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American civilization

American civilization. SEMINAR ONE. AMERICA: WHAT COMES TO MIND?. Icons: culture specific image. AMERICANA. VARIOUS WAYS TO DESCRIBE AMERICA. A nation of nations  Society of Immigrants  A nation of people with a fresh memory of old traditions, who dare to explore new frontiers

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American civilization

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  1. American civilization SEMINAR ONE

  2. AMERICA: WHAT COMES TO MIND? • Icons: culture specific image

  3. AMERICANA

  4. VARIOUS WAYS TO DESCRIBE AMERICA • A nation of nations •  Society of Immigrants •  A nation of people with a fresh memory of old traditions, who dare to explore new frontiers • ”America is a mistake, a giant mistake” (Freud) • CIVILIZATION vs. WILDERNESS • Coca colonization

  5. AMERICA • What is the essence of America?  Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom "to" and freedom "from."  ~Marilyn vos Savant, in Parade • Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States.  Ask any Indian.  ~Robert Orben • America:  Where a man can say what he thinks, if he isn't afraid of his wife, his boss, his customer, his neighbors, or the government.  ~Joe Moore • America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy.  ~John Updike

  6. METAPHORS DESCRIBING AMERICAN CULTURE • Melting pot: loss of original culture White Anglo-saxon Protestant • Salad bowl: ethnic enclaves live side by side  Symphony: : polivocality • Rainbow: : Many colors • Kaleidoscope

  7. MELTING POT • The dominantparadigmuntilthe 1960s • St. Jean de Crévecoeur: promiscuousbreed: ”a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes” (1782) • ”Whatthen is the American, thisnew man? He is neither an European, nor a descendant of an European; hence thatstrangemixture of bloodwhichyouwillfindin no other country […] He is an American, who, leavingbehindhimallhisancientprejudices and manners, receivesnewonesfromthenewmode of life he has embraced, thenewgovernment, he obeys, and thenewrank he holds. He becomes an American by being receivedinthebroad lap of ourgreat Alma Mater. Here individuals of allnationsaremeltedinto a newrace of men,whoselabours and posteritywillonedaycausegreatchangesintheworld”

  8. MELTING POT • ”The energy of Irish, Germans, Swedes, Poles and Cossacks, andallthe European tribes,—and of theAfricans, and of thePolynesians—willconstruct a newrace, anewreligion, anewstate.” (Emerson) • ”Youcannotspill a drop of American bloodwithoutspillingtheblood of thewholeworld. […] Wearenot a nationsomuchasaworld” (MelvilleRedburn1849 ) • ”America is God’sCrucible, thegreatMelting Pot wherealltheraces of Europe aremelting and reforming! […] God is makingthe American […] He will be thefusion of allraces, thecomingsuperman” (Israel Zangwill 1908)

  9. BEYOND THE MELTING POT • ”The alien, whocomes here from Europe is nottherawmaterialAmericanssupposehimto be. He is not a blanksheetto be writtenonasyousee fit, he bringswithhim a deep-rootedtradition, asystem of culture, taste, and habitsthatcomesintoconflictwithAmericaassoonas he landed.” (Marcus RavageEli) • Saladbowl, mosaic: groupswithsimilarnational and ethnicbackgroundslivingsidebysidepreserving old identities, cultures, customs (Chinatown, Little Italy)

  10. BEYOND THE MELTING POT • Otherexplanations: static, constantchange is notindicated • Lawrence Fuchs: Kaleidoscopetheory, reflectingthedynamics of ethnicity: ”American ethnicity is kaleidoscopic: complex and varied, changingform, pattern, color… continuallyshifting fromoneset of relations toanother, rapidlychanging” • Virágos: a dynamicsystementailingtheinteraction of a primarycore and severalsecondarycores, parallel cultures

  11. THE STORY OF AMERICANS • A story of immigration and diversity • Celebration of diversity and cultural heritage

  12. NATIVE AMERICANS • Arrived 28,000 B.C • At the time of Columbian landfall: 1,5 million • At first relatively friendly relations, • Pocahontas, helps John Smith, 1608, First Thanksgiving 1621 • Worsening of relations: encroachment on territory, religious expansionism, undermining Indian culture

  13. NATIVE AMERICANS • Jamestown Massacre, 1622 Powhatan, Openchancanaugh • Indian is the archetypical enemy • Declaration of Independence ”Merciless savages” • 1838: Trail of Tears • 1876: Battle of Little Big Horn Custer’s Last Stand • 1890: Wounded Knee massacre, Indian: vanishing American

  14. NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE • Place names: Massachussetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Idaho • Corn, tomato, potato, tobacco • Canoes, snowshoes, moccassins • Guerilla warfare, fighting tactics, skirmishes

  15. THE GOLDEN DOOR • First great wave of immigration between 1840-1860: Old Immigration, Irish, Germans, • New Immigration: Non-WASP, Eastern, Central Europe, 1880-1924 • Symbolic processing point: Ellis Island • Statue of Liberty: „give me your tired, your poor, huddled masses yearning to breath free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, and I lift my lamp beside the golden door” • Reaction: nativism, 1924: Johnson-Reed Immigration Bill rejection of immigrants

