What It Means To Be An American

 

            It is often said that being an American means sharing a commitment to a set of values and ideals. Writing about the relationship of ethnicity and American identity, the historian Philip Gleason put it this way:

To be or to become an American, a person did not have to be any particular national, linguistic, religious, or ethnic background. All he had to do was to commit himself to the political ideology centered on the abstract ideals of liberty, equality, and republicanism. Thus the universalist ideological character of American nationality meant that it was open to anyone who willed to become an American.

To take the motto of the Great Seal of the United States, E pluribus unum – "From many, one" – in this context suggests not that manyness should be melted down into one, as in Israel Zangwill's image of the melting pot, but that, as the Great Seal's sheaf of arrows suggests, there should be a coexistence of many-in-one under a unified citizenship based on shared ideals.

Of course, the story is not so simple, as Gleason himself went on to note. America's history of racial and ethnic exclusions has undercut ,for being an American has also meant sharing a national culture, one largely defined in racial, ethnic, and religious terms. And while solidarity can be understood as an experience of willed affiliation," some forms of American solidarity have been less inclusive than others, demanding much more than simply the desire to affiliate. In this essay, I explore different ideals of civic solidarity with an eye toward what they imply for newcomers who wish to become American citizens.

Why does civic solidarity matter? First, it is integral to the pursuit of distributive justice. The institutions of the welfare state serve as redistributive mechanisms that can offset the inequalities of life chances that a capitalist economy creates, and they raise the position of the worst-off members of society to a level where they are able to participate as equal citizens. While self-interest alone may motivate people to support social insurance schemes that protect them against unpredictable circumstances, solidarity is understood to be required to support redistribution from the rich to aid the poor, including housing subsidies, income supplements, and long-term unemployment benefits. The underlying idea is that people are more likely to support redistributive schemes when they trust one another, and they are more likely to trust one another when they regard others as like themselves in some meaningful sense.

Second, genuine democracy demands solidarity. If democratic activity involves not just voting, but also deliberation, then people must make an effort to listen to and understand one another. Moreover, they must be willing to moderate their claims in the hope of finding common ground on which to base political decisions. Such democratic activity cannot be realized by individuals pursuing their own interests; it requires some concern for the common good. A sense of solidarity can help foster mutual sympathy and respect, which in turn support citizens' orientation toward the common good.

Third, civic solidarity offers more inclusive alternatives to chauvinist models that often prevail in political life around the world. For example, the alternative to the Nehru-Gandhi secular definition of Indian national identity is the Hindu chauvinism of the Bharatiya Janata Party, not a cosmopolitan model of belonging. "And what in the end can defeat this chauvinism," asks Charles Taylor, "but some reinvention of India as a secular republic with which people can identify, It is not enough to articulate accounts of solidarity and belonging only at the transnational levels while ignoring senses of belonging to the political community. One might believe that people have a deep need for belonging in communities, perhaps grounded in even deeper human needs for recognition and freedom, but even those skeptical of such claims might recognize the importance of articulating more inclusive models of political community as an alternative to the racial, ethnic, or religious narratives that have permeated political life. The challenge, then, is to develop a model of civic solidarity that is "thick" enough to motivate support for justice and democracy while also "thin" enough to accommodate racial, ethnic, and religious diversity.

We might look first to Habermas's idea of constitutional patriotism .The idea emerged from a particular national history, to denote attachment to the liberal democratic institutions of the postwar Federal Republic of Germany, but Habermas and others have taken it to be a generalizable vision for liberal democratic societies, as well as for supranational communities such as the European Union. On this view, what binds citizens together is their common allegiance to the ideals embodied in a shared political culture. The only "common denominator for a constitutional patriotism" is that "every citizen be socialized into a common political culture."

Habermas points to the United States as a leading example of a multicultural society where constitutional principles have taken root in a political culture without depending on "all citizens' sharing the same language or the same ethnic and cultural origins." The basis of American solidarity is not any particular racial or ethnic identity or religious beliefs, but universal moral ideals embodied in American political culture and set forth in such seminal texts as the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. Based on a minimal commonality of shared ideals, constitutional patriotism is attractive for the agnosticism toward particular moral and religious outlooks and identities to which it aspires.

