...The Story of the Fourth of July The Declaration of Independence We celebrate American Independence Day on the Fourth of July every year. We think of July 4, 1776, as a day that represents the Declaration of Independence and the birth of the United States of America as an independent nation. But July 4, 1776 wasn't the day that the Continental Congress decided to declare independence (they did that on July 2, 1776). It wasn’t the day we started the American Revolution either (that had happened back in April 1775). And it wasn't the day Thomas Jefferson wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence (that was in June 1776). Or the date on which the Declaration was delivered to Great Britain (that didn't happen until November 1776). Or the date it was signed (that was August 2, 1776). So what did happen on July 4, 1776? The Continental Congress approved the final wording of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. They'd been working on it for a couple of days after the draft was submitted on July 2nd and finally agreed on all of the edits and changes. July 4, 1776, became the date that was included on the Declaration of Independence, and the fancy handwritten copy that was signed in August (the copy now displayed at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.) It’s also the date that was printed on the Dunlap Broadsides, the original printed copies of the Declaration that were circulated throughout the new nation. So when people thought of the Declaration of Independence...
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...feet tall! The tallest statue in the US is the Statue of Liberty which stands 151 feet tall. In the story we are going to look at today, a tall item was built; it was 90 feet tall and 9 feet wide. SESSION STARTER: (Need – scrap paper, masking tape) – I’ve got a challenge for you. It’s a timed challenge. In 5 minutes I want you to build a statue that can stand on its own using only the scrap paper and masking tape. The tallest statue that can stand alone, wins. After they are built ask: Why do people build statues? (for many different reasons; to honor war heroes, show respect to someone as a way to remember them for something they did or who they were; statue of liberty was a gift from France to the US that was to represent freedom and welcome immigrants to the US.) In the Bible, why were statues often built? (For worshipping false idols/gods) In our bible story today, a statue was built. But it wasn’t built for a good reason. BIBLE STORY: (Play hosted story then recount the story) Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon. He did NOT worship God, but worshipped false gods. He made a tall statue out of gold and called for all the important officials to come and stand around the statue. “When you hear the sound of music, you must fall down and worship this gold statue. Anyone who does not obey this rule will be thrown into a fiery furnace!” The rule was for everyone, so when the people heard the sound of music, they fell down and worshipped the gold statue. Three men from Judah...
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...Cisneros exposes the life of the main character, Esperanza, for one year as she struggles with trying to find her place in America as a Chicana young girl while also coming of age. The novel starts the day Esperanza and her family of six move into a house on Mango Street, and immediately she expresses her antipathy for not only the house, but also for the area in which they move into and the people around who judge them because of their ethnicity. The story is not told in the traditional format of a continuous story divided into chapters, but rather Cisneros uses forty-four vignettes to allow for the reader to fully understand why Esperanza has the struggles that she has. Along with Cisneros’ illustrating Esperanza’s looking for her identity through images of Esperanza’s thoughts and female obedience, symbolism of violence, legs, the Statue for Liberty, and Nenny, and diction of Spanish words, not using quotation marks, and a maturing tone, she also uses these them to permeate Esperanza’s desperation to leave Mango Street throughout the whole novel. Cisneros’ use of vignettes highlights important moments in Esperanza’s life that emphasize how she develops over the course of a year. Cisneros uses the brevity of the vignettes to enhance the imagery to give the most vivid image through her limited amount of words for each of the forty-four vignettes. Not writing in these vignettes would have allowed her to portray more lengthy and not as focused images to her readers with more...
