This work explained a little-inquired about wonder: the difficulties of a foreigner gathering living among a bigger basically local conceived white populace in a little, to some degree disengaged cultivate town. An essential attestation of the work is that the Czechs of Prague, Oklahoma experienced social and basic absorption more quickly than Czechs in urban conditions or Czechs living in homogeneous provincial zones. The purposes behind this were many, including the wilderness condition of the group which constrained the occupants to coordinate all together for the town to succeed. Different methods of reasoning for the fast cultural assimilation incorporated the size and provincial area of Prague and the way that the town additionally incorporated an African American people group, which ingested the brunt of segregation. A sub-postulation of the exposition is that regardless of the brisk cultural assimilation, the Czech newcomers set up a changeless nearness in the little cultivating town on the edge of the Great Plains. The ethnic gathering kept up their way of life as Bohemians, not in the multicultural sense whereby they enduringly held to their local tongue and local routes, nor in a representative sense in which the main outstanding remnants are open celebrations and kolache bistros, yet in a considerably more profound, existential sense they stayed Czech; they protected and passed on an interior feeling of…
Infested with experiences and resentment like the rats in the tenements of contemporary New York City, Riis argues that the other half: the good living half; does not care about the struggles of the other half: who are poor and unfortunate. Riis says, “Long ago it was said that ‘one half of the world does not know how the other half lives.’ That was true then. It did not know because it did not care. The half that was on top cared little for the struggles and less for the fate of those who were underneath,” Riis argues that contemporary New York City society lacks fairness, equality of opportunity and sympathy for the other half. Riis brings to light: the Italians, Chinese, Jews, Blacks and Bohemians in descriptions of their habits, tradition, jobs and wages, rents paid and meals eaten, and explores the effects of crime, poverty, alcohol, and lack of education and opportunity on adults and children alike. Riis says “problem of children…makes one feel aghast”, (135) here he shows personal view and sympathy for children and the future. Riis has shined a light on all these minorities that make up “the other half,” maybe he belongs with the greats like Martin Luther King.…
Have you ever been consider an outsider? Do you know what it feels like to have your ethnical background view as inferior or strange? In Amy tan’s “Fish Cheeks” and Mya Angelou’s “champion of the the world” it gives insight as to what it is like to be non- white in a dominantly white America. They show the differences and similarities of what sets them apart from dominant culture, and how the events that both portrayed effected that difference.…
Ronald Takaki uses the narrative of the “Giddy Multitude” to demonstrate how the colonial elite used race and the idea of blackness to develop a social system of classification. White identity formation was made possible for white elite through certain types of work and the ability to accumulate assets. Social status also contributed to the economic context of competition over land. The law in Virginia was a legal factor that also contributed to the making of whiteness because it allowed poor whites to have privileges. Along with those privileges the idea of citizenship was created and defined in terms of who would benefit from this nation. In order for someone to be a citizen that person had to be a wealthy white male. Power and white identity was a way in which citizenship was linked to notions of whiteness, class, and gender.…
In the essay in Mr Ward’s Writing 063 we got a handout about, “Memories of New York” written by Oscar Hijuelos he writes about when his Cuban family came to New York. They experienced hardships, noises of many kinds, language barriers, changes in climate, a culture change as well as job opportunities. This was a major change from Cuba and the way of life they were used to. The change from Cuba to New York was dramatic because of job opportunity, weather and population.…
Locke argues that the New Negro brought forth a significant mission: to reinstate the black race’s prestige and esteem. Alain Locke describes this regeneration as ‘Negro Zionism’. It cannot be discounted that the Old Negro has contributed vastly to American society through art, music, and other ways that shaped America into being what it is today. Being the balance of society, the Old Negro contributed in ways such as labor and spirituality. Locke argues that it is with this sudden contribution that the New Negro is able to be the beneficiary of the significant efforts by the Old…
Robert Moses was born on December 18, 1888, in New Haven, Connecticut. His family then moved to New York City in 1897 and grew up in Manhattan. He attended Yale University after graduating in 1909, Moses went on to study political science at Oxford and Columbia Universities. In 1913, Moses began his career at Municipal Research Bureau in New York. While he was working there, he suggested and completed a restructure of New York City's civil service system.…
In Kevin Mattson’s historical look at Harlem’s struggle for a democratic urban space, he concludes that, “What Harlemites were discovering could be generalized for many Americans. The culture of consumption and social mobility displaced hopes in a civic consciousness…and a democratic public” (318). Modern society straddles the competing pressures between economic growth and a socially fair citizenship. The phenomenon of equality based on a democratic American identity is taken over by the unrelenting drive for material success that is ingrained into American culture. What happened in Harlem rings true of the consumerist American Dream left unchecked. Without any accountability for the disconnect between the ideal and reality, people are left to grieve as their dreams are rendered false in light of the…