What does constitutional patriotism suggest for the sort of reception immigrants should receive? There has been a general shift in Western Europe and North America in the standards governing access to citizenship from cultural markers to values, and this is a development that constitutional patriots would applaud. In the United States those seeking to become citizens must demonstrate basic knowledge of U.S. government and history. A newly revised U.S. citizenship test was instituted in October 2008 with the hope that it will serve, in the words of the chief of the Office of Citizenship, Alfonso Aguilar, as "an instrument to promote civic learning and patriotism. The revised test attempts to move away from civics trivia to emphasize political ideas and concepts. There is still a fair amount of trivia: "How many amendments does the Constitution have?" "What is the capital of your state The new test asks more open-ended questions about government powers and political concepts,"What does the judicial branch do?" "What stops one branch of government from becoming too powerful?" "What is freedom of religion.

Yet language is a key aspect of "ethical-cultural" forms of life, shaping people's worldviews and experiences. It is through language that individuals become who they are. Since a political community must conduct its affairs in at least one language, the ethical-cultural and political cannot be completely. As theorists of multiculturalism have stressed, complete separation of state and particularistic identities is impossible; government decisions about the language of public institutions, public holidays, and state symbols unavoidably involve recognizing and supporting particular ethnic and religious groups over others. In the United States, English language ability has been a statutory qualification for naturalization since 1906, originally as a requirement of oral ability and later as a requirement of English literacy. Indeed, support for the principles of the Constitution has been interpreted as requiring English literacy. The language requirement might be justified as a practical matter we need some language to be the common language of schools, government, and the workplace, so why not the language of the majority, but for a great many citizens, the language requirement is also viewed as a key marker of national identity. The continuing centrality of language in naturalization policy prevents us from saying that what it means to be an American is purely a matter of shared values.

In contrast to constitutional patriots, liberal nationalists acknowledge that states cannot be culturally neutral even if they tried. States cannot avoid coercing citizens into preserving a national culture of some kind because state institutions and laws define a political culture, which in turn shapes the range of customs and practices of daily life that constitute a national culture. David Miller, a leading theorist of liberal nationalism, defines national identity according to the following elements: a shared belief among a group of individuals that they belong together, historical continuity stretching across generations, connection to a particular territory, and a shared set of characteristics constituting a national culture. It is not enough to share a common identity rooted in a shared history or a shared territory; a shared national culture is a necessary feature of national identity. I share a national culture with someone, even if we never meet, if each of us has been initiated into the traditions and customs of a national culture.

What sort of content makes up a national culture, Miller says more about what a national culture does not entail. It need not be based on biological descent. Even if nationalist doctrines have historically been based on notions of biological descent and race, Miller emphasizes that sharing a national culture is, in principle, compatible with people belonging to a diversity of racial and ethnic groups. In addition, every member need not have been born in the homeland. Thus, "immigration need not pose problems, provided only that the immigrants come to share a common national identity, to which they may contribute their own distinctive ingredients.

MLA Citation

 

Introduction To the Holocaust

During the era of the Holocaust, German authorities also targeted other groups because of their perceived  racial inferiority rome, the disabled, and some of the Slavic peoples poles, Russians, and others. Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, witness, and homosexuals .In 1933, the Jewish population of europe stood at over nine million. Most European Jews lived in countries that Nazi Germany would occupy or influence during World War 2. By 1945, the Germans and their collaborators killed nearly two out of every three European Jews as part of the solution the Nazi policy to murder the Jews of Europe. Although Jews, whom the Nazis deemed a priority danger to Germany, were the primary victims of Nazi racism, other victims included some 200,000 Roma (Gypsies). At least 200,000 mentally or physically disabled patients, mainly Germans, living in institutional settings, were murdered in the so-called program.

As Nazi spread across Europe, the Germans and their collaborators persecuted and murdered millions of other people. Between two and three million prisonors of war were murdered or died of starvation, disease, neglect, or maltreatment. The Germans targeted the non-Jewish Polish intelligentsia for killing, and deported millions of Polish and Soviet civilians for labor in Germany or in occupied Poland, where these individuals worked and often died under deplorable conditions. From the earliest years of the Nazi regime, German authorities persecuted homosexuals and others whose behavior did not match prescribed social norms. German police officials targeted thousands of political opponents (including Communists, Socialists, and trade unionists) and religious dissidents (such as Jehovah's Witnesses). Many of these individuals died as a result of incarceration and maltreatment.



