The Many Faces of American Identity Free Essays

Since the Civil War, America’s identity and the identity of its citizens has gone through multiple transitions, each building upon or rejecting the ideas and principles of those issues which had come before. From the racial segregation and discrimination of African Americans from the time of Reconstruction through the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, the plight of the poor and the politically disenfranchised, the struggle for equal rights for women and homosexuals, and the post-Cold War issues of globalization and economic viability in a changing world, the concept of what it means to be American has adapted to both the successes and failures of each. At the basis of each of these struggles is the idea that at periods throughout American history each of these groups have felt the need to be heard and represented, having been marginalized by social and political injustices and ideologies that at each turn represented a hypocrisy over the basic tenets of freedom and liberty. We will write a custom essay sample on The Many Faces of American Identity or any similar topic only for you Order Now Unrepresented and kept outside of the political process and the mainstream social identity, these groups have sought to alternately belong to a concept of the American identity and to redefine it. In examining each of these developments, from Jacob Riis 1890 expose of the New York City slums to the new freedoms and challenges of the post-Cold War America of presidents Clinton and G. W. Bush, I will illustrate how each social and political revelation combine to create an American identity that is uncertain of its future while carrying an awareness of its past. Jacob Riis 1890 book How The Other Half Live gave the average, middle-class American room for pause. In his description of the slums and challenges faced by the economically and socially handicapped masses of New York City, show an underbelly to the American dream. The poverty and inequality that pervade the plight of the tenement dweller, both black and white, is at odds with the ideals of freedom. In particular, Riis makes a case for African-Americans who having recently been emancipated had fled the institutionalized racism of the South to come work and live in New York. However, they have escaped one kind of bondage, clearly and legally defined, to be forced into a socially ambiguous but no less prevalent form of degradation and discrimination. But even as Riis decries the struggle of the newly arrived blacks, who based upon their skin color alone are placed at the bottom of the social ladder, his own views speak of a different kind of discrimination. While at once condemning the landlords who profit by courting black tenants due to the ability to charge more money, Riis explanation of the character of blacks is simplistic and demeaning, likening them more to children than adults equal in every respect to their white counterparts, â€Å"If his emotions are not very deeply rooted, they are at least sincere while they last, and until the tempter gets the upper hand again†(Riis, p. 155). He also expresses a desire to maintain a level of segregation, calling the mixing of races on Thompson Street where the â€Å"this co-mingling of the utterly depraved of both sexes, white and black, on such ground, there can be no greater abomination† (p. 156). Despite the shortcomings of his viewpoint, influenced by the historical relationship of whites and blacks in the U. S. , Riis nevertheless realizes that blacks are being pushed away from the very equality promised to them as citizens, as Americans. Additionally, the poor native New Yorkers and immigrants who people the tenements, share a similar burden. Reduced by economic and social circumstance to merely subsist on the scraps of a society which has turned a blind eye to them, the â€Å"pauper† is in a position devoid of hope, He is as hopeless as his own poverty† (Riis, 1890, p. 246). Immigrants such as the Irish fared no better in Riis opinion, being particular vulnerable to the moral deterioration of slum life being the â€Å"soonest and most thoroughly† (Riis, 1890, p. 249) corrupted. The kind of separation between economic and racial portions of society, as well as the defense of one while the other remains degraded, is a common thread that runs throughout the changes of the last century in America’s identity. The 1896 Supreme Court ruling in the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson legalized this type of segregation with the â€Å"separate but equal† predecent, providing a constitutional basis for Jim Crow laws to flourish and plant deeper roots in the American South. Though struck down over a half a century later by the Court’s decision in Brown