During our discussion at Quintana's I was reminded of similar experiences my friends had growing up in Albania. One of my closest friends fled Albania as a child in the 1990's during the communist rule. His family's journey to Cleveland has a number of similarities to the journey that Alex took. They came to Cleveland and set up their roots here and have never looked back. His uncle now owns Maxi's restaurant in Little Italy and his aunt owns the barber shop/salon right next door.
I can't help but think about what the US and Cleveland in particular would be like without these strong immigrant populations of the last 40 years or so. So many of these people came to our country and put in the hard work to make a name and livelihood for themselves. Obviously there are a number of discussions going on in our political environment today (thanks Trump) that put these current and future immigrants at risk in the US, and it is scary to think about what the future of our country would be like without them.
I had the chance to visit Albania in 2010, which was a while after the communist regime had fallen. It was a great experience, and really exciting to see all of the development going on in a country that was newly revitalized after communism. The amount of development going on down every street in the cities I visited was really impressive to see. I look forward to seeing what similarities and differences exist in a country like Chile which is much further away from the oppressive government than Albania in order to better understand the next phase of that economic development and progression.
One article I did read on Chile talked about how some of the policies of Pinochet actually helped to place the base for the economic growth that Chile is seeing today. Pinochet was able to force open the economy with the help of the "Chicago Boys" who were a group of free market advocates and disciples of the economist Milton Friedman. This model was imposed in a very ruthless way by Pinochet but it did eventually lay the groundwork for a successful economy.
I can't help but think about what the US and Cleveland in particular would be like without these strong immigrant populations of the last 40 years or so. So many of these people came to our country and put in the hard work to make a name and livelihood for themselves. Obviously there are a number of discussions going on in our political environment today (thanks Trump) that put these current and future immigrants at risk in the US, and it is scary to think about what the future of our country would be like without them.
I had the chance to visit Albania in 2010, which was a while after the communist regime had fallen. It was a great experience, and really exciting to see all of the development going on in a country that was newly revitalized after communism. The amount of development going on down every street in the cities I visited was really impressive to see. I look forward to seeing what similarities and differences exist in a country like Chile which is much further away from the oppressive government than Albania in order to better understand the next phase of that economic development and progression.
One article I did read on Chile talked about how some of the policies of Pinochet actually helped to place the base for the economic growth that Chile is seeing today. Pinochet was able to force open the economy with the help of the "Chicago Boys" who were a group of free market advocates and disciples of the economist Milton Friedman. This model was imposed in a very ruthless way by Pinochet but it did eventually lay the groundwork for a successful economy.