...In the passage Rights of Man by Thomas Paine, he portrays America as a land of justice for all, with fair opportunities. Overall the statement made by Paine referring to how all cultures live in unison still hold true today through things such as America being known as a “melting point.” However the differences between the poor and the rich has grown drastically because of the government’s focus on the rich and taxes have drastically became higher. One example that still shows Paine’s description still holds true is immigration. America is still one of the top countries that receives immigrants. With so many cultures present, each are able to freely share what they believe in. You can see this across the country, for example, the “China...
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...ESL 1600 PEIYUAN YAN Final Paper Intolerance Problem Part 1 - 1: There are many different cultures, religions and political parties in the world. Everyone is different, different people have different cultures, religions and experiences, so intolerance is a major problem in our lives. Intolerance is the act of not liking someone, or respecting them, because they are different. An intolerant person wants everybody to act in the same way. Intolerance is a principal problem all over the world. It has been an international problem within last 10 years, as all of the wars originate from problems such as religion, race, politics and so on. “Religious oppression and intolerance in China”, “African in America” and “Ghost Dance at Wounded Knee” all talk about intolerance problems. Firstly, I will talk about the “Religious oppression and intolerance in china”. In the last 10 years, the Chinese government relentlessly suppressed non-registered religious groups. Falun Gong is a good example of the suppressed. In order to suppress the Falun Gong and other non-registered religious movements, the Chinese government used the anti-cult movement to limit and suppress them. The Chinese government said: “Falun Gong is a cult, cults do not obey the law, they upset the social order, and they often use the deceit of creating a religious freedom and a stable society to deceive more people to join their religion. They participate in political activities, some of them even tax evasion, drug trafficking...
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...America is “considered” to be a land of opportunities, promises, independence, hope, and freedom. The poor have little to no chance to get richer, while the rich remain rich. America has always been characterized as the land of dreams and opportunities. Immigrants entering America took these characterizations to heart. The dreams and aspirations of stable, wealthy, and happy lives in America became known as the “American Dream”. The basic idea of the American Dream generally has stayed the same throughout time, although the majority of Americans seem to take the Dream for granted. The first settlers arrived to the New World in search of a treasure: life, liberty, and freedom. This treasure was and still is the American Dream. Now people from all over the world come to America in search of the same Dream; some even die trying. People were not as materialistic as people are now; they just wanted happiness. As time passed, people became more materialistic and began to take for granted what they were born with. However, the “American Dream” hardly ever turns out like any individuals have anticipated. America is often considered as the “best country” in the world, but behind this façade, many people struggle daily to earn enough money to survive. America has had its times of despair and advances but through it all we have learned new ways, cultures, and overall advancements in life. Throughout the American Ways book we were given to read and analyze, there were...
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...in America and never quite fitting in with both her traditional Indian background and her new American community. Lahiri’s stories express her personal encounter with evading her Indian heritage. She involves in her work the everyday struggles of being stuck between two cultures and remaining true to one’s self. The majority of her stories incorporate her main character having an identity crisis. Lahiri herself, as well as some of her close friends, battled with defining her sense of self as well as how it affected her personal relationships. The author’s stories are relatable in a sense that it deals with the everyday struggles finding one’s true self. On July 11, 1967, Nilanjana Sudheshna Lahiri was born in London England to Bengali Indian immigrants. At the age of three, Nilanjana and her family relocated to the West of the Atlantic to Rhode Island. Because her name was difficult to pronounce, her teacher called her by her nickname, Jhumpa. It was only a pet name that her parents called her, but in America, it became the name she was called by her friends and teachers. This event would mark the beginning of her struggle to assimilate in America. Her father was and still is a librarian at the University of Rhode Island, which influenced her love of reading and writing. While growing up, Jhumpa was often conflicted between both American and Indian culture. “She's struggled for four decades to feel like she belonged in America.” (Jhumpa Lahiri’s Struggle to...
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...would be such a struggle, and how they will be humiliated by others who are citizen of America. Immigration is a common issue in the United States Every person should have the right to have the chance to have a better life. It is one of the main reasons why people come to the United States, to have freedom of religion, to have better paying jobs, and to have a proper education. Where you are born does not have a lot of impact with who you become. When coming to America from another country like Africa, or like me coming from Haiti, it is a hard transition. There is a lot to take in, with learning English and being around another race. Other race put a lot of pride into representing they come from. Where I was born has little to do with it. My heritage and my ancestry go with me wherever I go. When asked to describe myself, Haitian is a word I most likely choose first. I say Haitian before I begin to use words like strong willed, independent or trustworthy. Being that I use Haitian before any other characteristic goes to show that being Haitian shapes me to whom I am. Living in American for ten years, I learned about American culture. American culture is a culture of all cultures, it is a diverse culture. As a person I believe that it is very important to stay true to yourself. Even though I am an American citizen, I have never considered myself to be an American. Whenever someone asks me for my nationality, I say that I am Haitian. I know about my culture, I know people...