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...Mexican day laborers can be seen standing on the side of the streets of my neighborhood every morning. I’m not sure why the concentration is higher in my neighborhood than anywhere else I have seen on the island, but there they are, every morning, hoping to get picked up to work that day. Sometimes I wonder how someone is picked over the guy standing next to him. Sometimes I wonder why they stand there at all - when people have 100 men to choose from, the odds of working that day are stacked pretty high. Then I stop and think about what they are going to be asked to do that day in exchange for $50-$100. They’ll be asked to do jobs that their more affluent counterparts feel are “below” them or that they “don’t have time” to do themselves – painting the outside of the house, de-winterizing the back yard for the family barbeque, trimming the hedges and mowing the lawn, cleaning up after a septic tank overflows. It is work that takes physical strength, the willingness to get dirty, to sweat in the hot sun, and to be physically exhausted when you walk in the door at night, and they line up on the side of the road every morning hoping to be picked. In his poem So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs from Americans, Baca writes about how Americans focus on the negative aspects of immigrants, but don’t look at the reality of what they contribute to our society, nor the reality of what the hard-working men and women face at the end of the day. Baca writes the poem in a tone that mocks Americans...
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...type of culture, we have become a nation that is no longer blended as one culture. The reason for this dramatic change in the culture of America is that people relocating to America are not as willing to adapt, and those already here are not as accepting as they once were. Even though out of many one, remains our country’s motto, multiculturalism does not work because one culture is not accepting of another and new cultures do not want to change and adapt. For many years, people who immigrated to America were mostly of European heritage. These immigrants wanted to become part of the “melting pot” culture. When these immigrants came to America, one would have thought that the first thing they did was to begin to learn the English language although for the first generation of immigrants this was not true. Many of the first generation European immigrants did not want to lose their old way of life. Although, the future generations were not in agreement with this idea. Their desire was to come to America for a better life, and in their mind, in order to do that, they must become part of the culture and were very proud of...
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...Immigration Services. "How Do I Help My Relative Become a U.S. Permanent Resident." U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Department. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Aug. 2008. Web. October 2011. http://www.uscis.gov/USCIS/Resources/A1en.pdf The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published a customer guide for U.S. citizen’s that are trying to help their relative(s) become a lawful permanent resident of the United States. Part A1 of the I Am a U.S. Citizen guide is three pages long and provides directions and assistance for those attempting to help their relatives obtain a “green card.” The guide is broken into sections titled with a question and each section gives an answer to the question and in most cases gives examples as well. The questions, serving as sections in the guide, involve the steps and potentially special circumstances that are involved in helping a relative achieve U.S. residency. The guide is read clearly and makes an attempt to answer any possible questions by using the most frequently asked ones. The answers provide directions on what to do and give an example for clarity. In some cases there are more than one example for multiple circumstances. The purpose of the guide is not only to educate, but also to assist. The audience is mainly intended for those who are interested in helping a relative(s) of theirs to acquire U.S. residency. Other potential audience members may include the immigrant themselves, or employers...
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...Should United States Employer's be Held Accountable for Hiring Illegal Immigrants? Jason Ross, Kellie Carroll, Kimberly Fitzpatrick, Mallory Hildebrandt, & Sherry Baxter BCOM/275 September 26, 2011 Mr. Dion Williams Our borders are surrounded with security to help stop immigrants from flooding illegally into the United States of America. After the September 11th terrorist attacks on our nation, it is hard to ignore the fact that we have to tighten up. As the world’s melting pot it is a dream for so many to come into our country. As read on the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” This represents what America is all about, from our founding fathers, The Constitution clearly states, “We the People.” So many Americans feel it is time to shut our doors as the welcome has worn off. With crime rates, terrorism, and unemployment at all-time highs, it begs the question: Should U.S. employers be held accountable for hiring illegal immigrants? Yes, they should! Because of the U.S hiring illegal immigrants, there is less jobs for citizens. “Undocumented immigrants are gaining a larger share of the job market, and hold approximately 12 to 15 million jobs in the United States (Justich, Ng 2005). The documented number for immigrants is roughly over 900,000. The American unemployment rate is approximately 9%. The jobs that we have available are not just being outsourced to other nations, but also to non-citizens...
