maybe not very pertinent. This concept may not be very pertinent when we talk about the western countries, or the countries who are more affluent or the countries who are on the on the developing path or other as a developed nation, but in economies which is still, you can grab, they still grab with the issues of hunger and poverty and some other things, though we have come out of it, but then also this COVID pandemic, what happened is that there was a huge, you can say, economic slowdown, there was reduction of the jobs in the private sectors also there was reduction in the jobs, there were cut in the wages, there were no jobs for the liberals and the daily wage earners. So there were so many things which put the ordinary man or the lower class if not to talk about the lower middle class, if I talk about the lower class only, there were so many issues to put these fellows and our country, countrymen need to dire needs as far as for this concern. So, apart from combating the terror of this pandemic, it was the prime motive of the government of India to think as to what should be in place, so that they ensure that people do not starve in want of food. That was the prime thing. And if in case a person will not be getting food, then when we talk about equal inequalities, naturally there will be a large and a huge gap as far as this COVID pandemic is concerned. Now, when we talk about this COVID pandemic, we talk about the distribution systems which were basically disruptive. When we talk about the disruption of the systems, it talks about the distributions also. In India, from the you can say early 50s till the late 70s and 80s, we had a public distribution system in force, which was rejuvenated again during the 90s or so. This public distribution system was not very, was not very, you can say, foolproof, foolproof in the sense that it was being monitored by some measurement also, who used to there were cut sizes in between these distribution systems. Now, what was what unique system was adopted by the divide this government after the pandemic is that this public free distribution system ensured that the food grains and whatever supply was there was given directly to the beneficiary. This was the basic important thing which I would like to mention, which I would like to bend on over here because as far as the global index is concerned, the United Nations already in its sustainable development both has said that we have to see a goodbye. We have to ensure that there is a goodbye to the hunger context as still, at least they have made a target till 2030. By 2030 the UN calls on the nations to transform the food systems in such a way to address the food crisis all over the globe, not only in India. I talk about all over the globe, particularly those areas which are affected and which have taken a backseat during the past two or two and a half years or so. And since the COVID pandemic or you can say the coronavirus is a very big, you can say, digital, it is changing its faces in every six months in every eight months, so we do not know what will be our destiny in 2023. So that is why now, since we have been given some time, it is very important for all of us, and in particular in India, not only to vaccinate all people and reduce the inequality as far as health is concerned, but also reduce inequalities in form of food distribution to each and every person over here. So, so basically slides for over there, I'm not going to all these slides. It must have already been, you can say covered or read or visualize by people. It's like this all the figures over there I'll be open to the house for any of the queries, or if in case any more inputs you would like to like to like to ask me and I'll be open for this and for joining late one second. I access my, you can say sorry to Patty Cynthia, Suresh, Henry and Alan, and thank you very much. I'm also done. Thank you. Yeah, I think Dr. The pen is also here. And I would like to say something. Yes. Dr. Japan, Suresh Japan. You're muted I don't know whether you realize it or not. We lost him. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, hopefully he'll he will come back. Well, technically, the session ends in three minutes. Oh, if you guys want to go a little over I'm okay with that but I know Henry has his session coming up in a half an hour or so. Yeah, we can end in three minutes. I have a question about India, if this probably is not a question that can be answered in three minutes but I'm wondering if they you were talking about food distribution and so forth. My understanding is that Ukraine, the, the invasion of Ukraine is disrupting that quite a bit, and that part of the world. There might be an opportunity. Is that right. I'm, I'm just gathering this from news sources so this is totally you can be skeptical about this but is this a chance for India to fill in some gaps and export more food as well and will that affect internal stuff. Thank you. It's a very pertinent question, very pertinent question. You know, basically, Ukraine has also been one of the lead producing countries and and and since it's a, you can say war driven state right now, apart from Russia also. India has already requested the United Nations that we are in a position of of of supplying wheat, the tune of 7 million tons. India has already said this, and they are apart from after after assessing our food, you can save the requirements. We are in excess of grains. So naturally, this is an opportunity but let us tell, let me tell you one thing as sociologist as sociologist, we have to see priorities but we have to see humanities first, and then business should take a second step. So it is, it is an opportunity, not only for you pay for some other, as you can say, countries such as Nigeria or other parts of the southern African continent, where there is scarcity of food. So we are trying to do like this. Thank you very much. I'm kind of like ignorant about India also have a question. What is the, what is the, I know India is developing very fast, and there are a lot of cities that are very modern and everything. Is there still a food shortage within India. And how did COVID impact that. Thank you, Cynthia. You know, it's an achievement that during these two years of pandemic, see 2021-21-22. We did not see a single death as far as food starvation is concerned. Number one. So, so only this huge distribution system was to ensure that the persons who have lost their jobs either temporarily or permanently do not go, do not see, do not see insecure and stuff. And if in case the food supply is affected, the inequalities, inequalities, you can say, augment more. So it was the prime motive of the government to ensure that at least the best minimum food and this five kg food was full of you can say nutrition is also the government was giving these spices also the oil also the wheat and grains and pulses also. So they tried to ensure that it was not only distribution of a particular rice or a particular wheat only. It was with oil so that they could cook also. So as far as me, there is no food scarcity as far as India is concerned, and no city is dying of hunger or nothing like this. You know, we have already read about Malthus and Malthus has already stated that in that city or a country or a nation only develops when their basic necessities of food, shoulder and clothing is met. So I think we are now ahead of this thing. It's like this back 22 decades or two and a half decades ago, we were, you can say India was under developed nation but now it's not like this. So I think food scarcity is not over there right now. And this is the prime minister Modi's scheme has adjust this to a substantial extent I can say. Thank you. Thank you so much I loved our session. Thank you very much. Bye bye. See you in the next meeting. Looking forward to see you in the next meeting.