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Summary English: Culture and History (US)
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English Summary: Culture and History US - Frank Albers
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SETTLEMENT + IMMIGRATIONp. 58
- symbol ; America is a country designed for immigrants
- poem Emma Lazarus : America is a country that will welcome the poor and
the outsiders from other nations (ideology)
>< facts: efforts to contain migration, to legalise it and to control it
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In a country whose history began with the meeting of Native Americans and European colonists and
continued through the importation of African slaves and several waves of immigrants, there has
never been a single national culture; although for centuries a majority of Anglo-Americans made
vigorous efforts to establish one à the US is an accidental nation, it stumbled into being
à often looked back w nostalgia as if Am has lost sth, as if it was once greater than now - many
contemporary discussions seem to pre suppose a kind of lost paradise ; Am was never 'one' - white
ideologies have tried to wipe out the native culture
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Early Encounters between Europeans and Native Americans (10 million, 100+diff languages à a huge
culture was already there - conflict between Eu - NA revolved around 3 issues : )
HEALTH: they caught diseases from each other ; caused major deaths on both sides
LAND/TRADE: both have diff ideas abt the meaning of land and trade
RELIGION:
- EU - land was a commodity ; an instrument to be exploited, to cultivate,
make money off of it
- nature is a wilderness and it is God's assignment to cultivate it into
land this is how they can please God (materialistic + religious beliefs)
- to be owned by individuals
- NA - land was sacred, to be admired and respected rather than to be
changed, you have to respect mother nature
(again religious beliefs ; were pantheist : believe in some kind of divine
universe that humans and nature are part of)
- not personal property >< commune use of nature to feed and heal
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,The Founders two diff approaches to this issue = settlers who established the colonies
First settlements
FR : St.Augustin, Florida (1565) eldest settlement EN : Jamestown, Virginia (1607) first plantation
!! p. 61 : from the very beginning, shortage of labor forced/inspired the colonists to start importing
African labors from African countries =seeds/origins of slavery ; they were first introduced as
indentured servants (= earliest form of slavery: you give up your freedom for the first 5 yrs or so and
serve, then later u are freed)
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p.62 some important dates:
1619: first African laborers as indentured servants
1620: Pilgrims (separatists from the COE, Mayflower) = an English ship that transported a
group of English families known today as the Pilgrims from England to the US
1630: Puritans (reformers, Arbella)
separatists = protestants, driven by religion : god is going to give christians one more chance to
establish a tuly christian ideal world on earth - europe had failed to live up to christian
expectations and gods demands à separatists had turned their backs on europe for good,
were determined to set up the ideal in The New World - this escape from the church of
england failed completely bc of diseases
unlike the puritans : did not want to turn their back on europe and did not want to separate from
europe à wanted to purify : to create an example to the rest of the world, create a city on a
hill ; export their beliefs back to europe/entire globe
why is it that Am think they have to meddle and intervene all over the world ?
the puritan origin of white america : we have to set up a religious utopia to inspire the entire
world, if we do this the world will be safe from Gods wrath
à Am was not founded by Pilgrims arriving on mayflower, Am was founded by puritans who were
reformers who arrived 10yrs later on a ship named Arbella
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book p63-64: Founding of the “middle colonies” : (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania)
earliest eu communities : dutch, swedish ; accidentally grew into colonies - new sweden was annexed by the dutch - new
netherlands come under EN fleet (kept Dutch tolerance for ethinic, rel groups, diversity)
NEW NETHERLANDS (à EN took over control) NEW SWEDEN (NJ)
NEW AMSTERDAM: (becomes NY) - known for its tolerance
- 18 languages
pennysylvania : found by Quakers who flocked to colony after Charles II granted the area to William
Penn (aristocratic Quaker) as a religious refugee - religious freedom attracted a lot of ppl
(puritans,pilgrims)
,p.65 4 WAVES OF IMMIGRATION: ''US = a nation of nations'' economic + religious reasons
1680-1776 (colonial immigrants) : mainly Scots/Irish ppl
scots / irish were facing religious discrimination by the EN
Germans lived close tgt to not let their culture and religion die
àmostly RELIGIOUS reasons
transformed demography / EN, Anglo Am dominance / diversity à diverse, religious tolerance
1820-1890 (“old” immigrants) : Scandinavians/Dutch/German
à mostly ECONOMIC reasons : unlimited supply of land !
switch to large scale production, machinery, IR
! Nativism : dislike of foreign ppl and things (germans, scandinavions were stereotyped,
discriminated) ex : Chinese immigration act 1882 : ended ch immigration
à racism, fear of unemployment closed frontier
! p66: 1862 homestead act : if u could cultivate the land u could call it yours
3: 1890-1930 (“new” immigrants)
many races, cultures > increased crime, overcrowding, epidemics > intermarriage > fuse
Melting pot metaphor : meant that immigrants should conform to Anglo American culture
>< Cultural pluralism : belief in diverse cutlures united by loyalty to the same civic ideas
! p69: renewed immigration debate + restriction (the openness is curved and limited ; the
real effort to contain the migration flow is 100 yrs old, nth new à you should be able to
contextualise the discussion of migration in history)
4: 1965-present (Latino & Asian) à SOCIOEONOMIC reasons
legal + illegal ; industrialization + commercialization ; chain migration
Ellis Island is a historical site that opened in 1892 as an immigration station, a purpose it served for
more than 60 years until it closed in 1954.
http://www.history.com/topics/ellis-island/videos/hurdles-to-citizenship-on-ellis-island
Restricting Immigration
: overview of subsequent laws that were passed to control the flux of immigration (know dates !)
• 1890-1914: 15,5 million (in 24 yrs) “new” immigrants!
• 1875: federal government began listing ‘banned groups’ (contract laborers, convicts,
prostitutes, lunatics, idiots, paupers, polygamists, political radicals, the Chinese, the
Japanese, illiterates)
• 1892: Ellis Island : set up to screen all the incoming immigrants
• 1908: The Melting Pot by Israel Zangwill (p.69) = mythical play : important bc it introduced
the metaphor of the Melting Pot - the idea that all the diff groups migrating into the US
coming from all over the world, that they would somehow merge and become a new people,
Am would invite ppl from diff classes, religions, ethnicities and that Am could become a new
'race' à until this day a lot of ppl still think that multiculturalism, which creates hybrid
multilayered cultural identity (e.g. African Am) , is a threat to Am
''make Am great again'' = a slogan that looks backward to some kind of imaginary past when
all Am were Anglo-White Saxons (this was never the case)
Melting pot = reactionary nostalgic ideal of ppl who are not willing to acknowledge the
cultural complexity of Am
• 1921: Emergency Quota Act (introduction nationality quotas; 3%)
, • 1924: Asian Exclusion Act+National Origins...
• 1965: Immigration Act : separate quota for refugees
• 1986: Immigration Reform and Control Act
• 1990: Immigration Act
immigration in 2018:
• 70% decline in one yr
• 45 million foreign-born people in the US (in 2018); 50% citizens, 25% undocumented 25%
legal residents
• Non-citizens declined by ca 478,000 (more than 50% from Latin America)
à Trumps policies made it harder for ppl to come to the US
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story of american immigration >< facts - not identical
COLONIAL AMERICA
JOHN WINTHROP = a preacher, a puritan, leader of the ppl who came on the Arbella
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