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...are buying a handgun. The gun shop owner is getting angry at the man for speaking Farsi and which ends with Farhad being escorted out of the store. Dorri then picks a free box of ammo to go with the gun and leaves the store. Then we jump to two young black men called Anthony and Peter who have just left a restaurant. Anthony complains about how they were the victims of racism and poor service while Peter doesn’t really find what happened that big of an ordeal. A white couple then walk down the same street, Rick and Jean who sees Anthony and Peter then proceeds to grab her husband’s arm. Anthony sees this as a racial gesture and then they draw handguns and carjack them as they are entering their vehicle, and Peter puts a St. Christopher statue on the dashboard that is regarded as the patron saint of travelling. Graham and Ria arrive at a crime scene where in a road rage panic, two cops who weren’t in uniform started shooting at each leaving one of them dead at the scene. The survivor is a white man and the dead man. The detective is unsure who started the shooting. However this isn’t really important to the overall point of the film. At home Jean is still upset and even though a...
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...Three dimensions of culture were explored: Virginia’s involvement in the French and Indian War (which was beginning right around 1755), Virginia’s economy, and its religious affiliations. A section on colonists’ relations with Native Americans was also written, of which The Virginia Gazette gave detailed insights and accounts, but due to the page limit of the assignment, the section was omitted. Involvement in the French and Indian War In 1730, the population of the Virginia colony was about 114,000. The next 20 years saw an explosion of growth in population due to the increasing demand of indentured servants needed on plantations. Also, Governor Spotswood encouraged immigration to the outskirts of Virginia in the hopes that immigrant townships could alert Virginia’s ports of any possible attacks from Native Americans before their arrival. By the time the French and Indian War had begun, Virginia’s population had climbed to just under 300,000 (Virginia History Series). Virginia’s most profitable crop at the time was tobacco, which exhausted land very quickly, and spurred the plantation owners to make gradual movements inland from the coast. Due to their plans to develop land further West, Virginia plantation owners claimed the vast majority of land in the Ohio River, which was the central piece of territory that the Seven Years’ War was fought over....
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...kill and take only what they need and use the entire kill. The Whites left the carcass. It was used by them for clothes, tools, food, shelter, ect. Before the horse the NA would hunt them by running them over a cliff or scaring them into a trap. The Spanish introduces the horse to them. They discovered that it was a great work and hunting animal. They were migratory and would travel with the food source. Some tribes would be sever thousand people but would break into smaller bands of 500 to 700. Ever band had their own government. This created conflict in territory, fishing rights, and food. They did have a division of labor, Men hunted, fished, traded, supervised ceremonies. Med would clear ground for planning but women would do the planting. Women cared for children, grew gardens, took care of the camp, The women would take the...
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...American Holidays The following are holidays that we celebrate in the United States: New Years Eve and New Years Day New Years Day is the first day of the year, January 1st. it is a celebration of the old year and the new one to come. People make New Years Resolutions each New Years and promise themselves that they will keep this resolution until next year. New Years Eve is a major social event. Clubs everywhere are packed with party-goers who stay out all night and go nuts at midnight. At midnight it is a tradition to make lots of noise. The traditional New Years Ball is dropped every year in Times Square in New York City at 12 o’clock. This event can be seen all over the world on television. Valentine’s Day Saint Valentine’s Day is a day that is set aside to promote the idea of “love”. It is celebrated on February 14th. People send greeting cards or gifts to loved one and friends to shoe them that they care. Easter Easter is a major Christian holiday that commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is celebrated on Sunday between March 22 and April 25. The 40 days leading up to Easter are observed as Lent. Besides the religious aspects of Easter, people also celebrate spring or the sign of the new life. Flowers are seen everywhere. There are often Easter Parades such as the one in New York City where people dress up in their new spring clothes. Children receive Easter baskets filled with candy Easter eggs, chocolate bunnies and jelly beans! The dying...
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...Christopher Columbus: The Original American Hero? Was Columbus a hero or a villain? Maybe it’s neither. Columbus was brave and daring, and did things that were important to world history. But he wasn’t heroic in the sense of displaying great moral qualities. Courage, while generally a good character trait, isn’t necessarily heroic or even highly honorable and praiseworthy unless it’s deployed in certain kinds of actions or causes. But he also wasn’t especially villainous in the sense of displaying particular evil qualities. His arrival in the Americas caused a great deal of death to American Indians, chiefly from disease. And it caused the subjugation and literal or virtual enslavement of the Indians. But this didn’t stem from Columbus’s being an unusually evil person. It stemmed from the brutality of the time, coupled with the contact between one culture that was much more powerful than another (and that carried many communicable diseases to which members of the other culture lacked resistance). I’m inclined to say that we shouldn’t celebrate Columbus Day, precisely because such national celebrations should be focused on honoring people who did things that were both especially important and especially honorable (such as veterans, President Washington, or Martin Luther King, Jr.) and not just on people who did things that were especially important. This might conceivably include not-necessarily-good people who did things that were unambiguously good. But European expansion...