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...On double consciousness Double consciousness,according to dubois, “this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others,of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity “.Double consciousness not only in the history of African-American,it still relevant to contemporary society . In The Soul of Black Folk Dubois announced his preoccupation with the “strange meaning of being black”and defined the “double consciousness”..Dubois’s preoccupation with the “strange meaning of being black”was no doubt affected by the facts that his father was a Haitian of French and American descent and his mother was an American of Dutch and African descent.As a black, as a educator and writer,i think Dubois exactly how double consciousness tastes like.So he spent his life to study the society of America and Africa1 intended to solve the racial problems. Paris Is Burning chronicles the ball culture of New York City and the African-American, Latino, gay, and transgender communities involved in it.At the film ,the people think the transgender are crazy and sick ,but they think they are the most gorgeous things in the world .As a gay transgender man,they sometimes feel like they have to “choose” between the two, and they often live their life not through their perspective. Recently i watched a TV drama named The Knick.It looks at The Knickerbocker Hospital in New York during the early part of the twentieth century.There is a African-American doctor...
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...Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, a American born daughter of Chinese immigrants, a variety of collisions within Chinese-American cultures is explained. Most significantly the characters of Jing-Mei, representing the Americanized new generation of Chinese culture, and Suyuan, representing the Old Chinese generation, exemplify this throughout the novel. For instance, when Jing-Mei Woo or “June”, the daughter of Suyuan Woo, who founded the Joy Luck Club, is introduced, she represents the Americanized new generation of the Chinese daughters in the story, which can already be inferred because of the Americanization of her name from Jing-Mei to “June”. She struggles with accepting her heritage and -like the other daughters in the novel- is a conformist to American culture and society, trying to abandon Chinese customs and values. While her mother, Suyuan Woo, represents the mothers in the story who are the older Chinese generation with laid back values and expectations trying to ensure an opulent life for their children....
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...Facing Poverty with a rich girl’s habits is an essay written by Suki Kim. This essay is about a young girl and her struggles to be accepted in the American culture as a Korean immigrant. One would view the most important point of this essay is understanding the shock Suki kim and her family went through adjusting from their extravagant life style, to working class, even being considered lower class family. Suki kim had to realize what life would be like living in America without the comforts of money, maids, chauffeurs and tutors at her side at all times. Suki Kim was thrown into a world she had never known before, coming to America in 1983, a teenager that had lived in Korea until that point. She was facing and seeing things that would be hard for her to understand and she would face challenges that she would work hard to overcome. One of the important facts of this essay about Suki Kim is the complete difference in culture she faced. She came from a country and a world of luxury and wealth, to living in a two-family brownstone house in Woodside, NY. Kim herself said the house was a “crammed, ugly place”. Suki reflected on the differences she saw in her school in Korea and the new school she went to in America. She said the children in Korea were taught to bow at their teachers to show respect, they would wear slippers in the building to keep the floors clean, a big difference from the graffiti filled walls and policeman guarded gate of her new school. As Suki Kim didn’t...
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...important and necessary ingredient in the fabric which sets us apart from other cultures in the world. It is a heritage that is uniquely ours. Cultural traditions and stories provide a basis upon which generations to come can connect to all the factors that have shaped how they are living today. The next generation learns from the last and ancestral stories are repeated, passed down and incorporated into the fabric of the uniqueness of individuals within a culture. Within the vast boundaries of our nation there are unique and geographical cultures that have succeeded in surviving despite the odds and then there are the stories of those who didn’t succeed. Both cultures build upon bonding born from the hardship of working the soil in rural America, but only one of these cultures has found a way to liberate its people and share the truths associated with those struggles. Maya Angelou speaks to the African American Culture in her work “Reclaiming our Home Place”. She captures the tragic yet rich history of the America’s south and how celebrating this history as a culture has set the once enslaved African American free. (Angelou) Further to the northwest, based in the rural by-ways of America is the story of the people who claimed the plains as their heritage as told by Kathleen Norris in “Can you Tell the Truth in a Small Town?” The plains and her people’s culture faced very different struggles and remain bound to secret societies of shame and shared silent failures which challenge...
