Module 2 : Thinking Like A Historian

Furthermore, in most cases, it may seem the United States has a system in which immigrants are not given the chance to form a bright future. In the novel, “Antonio soon found himself settling for jobs that were clearly beneath him. He stood under the baking sun at the on-ramp to the Santa Monica Freeway, selling oranges for two dollars a bag: a dollar fifty for the guy from the produce market, fifty cents for him,” (Tobar, 53). Many of the immigrants that live in the U.S. have little power that allows them to succeed. Some races have benefitted from it more than others. The Cubans, for instance, have had it much easier than most immigrants who have migrated to the United States; whereas, Antonio, a Guatemalan, had trouble finding a stable job that allowed him to sustain himself. In contrast to many other races, many Americans described Cubans as being visitors who represent, “all phases of life and professions, having an excellent level of education… More than half of their families with them, including children brought from Cuba to escape communist indoctrination in the schools,”

In America today, we are faced with several different minority groups arriving to the United States. The most common of all minority groups are the Hispanics. America is known for their language being English, but as the year's approach, that language has faded and a new face in English language has taken over, it's called Spanish. We as the people of America have become controversial over this major change, and due to that major bilingualism and political movements that have occurred from the government to the education departments. In this paper, I am going to talk about the four most common Hispanic groups in our country today and the political, social, linguistic, economic, religious, and familial conventions and/or statuses that they

This paper will be addressing the differences between American and Latino culture. American culture is an individualistic culture in which everyone tries to be unique from one another and more successful. Success in the American culture typically means being wealthy. Americans make decisions based off of their own personal needs unlike Latino culture. Latino culture is based off of collectivism where the family is the most important aspect in their lives. Latinos are more likely to make decisions based off of the best interest of their families not necessarily themselves. The primary language Americans speak is English whereas Latino Americans typically speak Spanish. One thing that both cultures share is the importance of a good education.

Juan Gonzalez uses Chapter 12: “Speak Spanish, You’re in America!: El Huracán over Language and Culture” of his novel Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America to introduce a truly polarizing argument that has plagued the Latino community in the United States of America. Gonzalez is quick to point out that English is the common language in this country, though he is quicker to note that it should not necessarily be so. This author is so incredibly biased in this chapter that it is nearly impossible to disagree with his opinion without feeling like one is completely shutting out the entire Latino community. However, speaking as a member of this community, perhaps it is this unique insight that allows for not only a contending opinion, but also the framework to make the opinion relevant. Gonzalez makes brash claims with little supporting evidence and relies heavily on argumenta ad passiones to manipulate the reader’s emotions instead of focusing on rationalism and sound judgment. Quite possibly, it was the abundance of this logical fallacy that made it difficult to sympathize with his argument; though, it lays the basis for this chapter analysis.

Gonzales develops his thesis by asserting that Latin American immigration and Latino presence in the United States are

Overall, the chapter, which focuses on “Hispanicity”, impacted me because I began to formulate ideas which opposed those that had been hammered into my mind all my life. For so long I had heard that minorities were victims to oppression by whites and for that reason minorities should strive to do more than what is expected from them. In reading Rodriguez’s claim, questions that had never been explored in my development arose in my mind such as “Are Hispanics really the victims?”, “Do Hispanics truly strive to their fullest to accomplish things that have never been done?”, and lastly, “Are Hispanics committing acts of hypocrisy?”. If a Hispanic

In the eyes of American, the Latino immigrants are challenging the "Core countries" of leadership, culture and solidarity since they always consider as the barbarians who show no willingness to integrate into the American culture by abandoning their own culture or learning. Moreover, they always show no passion to learn the English. With the linguistically distinction, unique political values and cultural difference, the Latino easily shows the contradiction and conflict to the uniqueness of

When one thinks about Hispanics, all too often the image of a field full of migrant workers picking fruit or vegetables in the hot sun comes to mind. This has become the stereotypical picture of a people whose determination and character are as strong or stronger than that of the Polish, Jewish, Greek, or Italian who arrived in the United States in the early 1900's. Then, the center of the new beginning for each immigrant family was an education. An education was the "ladder by which the children of immigrants climbed out of poverty into the mainstream." (Calderon & Slavin, 2001, p. iv) That ideal has not changed, as the Hispanic population has grown in the United States to large numbers very quickly and with little fanfare. Now, the

A diverse minority group of Latino and Spanish-speaking peoples has played an important part of what it means to be American and what it means to be a citizen in the United States today. Moving into the future, in order to analyze the trajectory that this group is in, we must first understand the group’s history in the United States and in territories that would become the United States. In addition, we must look at the origins of the most recent wave of Latino immigration in order to understand their current effect on American society and the intersection between both minority and majority groups. Finally, we get to the apex of this investigation: what lies in the future for Latino Americans in the United States? Although Latino

In Linda Chavez’s, “Hispanics and the American Dream” she starts by showing the growth of Hispanics in America and how they are depicted. She sees them as a valuable part of society that is steadily climbing to new heights on the socioeconomic ladder, yet the population perceives them to be the lower end and will likely remain that way. She goes on to prove this assumption by the way Hispanics are shown in the media, which states that poor and Hispanic goes hand in hand when thought of. What is failed to be seen is that most Hispanics are steadily in the middle class, but this varies within the group just as it does with all races. The analysts take into consideration the immigrants who have just entered America, legal or illegal, which in turn causes the balance to shift towards the poor side of the spectrum. Our overall perception of Hispanics plays a role in their place in society.

The first reading by Chavez was the Introduction chapter from a book focusing on the different mechanisms used to paint Latinos as a threat by labeling them “illegal aliens”. As we have previously discussed in class, the white race does not make up the majority of the population which threatens their privilege and they turn to ways of dehumanizing other races to maintain their status. This dehumanization was illustrated as the war on crime/drugs, as an effort to dehumanize blacks and the war on immigration to dehumanize Latinos. To create an us versus them mortality strict immigration laws were passed and the media was used to perpetuate Latinos as “illegal aliens” that threaten America’s wellbeing because they will come to regain their land.

Along with its economic classes, American is known for its freedom, its liberty, and the melting pot of ethnicity. This ethnic diversity comes form the immigrant population in the country. However this perfect country is a major falsehood. These untrue ideals of harmony, freedom, success, and equality are deceptive and do not show the struggles that immigrants face when coming to this class dominated country. The immigrants of today do not come from just Europe, but overwhelmingly from Asia and Latin America. “They are driving a demographic shift so rapid that within the lifetimes of today 's teenagers, no one ethnic group – including whites of European descent – will comprise a majority of the nation 's population’ (Colombo, Cullen, Lisle). These immigrants challenge the social myth that everyone has an equal chance in life. They

I. Account for why and when the author decided to do the work and what he encountered while doing the research. What are your thoughts about the historian 's work?

During this time period, you start to see woman getting jobs and helping to support their families. These women took pride in the fact that they could work and the independence that came with working. In the course book on page 618, it mentions how the entry of women into the workplace challenged the traditional gender roles. Not everyone believed that a “lady” could work. Women workers were called “typewriters”. I did some researched and found an article titled, “Looking at Artifacts, Thinking about History”, written by Steven Lubar and Kathleen Kendrick. In this article, it explains the changes that the typewriter brought about. One of the changes it mentions is how it encouraged the feminization of office work. The article mentions how 64

Before delving into a comparative analysis of these two brilliant thinkers, it is essential to provide an overview of their differing theories of human nature and to examine the contexts that shaped their scholarship.