American Traditions: The Reunion Essay

In the last ten to fifteen years accompanying the dawn of social media, means of communication among friends and strangers have been easier than ever. Since its creation in 2004, Facebook has grown into the largest social media site on the Internet with 30 million users and counting. The ability to catch up with former high school friends who are now across the country or see how an aunt in Pittsburgh has been doing since the birth of her son are now as simple as the click of a mouse. However, the amount of “friends” acquired on social media may not be an accurate reflection of how many close relationships one truly shares. In an article from Bigthink.com titled “Do You Have Too Many Facebook Friends?”, Steven Mazie gathers research from Pew Research Center about statistics surrounding Facebook

Family reunions are meant to bring people closer, but at times can do the exact opposite and drive each other further away. Some us enjoy the company of others, the food, and the laughter shared with one another. As where others decide to stick to themselves and just wait till it’s all over. In the Short stories, “Powder” written by Tobias Wolff and “Reunion” by John Cheever Our main characters both learn something about their fathers and themselves.

Rather then visiting a grave, many visit a “ ‘memorialized’ profile” (589) in order to remember a loved one and share memories with others. Social media allows memories to be shared with one another when separated and unable to come together. It allows those divided by distance to grieve together. In “grief in the age of Facebook”, Elizabeth stone explains how the tragic death of a student named Casey opened her eyes to social media and how well one actually knows their peers. Stone explains that social media became a place of consolation for grieving friends and family, but it also made them question how deeply they actually knew their friend. “I’m not sure, but I wander- if I should have known her better” (598). Stone questioned how well she actually knew her student because of the characteristics that were revealed through others memorializing posts about Casey. Stone struggles with the thought that social media is a place for “solace but also uncertainty” (588). Often times one believes they know their peers very well, but once they examine their social media and what their other friends posts, they seem to think they no longer know them as deeply as they previously believed. Social media allows one to learn a lot about a person with just one click, but that one click likely leaves out what hardships someone is going

In the documentary, American Experience: A Family Gathering, directed by Lise Yasui and Ann Tegnell, explores three generations of the Yasui family immigration to Oregon in the early 1900s, and through their imprisonment in internment camps during World War Two as Japanese-Americans. I found this documentary heart-warming, eye-opening and emotional to what the Japanese immigrants had to deal with when immigrating to the United States and different insights to what went through their minds before, during and after World War Two. From watching the documentary, I can’t even fathom how a civil and nothing but perfect Japanese family like the Yasui family, could immigrate to the United States, establish themselves with work, a home and the start a family, could be seen as enemies of the country and lose everything for just looking or sounding Japanese. I mean, when I was growing up and I read books about Pearl Harbor or looked at pictures, videos and the film about Pearl Harbor, I right away got mad and emotional about those attacks and got a sense of anger from those attacks and found myself thinking that the Japanese deserved what they got and brought it upon themselves, which is harsh. Now, I was just a young child and to get those feelings years later, should show to a degree on how easy it was for Americans to be upset, angered and thought of the Japanese-Americans as evil people at the time. The Pearl Harbor attacks were one of the hardest attacks on U.S. soil from a

Family seems to be a big topic in manys books but even bigger on the web and through cyberspace. Perry Patetic in his excerpt argues that our highly mobile and growing society is creating a lack of relationship with family and friends. The author supports his argument by first explaining how easy it is to just move away. He continues by explaining how far we do travel when we do move away and by what mode of transportation. The authors purpose is to persuade the audience to not travel far from family and stay relatively close so that relationships can be kept, preserved, and maintained. The author establishes a sincere tone for families. The authors argument is invalid because we are in the age of online technology and services that allow us to see family from afar and cherish the few moments that we get in person.

This paper espouses that the current family gathers is a ritual that stabilizes and strengthens the family and provides a platform for building formidable bedrock for future

The basic differences between the lives of colonial americans and the lives of modern american are are focused around how much each group has to do in a day. In the 13 colonials men made up a majority of the population giving women more power in the relationships and in the society. However where they differed from Modern women is they married very young and had large families, and modern women are not expected to have many children nor get married early. the more kids they had the more workers they had. Life was much harder and laborious in colonial times compared to modern, because everything from heat, water and food had to be done by their own hands. A modern american pays for these services and if any work needs to be done in the home

The landscape of colonial America has dramatically changed beginning with the root of the North Eastern Indians and following the routes of the thirteen American English colonies. As American history progresses, we have to put ourselves in the mindset of the people of the past to learn about the past. Our values and beliefs are evidently different, yet similar as we build from our mistakes and acknowledge the accomplishments of America. Given the misunderstanding of the values and beliefs of the Northeastern Indians by early European settlers, stark differences occur like using property for its ecological use and avoiding the accumulation of wealth compared to colonial American English colonies’ use of property for cash crops and acquisition of wealth for political and social status, as well as similarities between the two in valuing time and social

