American Studies Essays (Examples)

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I. Introduction
A. Thesis statement: Zora Neale Hurston was a pioneering literary figure whose works defied conventional representations of race, gender, and sexuality in the early 20th century.
B. Hurston's biographical background and literary context

II. Breaking Boundaries in Race and Gender
A. Challenging stereotypes in "Their Eyes Were Watching God": Janie Crawford's journey toward self-discovery and autonomy
B. Exploring the nuances of black womanhood in "The Gilded Six-Bits" and "Sweat": Depictions of love, violence, and resilience

III. Embracing the African Diaspora
A. Preserving cultural traditions in "Mules and Men" and "Tell My Horse": Folklore, music, and storytelling as expressions of black identity
B. Celebrating Haitian Vodou in....

With the advent of Colombo on the American soil, things began to change as Philip J. Deloria asserts in her book Playing Indian (1999): "[T]he self-defining pairing of American truth with American freedom rests on the ability to wield power against Indians... while simultaneously drawing power from them." This is also the basic idea of Shari M. Huhndorf's Going Native: Indians in the American Cultural Imagination. "As white Americans became disenchanted with how American society was developing, they began to reference Indian people and culture as an answer to such problems of a modernizing America as capitalistic greed; alienating, sedentary life-style of the office worker; imperialistic aggressiveness; and racial and gender challenges to white male hegemony" (Barak, 2005).
The Indians progress was challenged by the so-called American School of ethnology. Therein Christianity became a tool in the American colonial project. The development of an ideology based in religion was made….

This leads to many false stereotypes and assumptions about cultures which most of us have never experienced.
2) When the structure of colonialism set in on Latin America, the Catholic Church established Counter-Reformation initiatives ordered by Spain's Holy Inquisition. The Counter-Reformation discouraged cultural endeavors in Latin America if they were not directly affiliated to specific Church celebrations. This resulted in much illiteracy and general ignorance of advances being made in the world during the 17th and 18th centuries, specifically the Enlightenment. Additionally, the Catholic Church, in this role, was less involved in being true missionaries, but rather functioned as a cultural censor that enforced regulatory social practices. Peninsular bureaucrats seemed to have no interest or care for the vast lands of Latin America, and developed an increasing disdain for the growing mixed Spanish and indigenous population (Mestizo). They were suspicious of indigenous and mestizo people, and also of Spanish people….

Chinese American Studies
PAGES 10 WORDS 3006

Chinese-American Studies: Wen Ho Lee Case
United States of America is a melting pot of various communities who have been residing in the country for generations. They feel assimilated into the American culture where many of them have been born and brought up in the U.S. And hence have remote connections with the country of their ancestors. As a result, they feel very much a part of this country and believe they have the rights of a citizen. This is why they feel that they do not deserve to be discriminated against on the grounds of their origins. Therefore such communities protest if situations arise, where they feel they have been discriminated against in some or the other. Though United States confers all rights of citizenry to its nationals, there have been cases in the past where the U.S. government has discriminated against a person or a group on the basis….


For the American community to open up to the less fortunate in the community, there is need to have a diverse leader and a pragmatic leader who will not only concentrate on the foreign affairs and the complex national economics and financial matrices but also on the basic misfortunes that face the average underprivileged America.

The best place hence to undertake American studies that will present me with the best shots at lifting our society from the disparity in lifestyle, by educating me on the details of the America that was, America that is and one that we want, is at the cradle of history itself; the university. This knowledge, combined with the zeal for information from around the world as I get updated through addictive reading of New York Times and continuous follow-up of updates on CNN, can surely make me climb to the apex of my career and vision….

Survival of Racist Customs and Mores Into the 21st Century: Analysis of the American Correction and Sentencing Trends
Increasing awareness of the US's unsuccessful mass imprisonment experimentation has effected federal and state level modifications aimed at decreasing the nation's detention scale. Experts and policymakers have been suggesting "smart on crime" public safety strategies which support alternatives to imprisonment and decrease re-offense chances[footnoteRef:1]. Despite simultaneous fruitful bipartite dialogues on the subject of decreasing jail populations and bringing improvements to crime justice policies, the nation still struggles with disturbing racial frictions. The latest concern concentrates on frequent reports of law enforcement violence inflicted on non-Whites, some cases ending in fatalities of African-American males at the hands of law enforcers, with scant to no evident provocation. In this paper, the many fields in which racist values and traditions continue in the current era will be examined, with particular emphasis to the American corrective and….

American Indian Movement
PAGES 6 WORDS 2030

American Indian Movement
The poorest people in America are the American Indians and it is also a fact that Indian reservations have unique laws that has made it a nation by itself within the United States. The modern movements focus on the American Indian reservations being empowered by self-determination. This is important for the economic, social and cultural improvement of the American Indians. It was with the Nixon administration that the welfare of the tribes became the focus of the government. The subsequent administrations encouraged the Indians to adapt to a policy of political and economic self-determination. Today many reservations have become economic hubs with tax and regulation havens for investment. Thus as of now the Mescalero and White Mountain Apaches "have become premier private managers of multiple-use forest resource economies." (Legters; Lyden, 1994)

However it must be stated that only during the eagan administration that there were major reports on Indian….


