Analysis Of The Book ' American Way ' By Gary Althen

The traditional idea of American friendship has evolved drastically over time. In this age, no longer do you see the close group of friends chatting at the ‘Central Perk Café’ or engaging in many misadventures in the basement of Foreman’s house, such as they did in ‘That 70’s Show’. The aged image of a group of friends and their wise, perceptive teacher, Mr. Feeney, happily standing in the halls of John Quincy Adams middle school is fading out. This overused 1970’s-1990’s idea of friendship no longer applies to most American friendships today because our culture has swayed into a more modern viewpoint, due to the

Michael Walzer’s essay on “What Does It Mean to Be an American?” raises many points about the American citizen. Specifically, he discusses “American” as an adjective (Walzer). “American” is often associated with American citizens; while this is true, the term can also be applied to Canadians and Mexicans (Walzer). American is such an ambiguous adjective that it is applicable to all countries and individuals that are part of the North American continent. Like Mr. Walzer states, American is not a truly defined term and America is not a country (Walzer). Walzer goes on to introduce a Horace Kallen’s opinion on American’s as anonymous and their “unique” pluralism (Walzer). There are exceptions to all things; the positive to being an American is the fact that Americans can be whatever they choose to be. I feel to be an American one must believe in the American ideals, they must believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. American 's in general may be anonymous, however, upon further reflection they have left the definition of “American” open for each American to define the adjective for themselves.

In Joel L. Swerdlow’s 2001 essay, “Changing America,” he writes about the current cultural differences among kids in high school. He goes on to talk about how you can gather a large variety of kids, coming from all over the world, yet they still somehow manage to develop the same “American Teenager” attitude toward life. The essay talks about how people used to view America as a “melting pot” of nations, and how over time that view is starting to change.

In Edward L. Hudgins article, What is an American?, Hudgins defines an American in ways I had not thought of before. Hudgins stated all these ideas about Americans being driven to do their best and meeting challenges head-on. I would like to think that being an American means everything Hudgins stated, however I think Hudgins is giving the optimistic answer of what being an American means. What Hudgins explains as being an American is what I believe most Americans were like when the country was first founded. The idea of taking risks and working until the risks paid off is one that most Americans do not believe because the possibility of actually achieve one’s dream is extremely less likely today than it was when the country was first established.

In Round-Trip to America: The Immigrants Return to Europe 1880-1930, Mark Wyman argues that many new immigrants that migrated to America from 1880-1930 never intended to make America a permanent residence and many of them returned home to their native countries. He claims that this phenomena is important to the history of American Immigration and is important to the histories of the home land in which the immigrants returned to. In his book, Wyman explores some key ideas such as the reason immigrants decided to voyage to a new land, across the ocean, to what was known as the “land of milk and honey” only to return to their small, and a lot of the time rural village. He also discusses American labor movement and what impact that had on

The poem America by Claude McKay is on its surface a poem combining what America should be and what this country stands for, with what it actually is, and the attitude it projects amongst the people. Mckay uses the form of poetry to express how he, as a Jamaican immigrant, feels about America. He characterizes the bittersweet relationship between striving for the American dream, and being denied that dream due to racism. While the America we are meant to see is a beautiful land of opportunity, McKay see’s as an ugly, flawed, system that crushes the hopes and dreams of the African-American people.

In Ralph Ellison's "What America Would Be Like Without Blacks" The author describes and analyzes the idea of “purging” African Americans from north America. To support this the author describes how they became deeply ingrained in “white “American culture in a short period of time. They began to influence aspects of society such as speech, music and dance. These changes to society where readily adopted without true origin being noticed. The authors work can be described as opinionated description, because it lacks the objectivism of most expository writing. the author fully describes the idea and he gives support information, but within his word choice it’s clear to the reader that the other has a very strong opinion on the black purge.

The book The Ugly American clearly demonstrates several of the established Special Operations Force (SOF) imperatives outlined in ADRP 6-22. As a Special Forces soldier I can relate these imperatives to stories illustrated in the book and apply them to real life situations that I have experienced in the field. The Ugly American is a goldmine of wisdom and a handbook for special warfare. All Special Operations soldiers should read it.

Making friends on U.S. campuses could be challenging for those who are an international students. It’s not easy to make friends with American students because they tend to be independent and keep distance from others. In Rebekah Nathan’s book “My Freshman Year”, Nathan claims that social life and developing friendships on U.S. campuses is difficult for international students because American students would make them feel uncomfortable and invisible at times. Nathan’s argues that American students don’t put any effort in talking to students from different race, ethnic, and background. International students are usually on their own or be with their friends since Americans wouldn’t make friends with them. In nathan’s book, she discusses about the

In author Cristina Henriquez’s novel The Book of Unknown Americans, the characterization of Alma Rivera is used to convey how grief and misery is magnified when all that a person had ever known has been taken away for some reason out of their control; it is only when they learn to give up control and forgive themselves, that they overcome the feelings of grief and guilt.

Throughout this essay I will be evaluating the contribution of an ethnographic approach to research on friendship. I will be looking at, and including evidence to support both sides of the argument as to whether or not this research method is in fact useful when it comes to gaining knowledge about friendship. As well as evaluating this method, I will compare it against others to reflect on the strengths, weaknesses and the typical data collected. I will look at some of the questions about friendship that have been addressed, and then whether this is the best method or if there are others that could have been more suitable.

Trigger statements are becoming more and more popular in syllabi, especially on college campuses. These provide students, especially those with post-traumatic stress disorder, with a warning about possibly uncomfortable content that could cause a flashback or panic attack. There are several different opinions about trigger warnings. Jenny Jarvie, the author of the article “Trigger Happy,” believes that they have gone too far and are a detriment to society (Jarvie 6). To enhance Jarvie’s point further, in their article “The Coddling of the American Mind” Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt explain how trigger warnings cause metal illness on campuses across the country. The opposing view is that they are necessary to have a fulfilling learning

In “The Right Road to America?,” Amy Chua informs her audience about the possibility of America’s national identity becoming lost due to the influence of immigrants. Chua’s defines her thesis by stating “Around the world, nations face violence and instability as a result of their increasing pluralism and diversity,” (336). The key points of the text includes Chua explaining why America and other nations could lose their core identities, how the United States could become unglued from its true meaning, and how citizens can fix this imminent problem. The information in this text is significant, especially in today’s society. With all of the issues about immigration coinciding with our current president, this text relates to current subjects

Reading G. William Domhoff’s Who Rules America?: The Triumph of the Corporate Rich was an intriguing and challenging experience for me. My limited knowledge base of the American political class system mostly stems from high school US History classes and listening to my mom’s stories of her experiences in the corporate world. Therefore, I am aware that due to my prior lack of knowledge on the topics presented in Domhoff’s book, I may have misjudged some of his finer points. Part of my struggles may be largely due to the fact that Domhoff’s intended audience for Who Rules America? is other experts in the field of understanding the sociology of the corporate elite and their resources of power. However, I believe that the book has given me a better, if not complete, understanding of the corporate elite and how they stay in power.

The era of the 1990’s was an explosive time in American history both figuratively and literally. In the 90’s there was an extreme variety of different failures and also advances in technology. We as a nation had new advancements in space travel, our military and the way of life preparing for the turn of the century. As a country we didn’t know what the new millennium had to bring for us, but we were ready. Most significantly changing America though was from our creativeness that took place, the fear we had, and our militaristic ways.