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...crusade and discuss the extent to which it accomplished its objectives. Why did it succeed or fail? Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades: A Short History; Carole Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives; Christopher Tyerman, God’s War: A New History of the Crusades 2. How did anti-Semitism manifest itself in medieval Europe? Kenneth R. Stow, Alienated Minority: The Jews of Medieval Latin Europe; Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages; Solomon Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the Thirteenth Century 3. What was the position of prostitutes in medieval society? Ruth Mazo Karras, Common Women; Leah Otis, Prostitution in Medieval Society; Margaret Wade Labarge, A Small Sound of the Trumpet: Women in Medieval Life 4. Why did the French choose to follow Joan of Arc during the the Hundred Years War? Kelly DeVries, Joan of Arc: A Military Leader; Bonnie Wheeler, ed., Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc; Margaret Wade Labarge, A Small Sound of the Trumpet: Women in Medieval Life 5. Discuss the significance of siege warfare during the crusades. You may narrow this question down to a single crusade if you wish. Jim Bradbury, The Medieval Siege; Randall Rogers, Latin Siege Warfare in the Twelfth Century; John France, Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade 6. Why did the persecution of heretics increase during the high and later Middle...
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...Houston Community College Homework 1-5 Presented To: Lloyd W. Gaddis By Yushana Ford Government 2305 8:00A.M- 9:30A.M Mon/Wed 09/20/2015 Chapter 1: The More Things Change…The More They Stay the Same 1. Analyze current problems and issues in American Government by applying Historical perspectives: -History Repeats Itself +A new Communication medium paves the way to Electoral Victory- Meaning the internet and social media have revolutionized American politics. Campaign advertising is the use of an advertising campaign through the media to influence political debate and ultimately voters. Political advertising has changed drastically over the last several decades. Harry S. Truman was proud of his accomplishment of shaking approximately 500,000 hands but his accomplishment was soon pale compared to the next presidential election with the advent of television, war hero and presidential candidate D.W Eisenhower created commercials to get votes and so on and it different with different elections and different decades. +The Power of Incumbency- It is usually used in reference to elections where races can often be defined as being between an incumbent and non-incumbents. Incumbents have easier access to campaign finance and government resources that can be indirectly used to boost a campaign. Incumbency is any elected official who is already in office and seeking re-election. 2. Explain the Philosophical underpinnings of American Political System through...
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...All About Japan "A land of incredible diversity: modern yet steeped in custom; home of the friendliest of welcomes. A country of blazing neon lights and rugged mountains, coasts and valleys." Japan has a fascinating and multifaceted culture; on the one hand it is steeped in the deepest of traditions dating back thousands of years; on the other it is a society in a continual state of rapid flux, with continually shifting fads and fashions and technological development that constantly pushes back the boudaries of the possible. It could therefore be said that Japan is a country of stark contradictions and is in part this that makes it such a fascinating country to visit and unique tourist destination. If you are looking for something different you are sure to find it here! People One people, one race? Japanese people appear at first glance to be one of the most socially and ethnically homogenous groups in the world. It is reasonable to equate Japan’s rapid post-war economic development to the 1990s with social solidarity and conformism. Despite labour shortages since the 1960s, authorities resisted officially sanctioning foreign workers until the 1980s, relying on increased mechanization and an expanded female workforce instead (1). Until recently, Japanese workers have associated themselves primarily with the company they work for – a businessman will introduce himself as ‘Nissan no Takahashi-san’ (I am Nissan’s Mr Takahashi). By extension, we might get the idea that a Japanese...
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