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Cherif Youssef Chokeir

RHET1010-03
UID: 900140712
Professor Maha Hassan
Draft 2-14th December 2014
Migration, an experience that deserves to be tried
The migration process is an important topic in todays interconnected
world. Although to migrate could be easily defined as to move from one country
or place to live or work in another (Migrate), migration is a complex process
involving many related issues. The decision of migration is difficult and the
migrant should think wisely of the advantages and disadvantages of this
experience. In the migration context, a push factor is a negative aspect or
condition that motivates one to leave his country. (Push factor) On the other
hand, a pull factor could be defined as the positive aspects that motivate one to
migrate to a country. This paper analyzes these factors for a typical Coptic
middle-class Egyptian family that has the chance to legally migrate to the United
States. This family consists of a father working as a labor in a public company, a
mother who is a teacher and their children: a daughter in elementary school and
a small boy in primary school. Considering many push and pull factors and trying
to find the best decision for this family, it seemed that leaving Egypt and going
to the United States is better for this family as it gives them the chance to

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improve their economic status, as it is culturally more beneficial for them, and
because migrating to the United States provides them more social benefits than
staying in their home country.

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First, the economic field is a major push and pull factor in migration.
On the one hand, the family is not in very prosperous economic conditions in
Egypt. The parents combined salaries, about 2000 L.E monthly, are barely
enough to provide initial needs, like food, and cannot provide the family a
high quality life. For example, the children cannot benefit of standards of
high educational level. In fact, the Egyptian economy faced many problems,
especially after the twenty-fifth of January Revolution. The political instability
led to a real economic crisis. As a consequence, the Egyptian labor force
suffers from high unemployment rates that reached 13.10% of the labor
force in the third quarter of 2014. (Egypt Unemployment rate). In fact,
these difficult economic conditions led to a lack of job opportunities and low
salaries as what Barsoum, Ramadan and Mostafa mentioned. According to
them Egypts economy is not creating enough jobs to meet the
employment needs of the large cohorts of youth entering the labour market;
high rates of unemployment and inactivity are the result.(45) The authors
think that the Egyptian economic situation decreased the varieties of job
opportunities, which directly affect the youth labor force. This is an important
push factor that encourages this family to leave Egypt. In fact, the parents
must think about their childrens future: in these conditions, they would not
easily find good job opportunities with high salaries. On the other hand, the
United States economy is recovering from the economic crisis that it faced in
2008. In 2014, the Gross Domestic Product of the country is about 17.4
trillion dollars (Gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States) while

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Egypts is about only 286 billion dollars (Egypt country report). In 2014, the
unemployment rate in the United States is only 8.1% (United States).
These statistics show that the United States economy is more efficient than
the Egyptian one. From another perspective, the United States immigrants
get many economic benefits in their host country. For example, according to
George Borjas, one of Americas leading experts in the migration economics,
Of the $1.6 trillion increase in GDP, 97.8 percent goes to the immigrants
themselves in the form of wages and benefits. (Immigration and the
American worker) In this example, Borjas argues the economic benefits of
migrating to the United States. These benefits show that migrating to the
United States would provide this Egyptian family a chance for prosperity and
help ensure a better economic future for both the parents and their children.
Since the family faces economic problems in Egypt, and on the other hand,
the United States provides better job opportunities and high living standard;
it would be economically more beneficial to the family to migrate to the
United States.
However, some of the family members and friends who are against the
migration to the United States might advance that currently; the Egyptian
economy is improving and recovering from the crisis. According to them, the
family should stay in Egypt because the countrys situation had just begun to
improve and the economic situation of the family might improve a lot in the
future. They might also advance that during this period of reconstruction,
Egypt needs its citizens to stay and build it. Of course these people are

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somehow true since many statistics show that the Egyptian economy is
recovering. However, these economic improvements are slow and variant.
Therefore, it would be risky for the family to give up this chance of migration
to the United States just because indicators point that there is a little
improvement in the economy that might not persist in the long term. From
another perspective, their argument about benefitting the country by staying
reflects a respectful nationalism but is shallow. In fact, migration to the
United States improves the familys economic situation which could benefit
more the Egyptian economy by investing in the new projects like the New
Suez Canal project. If they stayed in Egypt, they would probably not invest
in these projects due to their economic situation. Furthermore, Egypt needs
more professional labors and the future generations in the family could help
the country after learning in the United States. This would not happen if the
family stayed in Egypt. Therefore, it is more beneficial to the family on the
personal level and to Egypt on the national level to migrate to the United
States.
Another important pull factor that encourages the family to migrate to
the United States is the presence of higher education level there. Because of
the low salaries the parents get in Egypt, it is very difficult for them to
register their children in international and high education institutes in Egypt.
However, if the children just stayed in the public schools, they would not be
well educated as the Egyptian public education level is really low. In fact, the
Egyptian education system is based on repetition and not creative thinking.

