The False Sense Of Identity In America

America is commonly characterized as the greatest country in the world, the glorious “land of the free and the home of the brave”, “indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”. This idealization of the American identity conveniently focuses on what people want to hear and blurs out most everything else. In reality, Americans do not live up to the dreamscape created by our views, and we never really have. America is no longer characterized by its freedom and democracy, nearly every first world country can afford that luxury. Nor are we set apart by the great opportunities given to our people, for those are far from universal. We aren’t equal, we aren’t unified, we aren’t kinder or smarter or richer than any other country across the board. It’s easy to find the shortcomings of American culture, all the things we aren’t, but the things we are have proven to be more elusive. First, let’s examine the nots.

Historical events distinguish the change in the behavior and identity of a society. The United States is no exemption from this idea, as the events throughout American history has shaped the behavior and values of the American identity. Since the formal independence from Britain in 1783, to the compromise that ended Reconstruction in 1877, American identity has changed drastically through shifts in the American understanding of politics, ideology, economics, culture, and society.

America is the land where dreams manifest into reality. Dreams ranging from fame, wealth, or the simple quality of living in peace. But the American Dream more than that.

Explain how ideas about democracy, freedom, and individualism in the colonial period found expression in the development of cultural values, political institutions, and American identity during and after the Revolutionary War.

Since the time of the American Revolution, people always asking “What is an American?-Today, Americans tend to believe the religion and the politics of government have had the biggest impacted on American identity because it has introduced a new system structure nations, cultures, and the Enlightenment's ideas to form the United States.

The American identity is the cultivation of many different factors. To understand how we got to where we are today we must look back into history and examine the lifestyles of our ancestors. The values they held and the way their families functioned shaped the American identity as we know it today.

The American Identity. Such a broad term for such few words. Americans all have one thing in common. Whether you were born into riches or raised in the slums we all have have faced our struggles and persevered through them.

Americans have not only defined themselves by their religious, ethnic and racial identity, but also by their individual freedom and common values. America has become a nation where its people can fight for what they believe in. Our founding fathers have formed America to be “the land of the free and the home of the brave”. Being apart of the American culture and living on the land founded by our leaders specifies the meaning of the American Identity.

The colors of red, white, and blue reflect the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness established over two centuries ago by the nation’s forebearers. Being American is about anticipating change and being provided with the environment to dream. Americans have dreamed of a more equal union, where Women obtain the right to vote and African Americans are social equals. The country’s images of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller inspire the American dream, where individuals are not satisfied with their socioeconomic standing and have the opportunity to progress. Furthermore, only a minor portion of the United States population is of Native American descent. Therefore, the United States is a country of immigrants,

In the early years of America’s foundation, a powerful air of uncapped potential, the desire for expansion and individual identification enamored the American people. Progress was inevitable as was cultural definition. But as time progressed, the feeling of unlimited strength, time and space transformed into something that, for better or worse, was no longer shared by later poets. Those of the “New World” came to realize that their world never really managed to leave behind the faults of the “Old.” Societal tension rose as different poets and authors struggled to pin down the direction of American culture and its ideals. When no solid idea was able to capture American culture adequately, the concept of an ever-evolving American identity

Is the American Identity still alive? Has it died? The issue concerning the American identity is has it died. Many claim that new cultures, new races, and new traditions have degraded the American identity. Although some people that the American identity has been lost because of new cultures and traditions, the American identity is still alive because those factors have not changed any original American traditions or the way they are celebrated.

Prior to the French and Indian War, colonists were somewhat satisfied with Great Britain. The laws imposed on the colonies were usually unenforced giving the colonies free reign over most aspects of their life. Despite the distance between North America and the mother country, colonists considered themselves equal with British citizens living on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. At this point, the colonists had no intentions of breaking off from the mother country. As John Murrin says in his essay “The Dilemma of American National Identity”:

I chose to write about the key components of the American identity in the 1600 to 1750. The colonies had freedom, liberty, religion, and diversity. Freedom from the strict rule of Great Britain; having the ocean in between them made it hard for Great Britain to keep close control of the colonies. This allowed the colonies the liberty to rule themselves and practice their religions. People who lived in the colonies were not all English; they were French, Jewish, German, Swedish, Dutch, and Scots-Irish. Others were a mixture of many different ethnic groups. This group of people could not be found anywhere else in the world at this time. This helped create a separate identity from Britain.

American identity has been created by many events throughout the course of history. This country was founded on the clashing and mixing of many different cultures and lifestyles. One of the most important periods of time for this country was during the period of conflict between Americans and Native Americans over land rights. Americans had an idea of manifest destiny and that this land was theirs for the taking. The Americans were going to walk through anyone who opposed them in this quest for land. The treatment of the Indians during this time period was harsh, cruel, and violent to say the least. It is in this treatment that Americans came to view the Indians as a ?racialized other? and

Have you ever wondered if some one from a different time period has different views on American Identity than you do today? In a time of the great depression my great grandpa Edward Werd was born. He has many different views on life than I do today. He was in the United States Coast Guard and he was also a United States Merchant Marine. This also made him have to experience a couple of wars like WWII which gave him different outlooks on life than I do. My great grandpa was in a Chinese prison in which he had encountered many different view than I have today. Which show me that people from different time periods have very different views on identity and life in