vs. Board of Education, the realization of equality as American citizens regardless of race, religion, sexuality, gender, or economic status proved to not be so easy. While in 1881 Chester Arthur hoped to assimilate the Native American population into the broader scope of white society through re-education and removal of tribal affiliation and heritage, no such policy was established in regard to African Americans. As with the struggle for women’s and gay rights, the struggle for African American equality culminated within the community itself. The refusal of Southern lawmakers to rise out of the era of racism and embrace a new concept of American, as non-white and white side-by-side, created a necessity to action. As Martin Luther King Jr. ’s 1962 â€Å"Letter From a Birmingham Jail† attempted to explain this need to the black power structure which both supported and chastised him for his actions in Birmingham and across the South, â€Å"â€Å"unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city’s white power structure left the Negro community no alternative. † More importantly, King understood the concept of the â€Å"mutuality† of the American community, whether it be black or white, male or female, which was picked up again by the youth culture that grew to embody a sense of change and challenge, as embodied in the Port Huron Statement. King noted in 1962 that, â€Å"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. † There is truth still in that statement, as well as in the ideals placement within other struggles for equality. It is a concept that not only did the student protesters understood but was an equal basis for Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique and the rise of the feminist movement and later the push for gay rights and better federal programs to combat the AIDS crisis. Like the inequalities of the previous century, the poverty described by Riis and the racism inherent to the continued racial discrimination, the gender and sexuality issue that has come to a head over the past fifty years have effectively acted to undermine the idealized definition of American while also harming the fabric of society. Disenfranchised people are left to stagnate rather than grow and instead of reasoned change it boils over in emotion and uncertainty. The women in Friedan’s Feminine Mystique cannot name the hypocrisy of the country’s national values and the gender roles programmed into their psyche and are bowed under an enemy they cannot see. The hypocrisy of American identity has not evaporated but instead become more difficult to understand and identify; to be American has built upon the ideals established by King and Friedan, whose spirit of questioning and rebellion have become part of what it is to be American even as new and more complex cracks have appeared in the facade of such a delicate but no less no dream of freedom and liberty. Both President Bill Clinton and George W. Bush illustrate this new era of a globalized identity with in their respective inaugurations. Each faced challenges during their presidencies, differing on a wide-array of social and political issues. However, on the cusp of their first term they express the optimism and unfailing double-blindness of a nation which tries to steer its hope to the future while alternately cowering against and celebrating its past. Constantly aware of our differences, America has attempted to celebrate this difference even as we continue to marginalize along the lines of race, religion, politics, social status, and gender. It is a cycle of self-hate and self-love that has become as much a part of the American identity as the mythological concept of the American dream. Bibliography Arthur, C. (1881). Indian Policy Reform. PBS. Retrieved 30 April 2010 from http://www. pbs. org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/seven/indpol. htm. Brown vs. Board. (1954). Find Law. Retrieved 30 April 2010 from http://caselaw. lp. findlaw. com/scripts/getcase. pl? court=USvol=347invol=483. Friedan, B. (1962). Feminine Mystique. H-Net. Retrieved 1 May 2010 from http://www. h-net. org/~hst203/documents/friedan1. html. King, M. L. Jr. (1963). Letter From a Birmingham Jail. The Martin Luther King Jr. Research Education Institute. Retrieved 1 May 2010 from http://mlk-kpp01. stanford. edu/kingweb/popular_requests/frequentdocs/birmingham. pdf. Plessy vs. Ferguson. (1896). Find Law. Retrieved 30 April 2010 from http://caselaw. lp. findlaw. com/scripts/getcase. pl? court=USvol=163invol=537. Riis, J. (1890). How The Other Half Lives. New York: Charles Schribner Sons. Google Books. Retrieved 1 May 2010 from http://books. google. com/books? id=zhcv_oA5dwgCdq=How+the+Other+Half+Livessource=gbs_navlinks_s. How to cite The Many Faces of American Identity, Papers