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...movement. As the title suggests, the painting is a description of the history of African-Americans from slavery through reconstruction time. The art piece is divided up into different sections and highlights the racism toward African-Americans. On the left side of the painting you see black people with drums and a crop growing in the background. This section of the painting shows a time where Africans were free and not slaves. Moving a little to the right, we see oppression and slavery through the black people being hunched over in the painting. Towards the middle of the art piece we see a person standing up pointing and showing the desire to fight against slavery and to the right of him you see people with their fists up and ready to fight against the oppression and slavery. This piece of art explores Negro heritage from left to right. I like this piece of art because of the soft colors and the neutral appearance of the silhouettes of people. This painting describes African-American culture and their struggle to end slavery. Everything in this painting describes life of African-American and their struggle in the 1900’s. Historical Context Douglas’s painting Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery to Reconstruction provided a big contribution during the New Negro movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. This movement increased awareness of black art and culture. The Harlem Renaissance movement helped African-Americans identify with their racial pride, and the importance...
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...Many poets are one of the greatest ways for us to reflect on much of the culture throughout our history. Great works from tragic romances of William Shakespeare, eerie writings of Edger Alan Poe, or inspiring words from Maya Angelo, have allowed us to see some of life experiences and feeling through the writings of these inspired men and women. It is easy to see the times and trials these poets dealt with through their works, you could easily see the social, economic and cultural lifestyles they lived in. One of the historical poets I have had the opportunity of reading and learning about was Langston Hughes. His work sheds light on readers of today, on the social culture and ways of the early 1900’s to mid 1900’s. The unfortunate issue of slavery and inequality was very prevalent in the writings of Mr. Hughes. He wrote with a sense of the unfairness he was dealing with, as well as being a voice for those enduring the segregation as well. Only a few of his poems allowed us to see he had a hopeful side and would appear to write on day dream type things, like the sun and the rain. I wanted to point out on two particular poems that Hughes wrote, “Democracy” and “Let America be America Again”. In these poems many of the social indiscrepencies were obviously a huge factor in the way he felt. But as I read through these poems I could almost see a few similarities with the social issues of this present time. Although the segregation and separation was indeed more prevalent...
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...American Born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang, shows the struggle of adapting to white American culture, from the viewpoint of a non-white race. It shows how white Americans tend to ostracize other races and because they are “different”. Other races are grouped as one culture, even if they aren’t in the same culture. Because you are ostracize, you also tend to look as yourself as different. Jin and the Monkey King are the perfect examples of how your race or looks can define you and your culture. It also shows how a person can change themselves to try and fit in with a race or status. Throughout the book, we see differences between Jin and his cousin, who turns out be the Monkey King. Even though Jin follows American culture and his cousin follows...
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...n Translation Nation, Hector Tobar visits different cities around America to learn first hand about the struggles Latin American immigrants faced and how they endured through the pain and suffering to forge new identities and transform America. Tobar reveals the unsettling changes these immigrants undergo becoming American as they undertake tribulations in new lands, struggling to reinvent their identities while continuing to embrace and nurture their Latin American identities. The United States is undergoing major demographic and cultural changes primarily driven by Latinos, leading to the Americanization of Latinos and the Latinization of America as a new Latin Republic in the United States develops where immigrants can embrace their transnational identity. I will detail the adversity Latin Americans endured immigrating to America described in chapter five, explain how they come together to build a community and reinvent new...
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...African American author, wrote a plethora of impactful and praise worthy literature. However, Invisible Man is a piece that was defined the “historic moment of the mid-twentieth-century America and forced reconsideration of the powers of fiction” (247). Through this text Ellison highlights the necessary presence of existentialism, a theory which places value on the existence of the individual person as free and responsible for their own actions behaving on their own will. Not only does Ellison highlight a need for identity, but he specifically relates this need to African Americans during this time. Ellison questions whether or not race is an authentic marker of individuality and identity. The...
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...The Interpreter illustrate languagelessness of Chinese and Korean immigrants across American states, which are rejection by failing assimilation into American mainstream, loneliness and isolation from other people, and sense of identity crisis. Rejection by failing assimilation into American mainstream For the first generation born in America, it is especially difficult to reconcile the heavy-handed and often restrictive traditions of the emigrants with the relative freedom of life in America. In Women Warrior, Kingston draws a sharp contrast between her fantasy about Fa Mu Lan, the Chinese traditional woman warrior, and the defining moments of her real "American life." Fa Mu Lan had her village's grievances tattooed on her back; Kingston has Chinese stories practically drilled into her brain and is labeled with racial epithets. Her personal struggle and vengeance lie in making sense of the stories through writing, in depicting through words the struggles of growing up Chinese-American. There is an important difference, though, Fa Mu Lan could achieve her vengeance and then return home, but Kingston's vengeance seems to be a never-ending struggle. She has so many words to deal with that "they do not fit on my skin." The Woman Warrior is just the beginning of Kingston's attempt to articulate her experience, and her journey as a writer is far from over. Whereas Fa Mu Lan vanquishes entire armies and defeats evil barons and giants, Kingston cannot even stand up to the pettiest racist...
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