  16. THE STATUE OF LIBERTY

  17. FOUNDATIONS OF CULTURE • Bible: City upon a hill—John Winthrop’s speech (1630) mission concept, American exceptionalism • Roman heritage: latin expressions • E pluribus unum One out of many • Novus ordo seclorum: New order for the world • English background, but Thomas Paine: Europe, and not England is the parent country of America • Virtuous Republic

  18. A MODELL OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY • For wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill • A city that is set on the hill cannot be híd. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick. • The eies of all people are uppon Us, soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee have undertaken, and soe casue him to withdraw his present help from us, wee shall be made a story, and a by-word through the world

  19. THE AMERICAN MISSION CONCEPT

  20. AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM

  21. UNWILLING IMMIGRANTS • 1619: First Africans arrive • 1619-1808 Importation of slaves • 1865: Elimination of slavery • 1896-1954: Segregation: legally justified separation of the races • Plessy v. Ferguson 1896: separate but equal • Brown v. Board of Education 1954 separate but equal has no place

  22. SEGREGATION

  23. FIGHTING SEGREGATION • The separate but equal doctrine has failed in three important respects. First it is inconsistent with the fundamental equalitarianism of the American way of life in that it marks groups with the brand of inferior status. Secondly, where it has been followed, the results have been separate and unequal facilities for minority peoples. Finally, it has kept people apart despite incontrovertible evidence that an environment favorable to civil rights is fostered whenever groups are permitted to live and work together. • President's Committee on Civil Rights, 1947

  24. CIVIL RIGHTS • 1955: Montgomery Bus Boycott • 1963: Martin Luther King I have a Dream • 1964: Civil Rights Act • 1965: Voting Rights Act the revolution of rising expectations, Malcolm X • Affirmative Action-positive discrimination, compensatory policy for past suffering, preferential treatment for minorities, women in housing, employment, and education ,Bakke v. U.C. Davis

  25. I have a dream…. • Digital worksheet

  26. NATIVISM: Notallwelcome? • Rejection of immigrants • Indian resistance to settlers • William Bradford: mixed multitude, bestiality • Benjamin Franklin: palatine boors • 1882: Chinese Exclusion Act • 1907: Gentlemen’s Agreement • 1915 Ku Klux Klan against immigrants • William Simmons: America is a garbage can

  27. NATIVISM • William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, Norton Anthology of American Literature, Third Edition, From Book II, Chapter XXXII, Anno Dom: 1642 • [A HORRIBLE CASE OF BEASTIALITY] • And after the time of the writing of these things befell a very sad accident of the like foul nature in this government, this very year, which I shall now relate. • There was a youth whose name was Thomas Granger. He was servant to an honest man of Duxbury, being about 16 or 17 years of age. (His father and mother lived at the same time at Scituate.) He was this year detected of buggery, and indicted for the same, with a mare, a cow, two goats, five sheep, two calves and a turkey. Horrible it is to mention, but the truth of the history requires it. He was first discovered by one that accidentally saw his lewd practice towards the mare. (I forbear particulars.) Being upon it examined and committed, in the end he not only confessed the fact with that beast at that time, but sundry times before and at several times with all the rest of the forenamed in his indictment. And this his free confession was not only in private to the magistrates (though at first he strived to deny it) but to sundry, both ministers and others; and afterwards, upon his indictment, to the whole Court and jury; and confirmed it at his execution. And whereas some of the sheep could not so well be known by his description of them, others with them were brought before him and he declared which were they and which were not. And accordingly he was cast by the jury and condemned, and after executed about the 8th of September, 1642. A very sad spectacle it was. For first the mare and then the cow and the rest of the lesser cattle were killed before his face, according to the law, Leviticus xx. 15 and then he himself was executed. The cattle were all cast into a great and large pit that was digged of purpose for them, and no use made of any part of them.

  28. NATIVIST VOICES • ”men of thesturdystocksofthenorthof Europe made upthe main force of immigrants, butnow ‘multitudesofmenofthelowestclassfromthesouthofItaly and men of themeaner sort out of Hungary and Polandwho had neitherskillnorenergynor an initiative of quickintelligencewerecoming.” (Woodrow Wilson 1901) • ”wideopen and unguarded stand ourgates, and throughthempresses a wild, amotleythrong, whobringwiththemunknowngods and rites.” (Thomas BaileyAldrich 1892)

  29. NEW IMMIGRATION PATTERNS • 1945: Main source: Latin America, Southeast Asia • 1978: Elimination of hemispheric quotas, opening the door wider • 1990: Revised immigration law: admitting 675,000 immigrants each year • Diversity visas for countries with few immigrants (Bangladesh, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago)

  30. ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION • Approximately 5 million people • 1986: Simpson-Mazzoli bill: amnesty to illegal aliens • Strong penalties for businesses hiring illegal immigrants

  31. CRUCIAL TERMS • Explain the following: • Frontier, polivocality, diversity • Encroachment, archetypal, vanishing • Nativism, heritage, segregation • Compensatory policy

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