English Paper Joy Luck Club free essay sample

A Look at the Concept of Double-Life Amy Tan’s  The Joy Luck Club  is a narrative mosaic made up of the lives of four Chinese women and their Chinese American daughters. Because of its structure, the book can only loosely be called a novel. It is composed of sixteen stories and four vignettes, but like many novels, it has central characters who develop through the course of the plot. The daughters struggle with the complexities of modern life, including identity crises and troubled relationships, while the mothers reflect on past actions that were dictated by culture and circumstance. The lives of the older women are bound together through their similar situations as immigrants and their monthly mah-jongg games at Joy Luck Club meetings. Each of the stories is a first-person narration by one of the Joy Luck Club’s three mothers or four daughters. Each narrator tells two stories about her own life, except for Jing-mei (June) Woo, who stands in for her deceased mother, telling a total of four stories. The tales are arranged in four groups, with a vignette preceding each group. The first group is told by mothers (plus June), the second and third groups by daughters, and the fourth by mothers. Jing-mei’s final story, in which she learns her mother’s history, concludes the book. â€Å"The Joy Luck Club† is the title of both the novel and this story. Author Amy Tan introduces and explains the concept of â€Å"joy luck† by showing two different Joy Luck Clubs in action. The first Joy Luck Club, in Kweilin, shielded the women’s spirits against the harsh living conditions and constant threat of war. Suyuan had dreamed of visiting Kweilin, a place of great natural beauty, where she thought she would be perfectly happy. Instead, she and the other refugees lived with bad food, disease, overcrowding, and uncertainty. To combat their fear, the women played mah jong once a week. â€Å"Each week we could hope to be lucky. That hope was our only joy. And that’s how we came to call our little parties Joy Luck† (Tan 25). The second Joy Luck Club, in San Francisco, offered hope to women with a common bond. Jing-mei says: â€Å"My mother could sense that the women of these families also had unspeakable tragedies they had left behind in China and hopes they couldn’t begin to express in their fragile English†(Tan 20). The second Joy Luck Club becomes an investment group and social gathering by the time Jing-mei is an adult, and the women have formed strong friendships. â€Å"Joy luck† then becomes a concept the women would like to pass on to their American-born daughters, who do not understand the tragedies their mothers experienced. The mothers are afraid they will have â€Å"grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from generation to generation† (Tan 31). Accordingly, Tan uses the device of the Joy Luck Club meeting to introduce the mothers and the daughters. She offers initial insight into the mothers’ characters by giving Suyuan’s opinion of them and develops the characters of Jing-mei (June) and Suyuan. The conversation about black sesame-seed soup in the first few paragraphs reveals that Jing-mei understands some Chinese, but imperfectly. Her statement, â€Å"I can never remember things I didn’t understand in the first place,† begins the development of two conflicts. In the first, Jing-mei struggles with understanding her Chinese heritage. Not until the final pages does she come to terms with it. The second conflict, overcoming language problems, affects all the characters to greater and lesser degrees. Later in the story, Jing-mei states she felt as though â€Å"my mother and I spoke two different languages, which we did. I talked to her in English, she answered back in Chinese† (Tan 23). Mothers and daughters struggle with their imperfect understandings of one another, seeking reconciliation. In addition to this, this story also introduces a continuing motif, the idea of seeking balance. Suyuan’s criticism runs along the lines of â€Å"Something was always missing. Something always needed improving. Something was not in balance† (Tan 31). Auntie Lindo explains that Jing-mei will take her mother’s place at mah jong because without her the women are â€Å"like a table with three legs, no balance† (Tan 33). These are minor examples of what will be a significant concept in the novel. Surely, in  The Joy Luck Club, Tan intermingles the thematic treatment of intercultural conflict with that of intergenerational conflict. The mothers who immigrated to the United States from China still have very strong cultural ties to their old home and want to raise their children in the traditional Chinese way. Their Chinese American daughters, however, feel that they are trapped in the conflict between traditional Chinese culture and mainstream American society, between their aspirations for individual freedom and their sense of familial and social obligations, and between their false and their true identities. Paradoxically, the conflict is both frustrating and constructive. The daughters are eventually led to conclude that they must embrace what they cannot culturally reject, and that they are as American as they are Chinese. Thus, The Joy Luck Club  highlights the influence of culture on gender roles. The Chinese mothers in the book, all born in the 1910’s, grew up in a hierarchical society in which a woman’s worth was measured by her husband’s status and his family’s wealth. When they were young, the women were taught to repress their own desires so that they would learn to preserve the family honor and obey their husbands. The difficulties in marriage encountered by Lindo and Ying-ying as well as by An-mei’s mother emphasize how few options were open to women in a tightly structured society in which their economic security and social standing were completely dependent on men. Consequently, when the mothers immigrate to the United States, they want their daughters to retain their Chinese character but take advantage of the more flexible roles offered to women by American culture. The postwar baby-boomer daughters, however, are overwhelmed by having too many choices available. They struggle to balance multiple roles as career women, wives or girlfriends, and daughters. The materialistic focus of American culture makes it difficult for the daughters to internalize their mothers’ values, particularly the self-sacrifice, determination, and family integrity that traditional Chinese culture stresses. In addition to gender roles, mother-daughter relationships are an important focus of the book. Mothers are shown to have profound influence over their daughters’ development, yet their influence is constrained by the surrounding culture. As girls, the Chinese women wanted to be like their mothers, whereas the American-born daughters are estranged from their mothers. This contrast is consistent with a difference between cultures: Americans expect their children to rebel against parental authority, while the Chinese promote obedience and conformity. The daughters in  The Joy Luck Club  think that their mothers are odd because they speak broken English and miss the subtleties of American culture pertaining to dress and social behavior. They also tend to see their mothers as pushy. Waverly and June rebel against their mothers’ expectations without understanding that Lindo and Suyuan are trying to give their daughters the opportunities that they never had themselves. As adults, Waverly and June struggle with the conflicting desires of pleasing their mothers and developing their own individuality. Because they perceive their mothers’ guidance as criticism, they are slow to understand the depth of their mothers’ love and sacrifice for them. Indeed, Peter Tavernise in â€Å"Fasting of the Heart: Mother-Tradition and Sacred Systems in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club† asserts that â€Å"just as in the Confucian ritual system, very little of the mother-tradition in the text is told explicitly from mother to daughter: ritual actions are supposed to be observed, absorbed, read, and understood in order to be transformed, preserved and handed down in turn. † All in all, despite such generational and cultural gaps, the author suggests that daughters resemble their mothers in character as well as in appearance.

