Immigration and Immigrants

So, my program is brand new. That means that we take really ill-thought out field trips to random places while the people studying Europe see castles and churches and get fed. Last Friday we went to the immigration museum. It was a little sad. First of all, it's in the middle of nowhere. The building was built for the colonial fair in 1931, which was meant to spark French interest in the colonies and remind them why they were useful. The result is that the facade of the building depicts highly racist pictures of naked people from different continents farming, catching fish etc. The picture shown is one of the depictions of Africa. Our tour didn't even include the meager exhibits, it was just the architecture. Meanwhile a huge demonstration was going on inside. 200 or more illegal African immigrants have been camping out in the museum (shown in the first picture) to try to get their company to give them papers. The main room was so loud we could barely hear. Irregardless, our tour guide refused to acknowledge the event and continued telling us about the depictions of justice and truth. The whole museum is meant to show that a lot of important people are immigrants and that in fact France is a melting pot much like the US. However the museum is largely ignored by the government, especially when it comes to funding, which is unfortunately made evident by the state that the building is in. All in all I liked the message of the museum and supported their efforts until we specifically asked the tour guide what was going on with all the people. She said that the museum didn't really want them there but that it would look bad to throw them out. This made me sad. I mean, if the immigration museum has no interest in helping all these men, who work all the time to send money home, can't visit their families and can't go back to visit, who will? Upon further research of the issue, the whole situation seems even more sad. http://www.african-arts.info/immigration_museum.htm

Love,
Violet