The 90's and 9/11

During the past week or so in American Studies, we have been studying about the various events that took place in the 1990's. We have finished studying about the 50's and 60's. But we are still continuing to watch student presentations on various topics. These topics include various subtopics under either the Cold War or the Civil Rights Movement. My video was about the Indo-Pakistani Wars of 1965 and 1971. The wars dealt with the Cold War and the involvement of the USA and the USSR. But, we also moved on to the conflict happening in middle Europe, with Serbia and its surrounding countries. We also talked about the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centers in New York City on September 11th, 2001. We talked about what happened, but also what happened as a result of the the attacks. As a result of the attacks, the general American populous began a certain distaste of Muslims around the world. There was some discrimination happening across the country. That is the sad reality. However, the USA became more united as a result of the attacks, and bonded together even more to fight the terrorists. But, as a Muslim living in the USA, problems were evidently there. Whether that be in airports and the TSA random checks, or just blatant racism online or wherever.

Videos and Maus

During this week in American studies, we watched the student presentations on the 60's and 70's. My video was about the Ind-Pakistani Wars of 1965 and 1971. It dealt with the Cold War aspect of the presentations rather than the civil rights movement aspect. The United States had sided with Pakistan, while the USSR had taken the side of India. The other topics that students had done dealt with other aspects of the Cold War and the Civil Rights movements. They were very interesting because there were many different factors and events that made up both of these topics as a whole. In American Literature, we have been reading Maus. Maus is a personal narrative written by Art Spiegelman on his fathers past experiences. It deals with the struggles of being a Jewish citizen in Europe and tells the horrible recounts of the concentration camps. This also tied into American Studies, because we had just moved on from the end of World War 2, so it's a good story for our understanding as we progress throughout US history. Spiegelman uses a constant metaphor in the graphic novel. He portrays the Jews as mice, and the Nazis as cats, and it is interesting to unpack the use of the metaphor because it can be interpreted in many ways. One way can be the cover of the book, It shows a cat with striking resemblance to Hitler, the enemy of the Jews, creating the fight between cat and mouse

1920's

During the past week in American Studies, we have been discussing the 1920's and all of the different events and things take took place during the 1920's. We were assigned presentations and each group had a different event or topic that involved the 1920's. My group was assigned National Politics, and it involved foreign affairs and the depression that was taking place at the end of the 1920's. My part in the group was to talk about President Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression in comparison to the recession that took place in 2008. When I was studying about President Hoover, I found out many interesting things about him. I learned that he wanted a private economy, in which the U.S. government does not involve itself with businesses and the economy. But due to Great Depression, his vision was not able to manifest itself. Also, a few groups presented their presentations, on Women's Rights and Civil Rights involving different races in the country. It was interesting to see the presentation on racism because in American Literature we are reading a book dealing with black literature, Their Eyes Were Watching God. It gives a unique perspective to racism during the era.

Gilded Age- Week 8

During the past week of American Studies, we learned about the Gilded Age and that time period in U.S. history after the end of the Reconstruction Era. The Gilded age was a time period of business and industries in the United States. It was the birth of the idea of "the great American dream", where immigrants would come to the United States in hope to be the next example in the rags to riches stereotypes. We also learned about big influential businessmen, such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. It was a coincidence since my main focus for the NHD project is the influence of John D. Rockefeller. We analyzed Carnegie's rags to riches story, starting off very poor, and eventually transforming into a wealthy socialite who controlled the steel industry. We also learned of the monopoly Rockefeller had constructed within the oil business, and how his company was the only major company in the industry. I believe that these two men influenced many different immigrants to come to the United States, but in reality, when they arrived, their conditions were not much better than their status in their home country. It was very rare for someone to emerge successful from the cesspool of immigrants.

Indian Schools -Week 7

In the past week of American Studies, we learned about the hardships the Native Americans went through and all the events that took place during the time period. We studied two documents written by Native children narrating the events that took place in the Indian Schools. Indian Schools were a program that established schools for Native children to board in and learn American culture and values. We had a discussion on whether or not sending them to the schools was acceptable or not. I felt it had both benefits and drawbacks, each corresponding to one of the documents. The first document laid out some benefits to the establishment. It was only temporary, and going there did not necessarily mean you had to lose all of your previous cultures and values, you just had to keep them low for that time being. But, the second narrative highlighted how hard it was for them to adapt to a whole new culture and how they had to obey without any resistance. If the child was willing to learn a new culture and not be punished for resisting, their experience wouldn't be as bad as a Native child who resisted the learning of the new culture and had to experience hardship in their stay.

Poetry and National History Day -Week 6

Over the past week or so in American Studies, we didn't learn much to reflect on, because of the no school days and the National History Day project. I chose John D. Rockefeller for the person for the project. I had chosen him because I was interested on his huge influence on the oil industry and how he had become the richest man in the United States, and still is the richest man ever since inflation had made his worth even more. But since there isn't much to talk about,, I've decided to reflect on our poetry presentation and unit. I found the poetry unit thus far pretty interesting. We studied lots of poems by different authors, such as Edgar Allen Poe and Emily Dickinson. I found that I enjoyed Poe's poems better because there seemed to be a story behind each poem. But for the poetry presentation, I chose to do a poem by Emily Dickinson because she had many literary devices, and they seemed easier and better to analyze. I felt that the presentation went pretty well, but there could've been some things I could have added to make it even better. My poem had dealt with fame and corruption of fame. It was a pretty interesting poem

Test and Rebuilding- Week 5

In the past week for American Studies, we took our Unit 1 test and studied the rebuilding of America after the Civil War. I found the test somewhat easy and I felt I knew all the material that was covered. The review session the class before helped a lot with the formats for the compare and contrast portion, and the OPVL portion. I feel that the best part of the test for me were the OPVL and question portions, and the compare and contrast I could've done a bit better and improved my answer to make it more efficient and answer the question better. For the second half of the week, we continued on the history of America and studied the United States and its status after the Civil War. We learned that from that period to around the 1920's, the US was in a severe economic recession, which I found surprising because I had previously thought that time period had somewhat neutral economic standings up until World War I and the Great Depression soon afterwards. We had also learned that a new method, called sharecropping, had replaced plantation systems since slavery was now abolished.Sharecropping was when a landowner rented out his land and in exchange, expected some crops back. This method was almost as bad as slavery since most people couldn't catch up on their due crops. I think the plantation system could've worked better but they would've needed a substitute for the slaves