Just like Mama and Maggie, my family and I understand how important it is to maintain our ancestors’ way of life. Being of an old southern family, I have many morals and traditions that have been instilled in my brain. One large example of this is my religion. My grandmother grew up in church, my mother grew up in church, and I grew up in church. All though I do not go as much as my grandmother did when she was my age, I still know my core beliefs. Another value important to my great-grandmother is that everyone should wear an undershirt through the winter. I can still remember begging to take it off when I was little, and my mother would say, “Your Mawmaw Dot says you have to.” Although I didn’t like it, I am sure that I will insist that my children do the same. It might seem minuscule, but cooking is another value that my family continues to observe today. My grandmother even uses the same utensils as her grandmother once did. Using special recipes and canning are things that generations to come will continue to follow. Holiday and birthday parties are my favorite tradition of all. Before my cousins and I were born, every event was held at my great grandparents’ home. My great grandmother lived for parties. She even had ceramic name tags for all the family members that she would use to place everyone at the table for dinner. The entire family would come together for every holiday and birthday. Once my generation came along, the parties moved to my aunts’ home, where they continue to this day. I love having such a tight knit family, and I contribute this to our large gatherings at least twice a month. Continuing with family traditions, like Mama and Maggie in Everyday Use, is one of the best ways to be reminded of my

n the upcoming page’s I will answer the following questions. Why is family the most important agent of socialization? What caused the dramatic changes to the American family? What are the changes? I will discuss the differences in marriage and family, I will discuss how they are linked to class, race, gender, and personal choices. The purpose of this study is to explore the many different family functions and the paths that people are now choosing. I will give my opinion on whether these changes have had a positive or negative affect. I will finally discuss the trend of the modern family, back to pre-World War II family structure, how would that effect the strides that have been made in the progression of women rights.

Social networking sites provide a constant supply of alternative new sources for their users. As a social networking site, Facebook is gradually shaping the cultural memory of American citizens due to its popularity and plethora amount of functions in its media content sharing. Cultural memory pertains to the discourse that strays away from the formal interactions of historical events. The informal interactions include how popular culture influences the production of cultural memory. Facebook is a social platform that can enable historical events to be highlighted and be presented as a business page on its website’s domain. This paper will analyze the cultural memory that is presented in AIDS Memorial Quilt’s Facebook page. The AIDS Memorial

Culture is a behavior that consists of several critical elements, such as language, religion, race and ethnicity, clothing and politics. Culture is what one does in his/her daily life. In order to understand others, we must first keep in mind that every culture carries its own set of values and assumptions. Culture is an evolving, ever changing civilization, which includes several different groups people. For immigrants, America is a land of opportunity; for others it is just the best country in the world because of its economic success and/or its democratic political system. Americans usually value independence a lot, believe in equal opportunity, and have a direct communication

Social network sites (SNSs) such as such as Friendster, CyWorld, and MySpace allow individuals to present themselves, articulate their social networks, and establish or maintain connections with others (Ellison, 2007). These sites could be used for work related situation, romance, connecting with individuals with shared interest, or creating a connection amongst college students. Facebook enables its users to present themselves in an online profile, accumulate ‘‘friends’’ who can post comments on each other’s pages, and view each other’s profiles (Ellison, 2007). Individuals can write on the wall of friends, send private message, comment on posts, as well as chat via instant messaging. Much of the early research on online communities assumed that individuals using these systems would be connecting with others outside their pre-existing social group or location, liberating them to form communities around shared interests, as opposed to shared geography (Ellison, 2007).

Facebook is currently largest social networking site in the world based on monthly unique visitors – attracting 130 million unique visitors every day (Alexa Inc. 2012). The site’s popularity exploded in 2007 and it bypassed its social networking rival, MySpace, in April 2008 (Phillips 2007). Over the last few years Facebook has impacted people’s social lives in various ways. With its availability on modern smart phones, Facebook enables users to continuously stay in touch with friends, relatives and peers wherever they are in the world as long as they have internet access. It can also group people together who share beliefs and interests and has been known to even reunite lost family members and friends through its enormous social reach

The ideal American family was transformed in the 19th century in large part due to the great changes taking place in the American society. Many family groups fit this changing mold while some did not. In this essay I will show how this concept of the ideal American family changed. I will also try to explain which groups of Americans followed this concept and why.