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For example, Abdel Hamid Ahmad, instructor at Helwan University in Egypt

and University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, mentioned that Lack of
critical and creative thinking are another socio-cultural challenges at the preuniversity level. The Egyptian educational system is not targeted at
promoting critical thinking skills and enhancing creativity. Rather, it kills
creativity and undervalues criticality. According to Ahmad, the importance
in this education system is not to promote creativity. That is why the
education of the familys children would not attend the required level for high
education standards if the family stayed in Egypt. On the other hand, the
United States seem to benefit from the high standards of education offered
by its universities. The high quality of the American education system is
obvious since the United States have eleven universities in the top twenty
universities ranking. On the other hand, no Egyptian university could be
found within the first 200 top universities around the world.( QS World
University Rankings)This wide variety of high standard education institutes
present in the United States will offer a better education level for the children
of this family. On one hand, the Egyptian education system that the family
could pay for is really at a low level. On the other hand, the familys
migration to the United States would increase their income and therefore
provide the children better opportunities of education than in Egypt. From
this it is possible to conclude that the familys migration gives them more
benefits in terms of education.

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However, the familys members and friends who are opposed to its
migration might argue that this move might make them lose their Arabic
culture and Coptic identity. According to them, the United States melting pot
model would make them forget their original culture which might lead to an
identity crisis for the children or to homesickness for the parents. Although
this could be partially true as migration might sometimes cause a person to
give up some values, this does not means that the migrant would totally lose
his/her identity, cultural thoughts and beliefs. In fact, the family could easily
keep its values and cultural identity by going to a Coptic church and meeting
other Egyptian families. This would decrease their homesickness. For
example, an Egyptian migrant to the United States, named Lobna El Bakri
mentioned that when the family gathered and celebrated national and
religious festival, this kept them attached to their Arabic and Egyptian
culture.
Another important category of push and pull factor that might
encourage the family to leave Egypt is its social situation. During the last
three years, religious fanaticism and extremism have increased in the Middle
East with directed violence against religious minorities. For example,
thousands of Christians faced a forced displacement of by the Islamic State
terrorist group. In Egypt, as a particular case, many churches were burnt
during the last four years. According to Jason Brownlee, The Egyptian
Orthodox Christian communitythe Coptshas been the target of violence
and discrimination since the 1970s and especially following the revolution

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that overthrew Hosni Mubarak. This example shows that the Coptic
community suffered from discrimination for many years. In these conditions
of increase in violence and discrimination against its community, the family
should prefer to leave the country where it faces threats, intolerance and
discrimination. On the other hand, the United States is a democratic country
that respects the minorities. According to the First Amendment to the United
States Constitution Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof (US Const. amend. I).
Therefore, the family would find a better religious tolerance and safety in the
United States, a country that respects all the religious minorities and refuses
discrimination. The presence of a wide variety of ethnic and religious
minorities in the United States would help the family members make new
friendships and discover other persons social and cultural habits. This is of
course more beneficial to them than staying in Egypt and facing
discrimination and threat. Considering these points, it seems that migrating
to the United States is socially more beneficial to the family than staying in
Egypt.
To sum up, the decision of migration is complex and involves many
push and pull factors. Considering different types of these factors, it seems
that it would be better for the Egyptian family to migrate to the United States
as migration improve their economic status, as migration is culturally more
beneficial to them and because it ensures a better respect of their religion
and provides them better safety than staying at Egypt. The modalities of

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integration and the ways of benefitting Egypt while in the United States are
examples of challenges that might face the family. Further discussions on
these topics could be really interesting.

Works Cited
Ahmed, Abdelhamid. Contextual Challenges to Egyptian Students Writing
Development.
International Journal of Arts and Sciences. 3(14): 503 - 522 (2010).
Web. 2 Dec. 2014
Barsoum, Ghada, Ramadan, Mohamed, and Mostafa Mona. Labour market
transitions of young
women and men in Egypt. International Labour Office Work 4 Youth
Publication series
No.16 (2014):45.Web 11Dec. 2014
Borjas, George. Immigration and the American Worker A Review of the
Academic Literature

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Center for Immigration Studies. April 2013. Web. 2 Dec. 2014

Brownlee, Jason. Violence Against Copts in Egypt.
carnegieendowment.org. The Global
Think Tank. 14 Nov. 2013. Web. 2 Dec. 2014
Egypt country report. gfmag.com. Global Finance. n.d., Web 11 Dec. 2014.
Egypt Unemployment rate. tradingeconomics.com, n.d. Web. 11 Dec.
2014
El Bakri, Lobna. Personal interview. 24 Oct. 2014
Gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States. statista.com, n.d. Web
11 Dec. 2014
Migrate. Merriam Webster Dictionary. Britannica Company, 2014 edition.
Merriam Webster.com, n.d., Web, 2 Dec. 2014.
Push factor. Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon. Dictionary.com, LLC. 02
Dec. 2014.
<Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/push factor>.
QS World University Rankings. topuniversities.com. n.d., Web 11 Dec.
U.S. Constitution. Amend. I. 1791.
United States. heritage.org . n.d. Web. 2 Dec. 2014

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