America's Willingness to "Help"

September 11, 2001 one will be a day that no one will ever forget. It was a moment in US history where Americans and America itself felt vulnerable after the attacks. This was a moment where everybody in the world realized that America was not the powerful and super country that it had claimed to be. Before this, Bill Clinton had told the people of America and the world that the US was a very powerful country and that it would use that power to help other nations that are in trouble that need it. This has proven as a beneficial thing as well as a liability to us. We have gained new alliances from helping other countries and beneficial resources as well. This also has allowed us to set an "example" of what countries with power like America should do, playing as a role model. However, it also is confusing as to why the US gets itself involved with other nation's conflicts. Like with ISIS, we could bring nations together to go against the threats. This can prove as a huge problem where we can lose money for a cause that could bring little to no direct benefits to us. We could also create enemies from helping certain sides and this could cause future problems and we could potentially create enemies by helping them and then leaving them in the developing stages. An example of this would be Cuba where Fidel Castro rose to power and instated communism after the US left. This can also be the same for Afghanistan and the Taliban as the Taliban was the creation of the US and they became corrupted after the USA decided to leave after not completing their task.

The Space Race

The Cold War had accumulated from many rivalries that the US and the USSR shared. They were interlocked which seemed like a ever-lasting war that did not include much violence. The peak of the rivalry, however, had reached that point during the "Space Race". There were many other instances that could be argued as being the "peak", such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, Bay of Pigs Invasion, or the destruction of the Berlin Wall. The Space Race was the conflict for space supremacy between the US and the USSR. It started in 1955 when the US announced that they would be sending artificial intelligence into space and the USSR responded by saying that they would also send something similar into space, most likely a satellite. They beat the US in sending a satellite into space first in 1957 and the first human into space in 1961 with the Sputnik 1 carrying Yuri Gagarin. However, the US responded by sending three astronauts (Armstrong and Aldrin) on the spaceship Apollo 11. It came to an end with the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project in which both the US and USSR agreed to cooperate together on the project. The Space Race left an everlasting legacy for Earth communications and even allowed for the International Space Station (ISS) to be developed. It also allowed for numerous changes int technologies and will be considered one of the most beneficial rivalries to comer out of the Cold War.

The Cold War

The Cold War was a war that had no actual fighting in it. It was a fierce rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR) to see which country was the most powerful in the world. This originated from World War II when Japan and Germany lost power when they were defeated, and the allies (United States and the Soviet Union) were the only countries left. They both took on the role of superpowers and this is where both started to try and best the other. The most popular and primary example of this would be the Space Race. This was to see which superpower had the capability of going into space and who could do it the fastest. The Soviets were able to go into space first by launching a satellite, but the United States responded by sending Apollo 11 to the moon and having the first humans (Americans) to step on the moon. Another example of this would be the Cuban Missile Crisis in which the United States suspected Cuba of storing missiles, which was apparently given to by the Soviet Union. It was one of the closest points in which the Cold War would have evolved into a nuclear war. This was in response to the failed operation "Bay of Pigs" in which the Untied States invaded Cuba. The leaders of both the US and the USSR came into a truce in a meeting.

Social Views In The 1920's

In the early 1920's, there were many norms that people had to follow in society whether it was placed by the government or by society itself. It was not until "The Crime of the Century" took place that people started to see through these norms. This crime was when two teenagers who came from wealthy families and were both highly intelligent in their own ways, killed and mutilated a 14-year old boy. These teenagers were Nathan Leopold and Albert Loeb. Both graduated from prestigious colleges and had accomplished many impressive feats. They decided to carry out this "perfect murder" (dubbed by them) just for thrills. Back then, many people thought that juveniles had below average intelligence and that they were neglected by their parents. Furthermore, the idea of violent juveniles emphasized the idea of the lack of basic necessities for the them. These claims were pointing fingers towards the parents as if it were their fault. The crime committed by Leopold and Loeb challenged these views by showing that any parent could have raised two juveniles. I believe that these social norms, which are stereotypical ideas in disguise, are still present today and seem to still be alive. It will keep going until there will be a major real life counterexample that will denounce the stereotype as seen with the Leopold and Loeb case that took the life of 14-year old boy to disprove a "social norm" popular in the 1920's.  

Immigrants in America

The years between 1870 and 1900 saw the boom of immigrants come from many different countries. Many other events during this time period such as the Indian Wars and the Spanish-American War that overshadowed this influx of foreign immigrants coming to the United States. The reason for the large amount of immigrants coming to the United States was because it was reaching its prime in economy and in social life style in general. There were many job opportunities that were presented and the US lifestyle could have been much better than the immigrants past lifestyle. An example of this would be the Irish immigrating from Ireland to the largest famine they ever had. The Potato Famine was one of the worst disasters to ever occur in Irish history as it killed all the potatoes, which was the main and only food source the Irish had. They immigrated to the US to escape the lack of food and death from starvation from which many people succumbed to. Another example would be the Chinese coming to the west coast to have better working conditions and higher pay. The workers in China had terrible working conditions and would have little to no pay at all and they came over to the US to earn more money and at the same time work in a workable environment. Many people viewed the United States in different ways, whether it be about the economy or for social reasons, all of the immigrants viewed the US as a land of opportunity.   

The Indian Schools

During American Studies, we were given a journal prompt that had the question, "Should public schools teach their students American Values?" I said yes and supported this by saying that it would give us the knowledge of our American Culture and not replacing the culture we knew our entire lives, instead adding a second one on. My perspective changed when we were given the scenario of having this same question when the young Indians were forced to go to school. These were not ordinary schools, but were schools that taught the ways of becoming a "civilized" person which was a white man. They had to forget the VH culture in which they grew up with and adopt a new culture that they didn't want to be part of. They had to give up their traditional clothing for tighter ones that the white folk wore. They even lost their identity when they were forced to use an American name. They were not even allowed to speak their native tongue. I then realized that my argument became invalid because of the ways they were taught of the so-called American Values. Instead of learning the values as a second culture, they were forced to use it as a primary one and to replace their native culture. In addition, their identity was stripped from them and became a white man, earning the title of civilized through lots of loss and little benefit.

Learning from the Past

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (George Santayana, 1905). This quote was given to us as a journal prompt and we had to interpret what Santayana meant. What I interpreted through this quote was that we should remember our past mistakes that we have made and make sure we do not do it again so that we can have a bright and better future. An example of this would be the act of slavery that occurred as far back as Jamestown, Virginia where the first settlers came. The tension between whether slavery should be allowed or should be outlawed grew and grew until the only option left was to go to war. This led to the bloodiest war of United States history. Thus, slavery was abolished and was never seen in America again because people did not want to repeat the tragic event. At first, I thought that everybody would learn from their mistakes from the past, but I was proven wrong. When reading a packet about war, many of the rules have been repeated from the Civil War, World War II, and even modern wars. One of the rules of war is to ever target civilians unless a military target is within a city, then it is considered justifiable. Throughout history, many innocent people have died because of military personnel killing them for no apparent reason. No one has learned from the past mistakes, such as the Atomic Bombings of Japan or Sherman's March to the Sea. My point is that you will learn from the past and correct them in the future, just not all mistakes will be able fixed.