In the early years of the nazi, the National Socialist government established camps to detain real and imagined political and ideological opponents. Increasingly in the years before the outbreak of war, SS and police officials incarcerated Jews, Roma, and other victims of ethnic and racial hatred in these camps. To concentrate and monitor the Jewish population as well as to facilitate later deportation of the Jews, the Germans and their people created ghettos, transit camps, and forced-labor camps for Jews during the war years. The German authorities also established numerous forced-labor camps, both in the so called Greater German Reich and in German-occupied territory, for non-Jews whose labor the Germans sought to exploit.

Following the soviet union in June 1941, (mobile killing units) and, later, militarized battalions of Order Police officials, moved behind German lines to carry out mass-murder operations against Jews, Roma, and Soviet state and Communist Party officials. German SS and police units, supported by units of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS, murdered more than a million Jewish men, women, and children, and hundreds of thousands of others. Between 1941 and 1944, Nazi German authorities deported millions of Jews from Germany, from occupied territories, and from the countries of many of its Axis allies to ghettos and to, killing areas,often called extermination camps, where they were murdered in specially developed gassing facilities.

In the final months of the war, SS guards moved camp inmates by train or on forced marches, often called death marches in an attempt to prevent the Allied liberation of large numbers of prisoners. As Allied forces moved across Europe in a series of offensives against Germany, they began to encounter and liberate concentration camp prisoners, as well as prisoners en route by forced march from one camp to another.

In the after the Holocaust, many of the survivors found shelter in displaced persons camps administered by the Allied powers. Between 1948 and 1951, almost 700,000 Jews immigrated to Israel, including 136,000 Jewish displaced persons from Europe. Other Jewish DPs emigrated to the United States and other nations. The last DP camp closed in 1957. The crimes committed during the Holocaust devastated most European Jewish communities and eliminated hundreds of Jewish communities in occupied Eastern Europe entirely.

 

EPT Essay

 

 

 

The media is all around us, influencing most of our thoughts and
buying habits. Content of Commercials on television and not just television also in the movies, women are beening seen as only I candy and never anything else. Women are always seen taking their clothes off, getting naked in front of men, to give him what he wants. Also women that work in the police force or for the government, or any job that involves something of the law. Sometimes even just to get a straight answer out of a men, they need to through themselves at the man or women, as saying if you give me the answer to my questions or tell me the true ‘’ I’ll have a little surprise for you ‘’, they never go all the way of course but it definitely happens. It’s even shown on television as a given in example to the real word.

Women’s Rights are the rights claimed for women and girls of many societies worldwide. In some places, these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behavior, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed. They differ from broader notions of human rights through claims of an inherent historical and traditional bias against the exercise of rights by women and girls in favor of men and boys.

Issues commonly associated with notions of women's rights include, though are not limited to, the right to bodily integrity and autonomy, to vote suffrage, to hold public office, to work, to fair wages or equal pay, to serve in the military or be conscripted, to enter into legal contracts; and to have marital or parental rights.

This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women’s equal rights across the world for centuries.

Women rights’ across the globe make up a diverse, patchwork from one country to another. In February 2013, the British newspaper The Guardian compiled and illustrated, using an interactive graph, the state of women’s rights around the world. From women’s rights and access to abortion, to laws against domestic violence; from policies against sexual harassment to equality in the workplace the graphic an accurate assessment of compliance with women’s rights worldwide.

There is long history of women rights in the world. There is women discrimination from a long time ago. It has been developed for a long time, but there are still discrimination against women. I think many women are still distressed by discrimination. How have women’s rights changed?

            Between 1848 and 1920, there was first women’s rights movement in the U.S. At that time, women did not have the right to vote. Thus, women could not help to make society or law. They did not have any voice. Many women joined the first women rights movement to get the right to vote. The women picketed in front of the White House to pressure the president. It took a very long time and many women were arrested because of picketing. Finally, women got the right to vote.