Some writers had been overwhelmed by the sudden changes brought by the Harlem Renaissance and they preferred writing about certain things which didn't involve it. Sometimes they chose to write about a place in the U.S. which had a special effect on them at some point of their lives.

3. Black people had not been the only ones struggling to receive credit for their writings during the 1920s, as it had been also hard for women to become appreciated in a majority of men writers. Despite having to fight the severe gender discrimination which existed during the period, many American women writers managed to become successful.

Bess Streeter Aldrich is one of the women who succeeded in getting a positive feed-back from a public that had not been accustomed with women writers. Aldrich's writing "A Lantern in Her Hand" had won her international recognition for having created a great literary work.

"A Lantern….

American West and Brazil the
PAGES 10 WORDS 2900

The relationship they had with one another included a fair division of land, and a good balance of trade. Unfortunately, after the settlers learned what they needed from the Native Americans and took what they could from them, they no longer had any use for the proud people whose land they had invaded.
The relationship between the settlers and the Native Americans began to change as settlers learned to do things for themselves, grow their own crops and breed their own animals for food. With the settlers being able to survive on their own, there was no longer any need for the Native Americans to help. The population of settlers was also growing, and new villages were being built on land that used to belong to the Native Americans.

The settlers kept expanding the areas that belonged to them, and this made the areas belonging to the Native Americans smaller and….

Baltimore Advertiser, 18 Mar 1788)
(2) the second class was reported as comprised by "those descriptions of men who are certainly more numerous with us than in any other part of the globe. First, those men who are so wise as to discover that their ancestors and indeed all the rest of mankind were and are fools. We have a vast overproportion of these great men, who, when you tell them that from the earliest period at which mankind devoted their attention to social happiness, it has been their uniform judgment, that a government over governments cannot exist - that is two governments operating on the same individual - assume the smile of confidence, and tell you of two people travelling the same road - of a perfect and precise division of the duties of the individual." (No. 10 -- on the Preservation of Parties, Public Liberty Depends, 18 Mar….

Individuals could not grow their own food, given the space and land constraints and therefore were dependant upon the city infrastructure to provide it. This then creates additional industry, and the story goes on to build whole insular and expansive systems within the city to meet the needs of labor and industry. Agricultural support systems, in outlying areas, transportation systems to make logistics of such provision possible as well as markets to bring the goods to consumers and of course the restaurant industry all grew with the population.
Housing, is another example. Housing in newly forming cities is often substandard, as it was in most U.S. cities, and where it existed in this manner, city planning, codes and standards had to be created to respond to concerns regarding safety and other issues. This became substantially more important as industry introduced thinks like electricity, running water and waste removal systems to….

American Revolution
Slavery in the United Stated lasted as an endorsed organization until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865. In 1619 twenty Africans were brought by a Dutch soldier and sold to the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia as indentured servants.

This would be the first of many visits up and down the American eastern seaboard. At this time, most slaves were being purchased by white men, though some Native Americans and free blacks were also detained. Slavery was spread to the areas where there was a high-quality soil for large plantations of important crops, such as cotton, sugar, coffee and most prominently tobacco. Even though the endorsed practice of enslaving blacks occurred in all of the original thirteen colonies, more than half of all African-Americans lived in Virginia and Maryland. The three highest-ranking North American zones of importation throughout most of the eighteenth century….

American Psycho
In his seminal work American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis uses the character of the yuppie serial killer Patrick Bateman in order to criticize American consumer culture while simultaneously challenging the reader to confront his or her own responses to that culture, responses that Ellis seems to suggest are only removed from the sociopathic actions of Bateman in a manner of degree, rather than kind. To see how Ellis uses the character of Patrick Bateman to explore the dual role of the serial killer as liberated individual and microcosmic representation of society, one may compare Bateman to the real life serial killer John ayne Gacy, who managed to keep his multiple murders a secret for the better part of the 1970s. Examining Bateman's characterization alongside the history of Gacy's murders and seemingly normal civilian life will help to demonstrate how the fascination with the two-faced killer ultimately stems from a….

American Investment ecovery Act
Throughout American history there has been an emphasis on maintaining a balance of power between different branches of government. This is from the belief that concentrating too much authority in one area will lead to inevitable abuses in others. To prevent this, the federal government and states have always practiced these basic principles. As a result, there are varying interpretations as to the overall scope of power given to particular branch. (McNeese, 2001)

In 2009, these issues were continually being brought to forefront with the American ecovery Act and einvestment Act of 2009. This law was designed to provide the economy with additional amounts of stimulus to address the lingering challenges from the financial crisis. However, the process of enacting this legislation, there were increased amounts of controversy surrounding the balance of power between the President and Congress. This is because the Democrats had an overwhelming majority in….

American Influence Abroad
PAGES 3 WORDS 1017

American Culture
riters such as Pico Iyer, Richard Pells, and Joseph Nye are in fact correct that the world culture has not and will not be Americanized. These writers are correct in asserting that American culture is ever forceful, but still America remains just one influence in a multicultural world: a manifestation of globalization. ith such a supreme focus on America, it can seem like America is the dominant force; however, this is just a result of a skewed perspective. It is true that other cultures have also spread outwards and that local cultures cannot and will not be destroyed.

