Kapitel 8

Melting Pot or Salad Bowl

- The population in the USA is a mix between many different cultures and ethnic groups.

- Many people see the USA as a melting pot where many different cultures have been mixed into one single culture. Others see it as a salad bowl where the different cultures has been mixed but still keeps some of its identity.

- Since 1776 many different cultures have come to the USA.

The Establishment of the Dominant Culture:

- First census of the new nation, conducted in 1790 counted about 4 million people.

- Most of the white

- 8/10 of the white traced their ancestry back to England.

- African Americans, 20 percent of the population

- About 700.000 slaves and about 60.000 “free Negros”

- The white population, who had the money and the political power

The Assimilation of Non-Protestant and Non-Western Europeans

- Most of the settlers who came from Europe came from poverty and they spoke other languages than English and many of them were Catholics and Jews.

- Many Americans were worried when the settlers came. They were afraid that the settlers couldn’t understand the Americans believe in freedom, self-reliance and competition.

The African-American Experience

- The process of assimilation in the United States against has been much more successful for white ethnic groups than for nonwhite ethnic groups.

- African-American was brought to the United States against their will to be sold as slaves.

- Except for the American Indian tribes who inhabited the United States before the first white settlers arrived.

- Other ethnic groups came to America most as immigrants who wanted to better their living conditions.

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s

- In 1954 the United States Supreme Court decided that separating different cultures did not provide equal education so therefore it was made illegal to separate students.

- MLK led thousands of people in nonviolent demonstrations until his assassination in 1968.

- Malcolm X believed that blacks had to separate themselves from the white and build their own society.

- Kings activities passed two laws which made great changes in the South.

- In 1984 and 1988 Jesse Jackson, a black leader who had worked with MLK was the first black man to run for president of The United States. He didn’t win but he received significant national attention.

A Universal Nation

- By the 1920s Americans decided to close the border so the mass immigration would slow down a bit.

- The new comers enriched the cultural diversity of the nation and they didn’t cause major changes to the system of government, the free enterprise system or the traditional values.

- In 1965 the United States changed the immigration laws so more immigrants could come.

- Despite the new immigration laws many immigrants are in the United States illegal.

- The United States will be described not as a “melting pot” or a “salad bowl” but as a mosaic – a picture made up of many tiny pieces of different colors.

- The United States will be described not as a “melting pot” or a “salad bowl” but as a mosaic – a picture made up of many tiny pieces of different colors.

Lavet af: Christina og Marie

Capitel 7!!

A suspicion of strong government

- A strong government is the natural enemy of the “free people

- The men behind the American Revolution in 1776 believed that GB was the free people’s enemy.

The organization of the American Government

- The US government is divided into 3 parts, basically the; congress, the president and the constitution.

- With the meaning of this, the president can’t make anything happened without the approval of one of the congress, which needs the approval of the constitution. And the congress and constitution can make anything a law without the president’s signature ore 2/3 votes from the congress and the constitution.

The election of the President and the congress

- The two congresses can’t determine who becomes president, but it happens that a leader of the parties becomes president.

- How is the president chosen?

The ideal of the free individual

- The ideal of the free individualism from 1860-1930 was that the government should not interfere in business, so for this reason they didn’t have that much power.

The development of big government

- From small government to a big one.

- Depression, health care, unemployed money.

The role of special interest group

Government and politics are based on reaching compromises with a large number of groups and pleasing as many as possible.

The new individualism: interest group government

- A lot of politicians depend of interest groups giving them money for a campaign if they support their interest or give them their guaranty of voters, especially in the constitution where they are elected every 2 years.

Chapter 5 - The Heritage of Abundance

A History of Abundance

United States is only around 5 % of the total world populations, yet they use about 25% of the world’s energy per year. It is now probably the most powerful nation in the world and part of the reason was the massive area filled with fertile land and rich resource that the European settlers discovered and took advantage of when they arrived. But the nature wasn’t the only reason, the people who immigrated to the country consisted of three very important beliefs that would secure the country’s future; their beliefs, determination and hard work.

It’s one of the wealthiest countries today because of a man named Tocqueville, who thought that, since the material wealth of the people and their children could change rather fast, they were forced to increase the nation’s overall wealth so they were guaranteed profit, no matter what happened to the individual. Therefore every person in the country worked very hard to earn money, not only for them, but to the state as well. But there was a side effect since every person began to judge other persons according to how much they contributed the cause.