”The Death of Ivan Illyich” by Leo Tolstoy Essay Sample free essay sample

Leo Tolstoy’sThe Death of Ivan Illyichis one of those short narratives that are capable of impacting the readers so much so that their position of life undergoes a drastic alteration. Everyone can place with the characters and the simple. limpid manner of narrative makes it a really effectual piece of fiction. Few other short narratives have this far making effects and effects on the manner the readers look at life. The subject of the narrative is closely related to the fact that the narrative was written after Leo Tolstoy became profoundly spiritual and is a fictional vehicle for Tolstoy to propagate his spiritual beliefs and doctrine. The narrative confirms that the moral values of brotherly love. generousness and unselfishness are extremely of import if one wishes to take a fulfilling life. The subject of the narrative is hence the fact that if people wish to decease contented. they must recognize that following the right way in life is the lone solution. We will write a custom essay sample on †The Death of Ivan Illyich† by Leo Tolstoy Essay Sample or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The values imbibed in childhood are frequently forgotten as adult male moves to adulthood ; this is what we must guard against if on the deathbed. we wish to look back at life satisfactorily. The cardinal character and chief supporter is Ivan Illyich. He is the blue blood who leads his life harmonizing to what is expected of him in the high profile society. All major determinations of his life are taken merely because he wishes to keep his position and standing in the society. ( â€Å"Neither as a male child nor as a adult male was he a toady. but from early young person was by nature attracted to people of high station as a fly is drawn to the visible radiation. absorbing their ways and positions of life and set uping friendly dealingss with them†) His moral values are left far behind in his pursuit for the elusive sense of belonging to the high blue society. ( â€Å"†¦when subsequently on he saw that such actions were done by people of good place and that they did non see them as incorrect† ) He lives a shoal. disgruntled life and spends all his energies on geting mercenary ownerships that will assist him keep his position. Similarly. other major char acters- his married woman Praskovya and Peter. besides are caught up in this web of philistinism. ( â€Å"She knew how much could be got out of the authorities in effect of her husband’s decease. but wanted to happen out whether she could non perchance pull out something more† ) They all lead an unreal life and there is no contentment in their lives because they have condemned all that they should keep beloved and embraced all that they should eschew. On the other manus. the world of life is represented by the nurse Gerasim. Although hapless. Gerasim realizes what life should really intend. He entirely is capable of demoing humanist emotions of commiseration and compassion towards the ailment Ivan. Gerasim is besides the lone 1 who can come to footings with decease as a world of life and is therefore stoic in the calamity of Ivan’s decease (â€Å"It’sGod will. We shall all come to it some twenty-four hours. †) . He shows Ivan the true significance of life with love for all. understanding for all and existent. solid. loving relationships. In his last yearss. Ivan learns through Gerasim the existent manner of taking life that would be fulfilling and that would do a adult male happy at bosom. Even though Ivan learns to populate while gazing at decease. it is however a religious experience for him to recognize how incorrect he had been all his life. The hurting of his decease is lessened at the realisation that his moral values were ever present ; merely they had become hibernating in the heat of the universe. Merely as he is about to decease. Ivan realizes the true significance of life and therefore his last minute before decease is filled with a sense of satisfaction. fulfilment and therefore utmost joy. Through Ivan we learn that the Oklahoman we realize the true significance of life. the happier we will be. It took Ivan an full life-time to larn to populate. His experiences are chronicled in this short narrative and are for everyone to read and larn.