            A long time ago, women could not work outside because of the law. Women had to stay home and do housework. The book written by Betty Friedan showed women’s real feelings. Many women were not happy about their lives, and they wanted choice and freedom. Then, the second women’s rights movement occurred. Finally, women got a choice to work outside or stay home.

            Today, there are still problems for women. One of the big problems is sexual harassment. Many women have jobs outside, and they get sexual harassment by their bosses. It is a very common problem, and it is the worst problem for women. Also, there is unfair payment between men and women. Many women work with men, they work the same time as men, and they have the same abilities as men. However, there salaries are different. Men get more than women sometimes. It is not fair. Before, men worked for supporting their families, but now, women work for supporting their families too. Thus, it must be same amount of payment.

            In conclusion, women’s rights have become better, but there are still some issues. I think women should have a voice to talk about their problems. That is the major way to solve the problems. In addition, women should go to areas of high position in politics, business, and education. I think when the same number of women and men belong to the area of politics, business, and education, it will make a fair society and country. I hope it becomes true, so it will make a beautiful world for everyone.

Women need to be seen as equals ones that can fight for themselves take care of themselves and be seen as true equals to men, not what they are seen as today. Women may be able to vote, own a home, have children, but they are still seen in the eyes of sex toys. We are not toys are bodies are private and we have to do the power with them of what they want not what men see, women ass. We need to stop beinging seen with are bodies first. People need to see women as what they have to offer as individual people. A female president is very much needed in this sense, to be a role model to all the other women in America and also the rest of the world. We need a powerful face. Who can protect are good name.

Narrative Autobiography

            I have a life just like everybody else but just a little different in my eyes.  Not like the typical family that you see on television with one mom, one dad, two kids, and a dog. When I was younger I knew I didn’t look like the rest of my family.  I didn’t have the same skin color, hair, or eye color.  My mother is a single parent who never married.  She is the oldest sibling in her family.  I asked my mother one day why I didn’t look like the rest of my family.  She explained that I was adopted, and told me what adoption meant and how she found me.  I was a confused seven year old who thought something was wrong with me. I hated the world, and wouldn’t speak to my Mom and the rest of my family for weeks. My Mom said that my birth mother couldn’t take care of me, and that I came at the wrong time.

 

            Now that I am much older, I understand that everything happens for a reason. I have a loving and caring family and a great mother.  I don’t care that I don’t look like anyone else. I have a family and I fit in. I don’t know if one day I will ever find my birth mother, but I hope to do so.  I have many questions that my adoptive mother and other people cannot answer.  Every year as my birthday approaches I begin to wonder how soon we will meet, and how soon my questions will finally be answered.  I would like to know if I have any half siblings, if I look like anyone, what is my true ethnic background, and where my athletic ability came from. It is one of my biggest goals to fill in the missing chapter of my life. I am seventeen years old, my eighteenth birthday is just around the corner, and I won’t let my questions go unanswered any longer.

 

            I have a great love of sports, especially track and field. When I was younger, I had no idea that running was a sport. I discovered track and field in the fifth grade.  I signed up with the Beyond the Bell after school program for my first ever track meet.  I was unsure exactly what I signed up for.  I was told by the coaches that I was fast, and that I had a good chance of winning a medal.  They put my name down for the 200 meter race.  I trained along with my classmates for a few weeks.  When we arrived at the meet I was nervous but excited at the same time. My race came, and I was ready.  When the gun sounded I knew exactly what to do.  I ran hard and fast.  It felt like I was all alone on the track.  They called out my name and lane four and said I won first place.  I placed first in my age group and second overall.

 

            I began to watch professionals runners compete.  I saw my first 100 meter hurdle race.   I thought that it was unique, would take a lot of time to learn.  When I started track in high school I asked Coach Cox to teach me how to run the 100 meter hurdles.  I came home with bumps and bruises every day.  I fell often during practice, but knew I had to keep going. I impressed my coaches by coming in first at my first junior varsity 100 meter hurdle race. I was pretty good for a freshman.  I was and still am today the only hurdler at Fairfax High School.

I haven’t won gold at finals yet, only silver, but I am determined to win the gold before I leave Fairfax.  I am on time to practice every day, always the first one on the field and the last one off. I hope to attend UCLA with a track scholarship.  I have been a Bruin since the day I was born.  My whole family attended UCLA. I am excited to see where life takes me.