From Producers to Consumers

In the 1700s and 1800s, most Americans were farmers and factory workers, and so they thought of themselves as producers. But with the invention of advertising by radio and TVs in the 1920s and ‘50s, the overall business increased rapidly and by that they became more of a consumer.

Some advertisement campaigns were extremely powerful and convincing, often changing people’s belief and opinions. Such as political campaigns during elections or anti-drug campaigns. And today, the American economy depends on consumerism.

What American Consumers Like

When designing products to the American people they have to rely on four things; comfort, cleanliness, novelty and convenience.

The American love for comfort is seen in the way they furnish their homes, design their massive cars, and travel.

Cleanliness is also a bit part of the American life, mostly because they are being fed up with it from the thousands of soap, shampoo, washing-powder, and deodorant commercials in the TV. The saying “Cleanliness is next to godliness” reflects the belief of the heavily religious country as well.

They also have a strong desire to get their things quickly, which is why the entire fast-food industry was invented over in the USA, it is also why microwaves and dishwashers exists.

An Abundance of Technology

With the recent overflow of TV channels, the advertisers are becoming desperate since there’s a lower chance of their commercials to be seen. To resolve this, they’ve come up with new ways to advertise their products in ways more people will be sure to see them. One way to do this is product placement, where various brands or products are being seen used by celebrities or hidden in the background in various media.

The increasing usage of the internet has also become important and a useful service when talking business, since you can basically do everything on the web.

Challenges of the Technological Revolution

Several issues with the technological revolution, first of all that companies now can provide, television, telephone service, cell phone service and internet, like the Danish company TDC, there’s both good and bad sides of this, the costumer doesn’t pay that much but there is fewer and fewer companies.

The Americans are worried about the internet and their children; they are in a big dilemma how to balance the right to speech and protection for their children. Therefore are they using the Rate system, (15+,18+,21+)

The Ever-Expanding Pie…

During the first 200 years have the Americans always thought that North America was an ever-expanding pie. In most other contries in Europe, people believed in that the rich had a larger piece of the pie, but in America they have believed in that the pie just continued to grow and so all people, rich and poor, just could get a bigger piece of a bigger pie. In the 1900’s the Americans believed that the pie would grow bigger and bigger because of new products and techniques, and it would last as long as they could see in the future.

The belief in an everlasting heritage was a good thing, it made America to an optimistic country and the people had more confidence that human problems could be solved.

…Or the Decline of American Abundance?

Over the last few decades the American economy has had its up and downs. the 1980’

s and 90’s Brought a general turn in the economy, The poor got poorer and the rich got richer, and they were not able to live out The American Dream. Many Americans have problems keeping up the rising costs, Particularly for housing, like in the tv show “ The Middle”

Frankie and her husband Mike, a manager at a quarry, have lived their whole lives in Ors

on, a fictitious small town in Indiana. Frankie is so far the least successful salesperson at the local car dealership, a job she explains she took only after the dentist office she worked in closed down. she is struggling to keep the economy together.

What of the Future?

It is uncertain whether the American position in global economic will remain, especially with the many competitors, crisis’s, upturns, and downturns. One thing is certain though; the American tradition and lifestyle of this ever been abundance will remain the values of the American people. However, when there is a decline in the abundance, there will arise many positive side effects, such as the global warming situation, which resulted in many Americans now recycling aluminum and tin cans, plastic bags and so on. Meanwhile, children learn about environmental issues and how to treat the environment properly in school.

Lavet af: Anders Engbo Christiansen og Andreas Møller Thomsen

kapitel 4

the impact of the american frontier

people in the united states are still fascinated by the heritage of the frontier even though in happened more than a century ago. they say they are interested in that time, because that was when the American culture was born. Ronald Reagan and Gorge Bush, during their presidential times, were taken pictures of riding a horse and wearing a cowboy hat. For many years, people found the frontier experience romantic, but they had forgotten that the Native Americans land was taken from them and had their culture destroyed. Today they are more aware of the darker side of that time. the heritage experience started in the 1600's when the first settlers came. After the settlers had traveled 2700 miles and swept the natives away it ended in 1890. The frontier provided many good examples of hard work, as the settlers raised large cities where there once were forests. Individualism is believed to have been valued that time because the settlers saw themselves as free people, probably because there was less control over the people that time

Self reliance and the rugged individualist.