Bush a bad leader essays

Bush a bad leader essays One time while at a nightclub I ended up going home with a girl it just so happens that I ended up drinking too much and snorting way too much yayo. So were at my house and the clothes are coming off and it just so happens that I couldn't get an errection due to all the yayo I had snorted. Just like how this was embarrassing to me and it was just the girl and I. If it was that embarrassing for me, imagine how embarrassing it would be for somebody in public life. Our president was a cocaine addict and the world knows about it so how can our president be a good leader if he was and probably still is a cocaine addict. One reason why Bush isn't a good leader is because of his decision-making. He decided to send our troops into one of the most hostile cities in Iraq. So far about one thousand and sixty five U.S soldiers have been killed in Iraq, former NFL superstar Pat Tillman was killed in Iraq. Thousands more have been injured in this war and several have been beheaded, and it just so happens most of the men that have been beheaded have been Americans. With all of these killings happening bush still hasn't brought our troops back home. We have already done what we needed to do in Iraq and he insists on staying there in Iraq. Bush has also made dumb decisions by helping out the wealthy people more than the middle class and lower class. This past yr. he gave the healthy class of people 89 billion dollars to a class that is only one percent of America. President Bush is also trying to privatize social security, which will not be good on the middle class of America. He is not trying to fix it at al l he's not even trying to raise the age for social security. Not only is Bush a bad decision maker he is also against homosexuals getting married. Now why wouldn't you let a gay couple get married when it's their decision on which they want to marry. If the U.S is a free country then why can't a gay c ...

Error types of NNs and the role of L1 in SLA Essay

Error types of NNs and the role of L1 in SLA - Essay Example This research wouldn’t be possible without your participation and I am incredibly grateful for your help. Thanks to Dr.Maggie for helping us in preparing, editing and general guidance through the research and process. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it brings together the various theories and views and the research findings in the rules and functions in the second language learning (SLL), second, it shows the importance of the first language in learning second language. SLA as the name suggests is the study of second language acquisition. This definition has being refined by Dulay, Burt & Krashen (1982, pp10) SLA is â€Å"the process of learning another language after the basic of the first have been acquired, starting at about five years of age and thereafter†. In order to define the error types it is first important to know what NNS is. A Non-Native Speaker (NNS) is a person who is learning a language other than his own. Any NNS belonging to any language can learn a foreign language’s rules and laws of grammar and spelling. But he/she cannot learn the idioms, expressions and word pairings of the language because they cannot be described by the rules or laws of the foreign language or they might require the memorization of special-case rules. Regardless of the knowledge acquired by NNS of the grammatical rules, NNS continue to make a number of language errors. These are the error types of NNS. These errors include (Park et.al. 2008): Apart from the errors types of L1, there is a significant role played by L1 in acquiring L2 in SLA. According to Krashen (1982) when he talked about the role of first language L1 in second language acquisition SLA that â€Å"the only major source of syntactic errors in adult second language performance was the performers first language†. Some of the errors that arise are related to the interlingual errors. It occurs when the NNS’s L1 habits such as patterns or rules prevent the NNS