The phenomenon of culture shock is direct evidence of the fact that American culture is not as pervasive as many people would like to assert that it is. As centers for study abroad programs in various universities explain, culture shock is a logical reaction to the body and mind in response to….

Nevertheless, there have been many decisions over the years that have tended to weaken the intent of the Framers. In 2001, in Zelman v. Simmons Harris the Supreme Court ruled that school voucher programs did not violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment. The decision represented a blow to the essentially secular nature of the American state and system. By allowing public money to be given to religious schools, the Supreme Court was permitting the violation of a more than two hundred year old principle. In reaching its decision, the Supreme Court chose to accept the argument that giving money to schools was not a case of advancing religion but rather one of who should have power over education - the state or individual parents.
Personal freedom was now being re-defined as something that included the right to government assistance if the government provided assistance in similar situations. Persons….

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3 Pages
Term Paper

Native Americans

American Studies Environment and Native

Words: 870
Length: 3 Pages
Type: Term Paper

With the advent of Colombo on the American soil, things began to change as Philip J. Deloria asserts in her book Playing Indian (1999): "[T]he self-defining pairing of…

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2 Pages
Essay

Literature - Latin-American

Latin American Studies by Philip

Words: 580
Length: 2 Pages
Type: Essay

This leads to many false stereotypes and assumptions about cultures which most of us have never experienced. 2) When the structure of colonialism set in on Latin America, the…

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10 Pages
Term Paper

Race

Chinese American Studies

Words: 3006
Length: 10 Pages
Type: Term Paper

Chinese-American Studies: Wen Ho Lee Case United States of America is a melting pot of various communities who have been residing in the country for generations. They feel assimilated into…

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2 Pages
Essay

Teaching

American Citizen of Dominican Hispanic

Words: 580
Length: 2 Pages
Type: Essay

For the American community to open up to the less fortunate in the community, there is need to have a diverse leader and a pragmatic leader who will not…

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7 Pages
Essay

Criminal Justice

American Corrections and'sentencing trends

Words: 2670
Length: 7 Pages
Type: Essay

Survival of Racist Customs and Mores Into the 21st Century: Analysis of the American Correction and Sentencing Trends Increasing awareness of the US's unsuccessful mass imprisonment experimentation has effected federal…

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6 Pages
Research Paper

Native Americans

American Indian Movement

Words: 2030
Length: 6 Pages
Type: Research Paper

American Indian Movement The poorest people in America are the American Indians and it is also a fact that Indian reservations have unique laws that has made it a nation…

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3 Pages
Research Proposal

Black Studies

American Versions of Modernalisim the

Words: 1234
Length: 3 Pages
Type: Research Proposal

Some writers had been overwhelmed by the sudden changes brought by the Harlem Renaissance and they preferred writing about certain things which didn't involve it. Sometimes they chose to…

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10 Pages
Term Paper

Native Americans

American West and Brazil the

Words: 2900
Length: 10 Pages
Type: Term Paper

The relationship they had with one another included a fair division of land, and a good balance of trade. Unfortunately, after the settlers learned what they needed from…

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3 Pages
Essay

American History

American Founding and Its Legacies

Words: 1003
Length: 3 Pages
Type: Essay

Baltimore Advertiser, 18 Mar 1788) (2) the second class was reported as comprised by "those descriptions of men who are certainly more numerous with us than in any other…

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3 Pages
Essay

Urban Studies

American Industrialization Urban Systems the

Words: 1167
Length: 3 Pages
Type: Essay

Individuals could not grow their own food, given the space and land constraints and therefore were dependant upon the city infrastructure to provide it. This then creates additional…

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3 Pages
Essay

Black Studies

American Revolution Slavery in the United Stated

Words: 1499
Length: 3 Pages
Type: Essay

American Revolution Slavery in the United Stated lasted as an endorsed organization until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865. In 1619 twenty Africans…

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8 Pages
Essay

Literature

American Psycho in His Seminal Work American

Words: 2804
Length: 8 Pages
Type: Essay

American Psycho In his seminal work American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis uses the character of the yuppie serial killer Patrick Bateman in order to criticize American consumer culture while simultaneously…

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8 Pages
Essay

Economics

American Investment Recovery Act Throughout American History

Words: 2438
Length: 8 Pages
Type: Essay

American Investment ecovery Act Throughout American history there has been an emphasis on maintaining a balance of power between different branches of government. This is from the belief that concentrating…

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3 Pages
Essay

Anthropology

American Influence Abroad

Words: 1017
Length: 3 Pages
Type: Essay

American Culture riters such as Pico Iyer, Richard Pells, and Joseph Nye are in fact correct that the world culture has not and will not be Americanized. These writers are…

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7 Pages
Research Proposal

Government

American History and Culture Contributes

Words: 2472
Length: 7 Pages
Type: Research Proposal

Nevertheless, there have been many decisions over the years that have tended to weaken the intent of the Framers. In 2001, in Zelman v. Simmons Harris the Supreme…

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