Because the settlers lived on the frontier, they had to live without the treats the government had, so they had to be self-reliant and make their own houses at materials. They looked up upon the American hero of the wild west, who by his own skills was capable of during many things, could survive without any help. there stories where inspired by people like Jesse James and Wyatt Earp.

American macho heroes

since the wild west the American hero has always been a strong man who could demonstrate his strength with violence. this has been glorified by many, and today there are many film with a hero solve his problems by shooting people.

Today people are also getting worried of what impact that kind of idols will have on their community, since young people are starting to have gun. They have to go through metal detector when going to school because of the fear of school shootings. There are over 200 million guns in the US, with is enough to give every adult one. After the 9/11 the gun sale went up, so now 51% of every household has at least one gun. the NRA are opposing gun control since it is every Americans right to own a gun, so they are making it hard to get more gun control in the country.

inventiveness and the can do spirit

the need for self-reliance meant that the people had to solve many of their own problems, so they solved these problems with inventiveness. They invented new farm tools and other tools to make their life easier. Lord Bryce believed that it was the invention skills which made the pioneers able to solve these problems. the americans like to believe any task can be done. This is called the can-do spirit

equality of opportunity

they believed that all people on the frontier deserved another chance, and they were looked upon who he was abd not his families background. those from the east who have had failure in life usually moved to the west to begin a new life. on the frontier there were less diffrece between people when it came to wealth, and they started to dress like one another. the frontier has helped the american people to inspire them to grow strong, and made them believe in self-reliance and equality of opportunity.

Chapter 3 - The American Religious Heritage

Lasse Vie Olesen & Casper Madsen

Freedom of religion in the US

Americans are very religious; many people attend weekly church meetings and pray each night before they go to bed. Protestants are the dominating religion, although smaller religions are also visible in the US like Jewish, Muslim and Hindu, among various other religions.

The development of Protestantism

The Christian faith was split up into many other lesser beliefs in the sixteenth century because of many differences in people’s religion. Roman Catholics had the pope as the leader of the religion and they told what wrong and right, and they sold forgiveness from sins against god for a small donation to the church.

The Protestants insisted on that the individual man must stand alone and if people sinned they should go straight to god through prayers instead of through priests who spoke as god’s voice

The Protestants disagreed with each other’s opinion of the belief so they split up to even smaller groups called denominations, e.g. Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran etc.

The desire for religious freedom was generally the strongest factor of why many people emigrated to the US

The Protestant Heritage: Self-Improvement

The Protestants which are told to fix their problems alone by praying have a strong aptitude towards self-help and generally fixing the problems themselves. And they are happily reading self-help books “Getting rich for dummies.” And they believe in that God helps those who help themselves.

Material success, hard work, and Self-Discipline

Material success is seen as a most respected form of self-improvement even though it might seem contradictory with religion and materialism, when religion is sided with spiritual matters. But it has been said that people who are blessed with material success are on the good side of god.

Religious leaders however doesn’t approve of material success without Self-discipline and hard work, which might have contributed to the industrial growth in America.

Volunteerism and humanitarianism

The idea of self-improvement includes more than gaining material wealth, it also gives the idea of helping others. Help yourself by helping others e.g. helping your neighbor repairing the roof or giving donations to charity etc.

America has a large history of wealthy people donating extreme amounts of money to charity. John D. Rockefeller was a famous businessman which donated a really large sum of his personal wealth to fund a university.

kapitel 1

Mathias og Michael

Life in the United States

This chapter is about the life in USA. it is about how big the country is and how everything Is different from state to state. It says that if you want to understand America it is important to know that there is a huge ethnic diversity because America is a country made of all kinds of cultures from different parts of Europe. However, it is England which has the biggest influence, as they today are founders of the traditional culture and the dominating lifestyle in America.

A nation of immigrants

In 1815 the population was 8,6 millions. 100 years later, 35 million immigrants came to America. They came from all parts of Europe. They all came with different languages and cultures but they ended up making USA.

But because of the big immigration, a quote of 150.000 immigrants per year, was created. Later it came back to 1 million.

Today the Hispanics are the largest minority group in America, which is a problem because they aren’t speaking English, so a lot of things have to be in Spanish as well as English.

Kap. 2

The land of opportunities

Individual freedom and self-reliance

Hard work = benefit

Freedom

Economy

The American dream