Unlike Chicago, New York is more of a multi-layered metro-archeology than a city. Five Points peals back a hundred years of rewritten history to reveal the seedy brawling side of life in the 19th century. Tammany Hall - the popular name for the democratic 'machine' that ran New York City - is perhaps the most immediate touchstone for the casual reader. In the late 19th century Tammany came under the thrall of one Boss Tweed who used political and just plain brute force to keep the machine in power. For most, the scandal is merely a dim memory from grade school history classes, but Anbinder takes the usually rather dull subject and enlivens it with details about the thuggery and street violence that allowed for political bosses like Tweed and street gangs to hold complete control over the city up to the highest levels of power.…
“Éste es un mundo brillante, éstas son mis calles, mi barrio de noche, con sus miles de luces, cientos de millones de colores mezclados con los ruidos, un sonido vibrante de carros, maldiciones, murmullos de alegría y de llantos, formando un gran concierto musical (Thomas, Down These Mean Streets, 1998, p. 3)”, is how Piri Thomas describes his birthplace, East Harlem. The diversity of cultures, the vibrant street life, the passion and conflicts of everyday life and media portrayal in movies such as West Side Story make East Harlem an exciting and mysterious place. But hidden under the dirty faces of the children is the struggle in the search for acceptance and belong, as painfully narrated by Thomas in Down These Mean Streets. In this essay I will analyze how racial identity is constructed through his story and the relationship between racism and social problems such as gangs and crime in a place like East Harlem.…
In chapters 1-4 of The Philadelphia Negro, W.E.B. Du Bois provides historical context about African Americans in Philadelphia from the early 1600s to the mid 1800s. Before he shifts to the sociological study, he covers the trajectory of blacks in Philadelphia from the arrival of the first slaves to the growing free community as a result of the mass exodus of African Americans from the South. He concentrates on the socioeconomic status of numerous pecuniary classes as well as changes in the division of labor that created an even larger divide between them. What he also reveals with this disjunction are the intra-racial antagonisms and class aversions that contribute to the destruction of unity within the African American community. More specifically, blacks who were the considered ‘elite’ as a result of their white-collar jobs, formal education and monetary portfolio compared to those that were working class with little to no education that lived in the lower wards with a higher concentration of poverty.…
In Exchanging Our Country Marks, Michael Gomez brings together various strands of the historical record in a stunning fusion that points the way to a definitive history of American Slavery. In this fusion of history, anthropology, and sociology, Gomez has made expert use of primary sources, including newspapers ads for runaway slaves in colonial America. Slave runaway accounts from newspapers are combined with personal diaries, church records, and former slave narratives to provide a firsthand account of the African and African-American experiences during the eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. With this mastery of sources, Gomez challenges many of the prevailing assumptions about slavery-- for example, that "the new condition of slavery superseded all others" (48)-- and he advances intriguing new speculations about the development of a collective African-American identity. In Gomez's words: "It is a study of their efforts to move from ethnicity to race as a basis for such an identity, a movement best understood when the impact of both internal and external forces upon social relations within this community is examined"(4).…
Exceptionalism? Now there was a confident outlook on New York City. Had there been an award given to the city that sustained the most destruction, but the tenacity to rebuild, NYC would be one of its leading competitors. When your home has been ravaged by multiple, potent forces you have either a tendency to grow a thicker skin or fall prey to vulnerability. Bruce has seen what helplessness looked like. He felt it every day. Children digging through garbage in order to survive was what dragged him out of his obsession for a cure; if he couldn’t control his own infirmity, he’s sure as hell do his best to help those that needed him – as Dr. Banner. But New York? It didn’t need a doctor to diagnose or remedy a disease. It needed the Other Guy,…
Near the end of Woody Allen's 1977 film Annie Hall, Diane Keaton's role as Annie says to Allen's character Alvy Singer, "You're just like New York City. You're an island!" However, the link between Alvy Singer and New York City is not simply a fictional creation. Nor is the connection between Allen's character Isaac Davis and New York in his 1979 film Manhattan fictional adoration. Woody Allen loves New York. It is through the various characters he portrays and through a camera lens that he shows New York in the most majestic and beautiful way that he can. However, both films do so in very different ways. In Woody Allen's Annie Hall and Manhattan, Allen uses the camera lens to convey how big and majestic the city can be. This is done in Annie Hall through various long-shots of the main characters or the exclusion of the main characters from the screen. Both films also use shots of New York and the lives within it to convey how the city never sleeps, and how it is always working similar to Allen's ideals of always busying himself. However, Annie Hall characterizes New York as an entity similar to Alvy Singer through a comparison between the setting, weather, and people of New York and Los Angeles. Manhattan also uses weather as a method of portraying the mood of the city and of Isaac Davis, but instead reflects more on powerful still-shots of New York's inner workings and skyline and dialogue through the voice of Isaac Davis off-screen.…
New York City is known as a center of art, culture, fashion and finance with iconic sites such as Times Square, The Statue of Liberty, and The Empire State Building. There are certain aspects which are easily identified with New York City such as skyscrapers, rap, the subway, and Broadway. However, in my mind, there is one aspect of New York City which I feel represents the city as a whole. One place that can be found in each neighborhood with different ambiences and different people. Diners are delightful environments and food joints serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Diners show the traits which make New York City so enjoyable for me.…