Midterm paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words - 1

Midterm paper - Essay Example One of the alternatives that have emerged is the concept of palliative care in which the patient is sedated, often to the point of unconsciousness, so that their last days are without the pain and the knowledge of their undignified state. Palliative care is not the level of dignity that people deserve and the right to die should be given where palliative care is nothing more than a less politically charged substitute. Background One of the things that slip away very quickly when faced with illness is the right to direct one’s own life. The first thing becomes the choices about the future and the way in which one will live within that future. As doctors, family members, and eventually hospital staff begin to make the decisions about how, what and when one will do things, an individual slips into the role of ‘the patient’, no longer able to function without instructions and care. The right to choose death over a continuation of indignity, pain, and eventual harsh tr eatment of the body has become an issue through which many different opinions have emerged. Euthanasia is illegal in all fifty states, with the exception of Oregon and Washington where it is legal for physicians to prescribe, but not administer, drugs that will lead to death in the case of terminal situations.1 The right to choose death over pain and the indignities of a prolonged illness that is terminal is denied, leaving people to languish in their final days. Dignity in death is not a new issue. In the 1970s one of the solutions that emerged was the development of hospice care. Hospice care has an emphasis and spiritual and comfort, the individual does within that type of care not wanting aggressive medical care (McKenna & Feingold, 2010). The choice within the hospice environment is death through natural and dignified means to the extent that it is possible. Hospice care is most often done in the home, people given the opportunity to pass in their own beds or at the least in a space that is comfortable and filled with memories. The average length of care for hospice is 26 days, with the end clearly near. This unfortunate late arrival, however, fails to allow for the full use of hospice that might have prolonged the peaceful experience of passing into death.2 Hospice care, however, is not always a good option and an intermediate form of providing some dignity with death is that of palliative care. Under palliative care, the patient is given high levels of pain killers although the loss of consciousness is not the intended result. This gives the patient the opportunity to interact with their families, creating a more healing environment even when the restoration of health is unlikely. Often, though, it will lead to an unconscious state, relieving pain and keeping the sedated through the end of their time. The high level of pain reducing medications are maintained until the patient dies, giving the end of their days relief from either pain and often from the conscious knowledge of their physical state. Palliative care offers a solution to the problem of how the end of life comes to a patient in a great deal of pain and living in an undignified set of circumstances. The American Medical Association The American Medi

Major Art Styles of the 18th and 19th Centuries Essay

Major Art Styles of the 18th and 19th Centuries - Essay Example "Cupid a Captive', as with most Rococo paintings, appeals to our sense of escapism with the offer of a playful romp with delicate indulgence. In the late 18th century artists began to remove the fanciful trappings of Rococo and saw a return to a more formal style of painting referred to as Neoclassicism. In Jacques-Louis David's "Oath of the Horatii", we are presented with a more hardened subject with brighter colors and more contrast. Neoclassicism is typified by straight lines, confidence in the mechanical structure, and a willingness to elevate its subjects to the standards of high ideals. David's painting depicts classic subjects in conflict, yet posed in its portrayal of balance and symmetry that is indicative of the Neoclassic period. Art from this period is often a reflection of allegiance to authority as mirrored from the society that produced it. The early 19th century was highlighted by the Romantic style of art. It embraced the notion of a relaxed state guided by feelings of romance and love. The "Entombment of Atala" painted by Girodet-Trioson, shows the more personal viewpoint of emotions as it appeals to our sense of love and tragedy. The romantic treatment given this painting shows in the artists use of natural lighting on subjects that are struggling against their own helplessness.