BRIEFLY DESCRIBE THE ORIGINS OF A PATRIOTIC SONG IN AMERICAN HISTORY, AND COMPOSE YOUR OWN REVISION OF THE SONG.

02 May BRIEFLY DESCRIBE THE ORIGINS OF A PATRIOTIC SONG IN AMERICAN HISTORY, AND COMPOSE YOUR OWN REVISION OF THE SONG.

5. Provide a list of 15 military interventions by the United States of America since 1890 not including WW I or WW II, and offer a profile one of these interventions.  The interventions can include wars, invasions, CIA participation in overthrows or attempted overthrows, etc.

I welcome you to make a comparison or contrast between the intervention you profile and some military intervention or war we have studied in AMST 301.

 

6a.   Research and profile a race riot in the United States since 1865 that did not take place in Los Angeles.  Compare and contrast this riot to one of the riots in the history of Los Angeles (e.g., 1871 anti-Chinese riot, 1943 Zoot Suit Riot, 1965 Watts Riot, 1992 LA Riot).

 

or

 

 

6b.   Research and profile a Native American massacre in American history and either (a) compare and contrast it to the “My Lai Massacre” during the Vietnam War (b) write a brief description of American Indian “removal” or conflict with settlers in your home state.

 

7. Frederick Jackson Turners essay, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” had its origins in part from Turners analysis of 1890 Census. Google and review the Census Reports of the USA from1790, 1890, and 2010.  Offer a comment on something you see significant or interesting in each census and conclude with a commentary that compares and contrasts these three census reports.

 

8. Write a profile of the history of a sport in America in which you briefly describe the beginnings or very early history of that sport in America and in which you describe and comment on a significant moment in that sport in relation to issues of race/ethnicity or gender. For instance, you could describe the history of a womans professional football team that once existed in Los Angeles (e.g., the Los Angeles Dandelions or the Los Angeles Amazons).  If you choose to profile the sport of baseball, please do not use the story of Jackie Robinson as the significant moment in the sport in relation to issues of race/ethnicity.  This is an important story, but it is too familiar, and I would prefer you to discover another significant moment in baseball in relation to issues of race/ethnicity or gender.

 

9a.  Write a paragraph in which you compare and contrast an alternative Declaration of Independence to the original Declaration of Independence, and then include as well your own rewriting or imitation of the Declaration of Independence in which you use the form of the Declaration to make a new Declaration of Independence against a source of tyranny and oppression in your mind.  For the purpose of this essay, Frederick Douglass “What to the Slave is the 4^th of July?” can be considered one of these alternative declarations of independence.

 

or

 

9b.  Briefly describe the history of one of the amendment to the Constitution, and then draft and propose a new amendment to the Constitution and offer a justification for it

 

or

 

9c.    Briefly describe the origins of the Pledge of Allegiance, and compose your own revision of the Pledge of the Allegiance.

 

or

 

9d.     Briefly describe the origins of a patriotic song in American history, and compose your own revision of the song.

 

or

 

9e.  Briefly describe the origins or history of a national or state holiday in the USA (e.g., Labor Day, Columbus Day, Thanksgiving, Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday, Memorial Day, Confederate Heroes Day (Texas), Cesar Chavez Day (California) and then propose a new holiday for the USA or the State of California.  Note whether there has been any controversy associated with the celebration of the holiday and offer an opinion on this controversy.   Discuss how or whether the holidays you select to write upon for this essay has been commented upon in a work of art or film associated with the holiday.  At the end of the essay, propose your own new national or state holiday and provide a justification for it.

 

 

 

 

10. Briefly identify and explain the significance of one of the following: (1) A. P. Giannini (and his strategies for developing the Bank of Italy, which then became, under his leadership, the Bank of America); (2) Anson Burlingame and the Burlingame Treaty, (3) The Homestead Act, the Pacific Railway Act, and the Morrill Land Grant Act (for this item briefly describe each of these three acts of legislation passed during the Lincoln administration and consider for the significance the role of the federal government in supporting the economic development of the American West thanks to this legislation).

 

11. Select and briefly comment upon two favorite quotations taken from the anthology of quotations entitled “Why Study History and Film” that I have posted on Blackboard. One of the quotations should be about studying history and the other about studying film.

 

12. 12. What follows are my reflections upon my experience studying and teaching texts, voices, films, music, political speeches, literature and history associated with America, the Frontier, and the New West. Circle the one reflection that strikes you as most significant for your own understanding of the material for this course and briefly explain your choice.

 

–That America—and other nations–may respond as a culture more viscerally to the drumbeat of war than the heartbeat of compassion and love.

 

–That we are more prone to being affected by stereotypes–or implicit associations–than we like to believe.

 

–That it is a deep challenge to think outside the box, the gates, the confines, the parameters and paradigms of our own tribe, or our own culture, or our own time and place.

 

–That part of the process of education is responding to the challenge to cross borders and get outside the safe house of our own established identity, unsettling ourselves to discover and explore what is unfamiliar.

 

–That one key way to think outside the box–or outside the limits and confines of our own identity–is to engage in empathetic listening and interaction with strange, new, different voices, discovering in the process not just difference but similarity, a shared humanity.

 

–Our personal identity and the identity of America is not a fixed thing however much we must also recognized the degree to which our own identity and the American character has been shaped by the past.  Each can change, evolve, and be transformed by interaction with new voices and our response to tragedies, old and new, as wisdom can come from suffering.

 

–That God + Gun against Evil can be a dangerous combination whether embraced by George W. Bush or Osama bin Laden.

 

–That Government + Gun against Evil can be a powerful combination against the powers that be of slavery and Nazi ideology.

 

–That America loves a fighter, a competitor, but what we desire to fight for can vary, and that fight can be directed against the tyranny of poverty and disease and racism, sexism, homophobia and the tyranny of ignorance as well as an axis of evil of enemies in war.

 

–The gun, the weapon, the cavalry, the military is one form of power; moral ideals are another.

 

—William James said we need a “moral equivalent for war,” and America continues to need to search for that equivalent.

 

–Perhaps stronger than our need for freedom, equality and justice is our need for security and safety, and our need for security can trump over commitment to justice and equality.

 

–That patriotism and pride, like prejudice, can blind us, and that to see and understand better, we need to challenge patriotism and pride and prejudice with humility and thinking democratically.

 

–That people who have a deep history of being attacked and misrepresented can be very sensitive, indeed fearful, of attack and misrepresentation, and those who have had a nicer history of not being attacked and misrepresented may have a harder time being sensitive to such attacks and misrepresentation…..

 

–That our desire to feel superior to someone else may be a stronger desire than our desire to consider ourselves equal to each other.

 

–That there is not just more than one side to any story; there can be many sides to the story within each side.

 

–Inevitably, we are creatures of our own time and place and that affects how we look upon the past and our hopes and fears for the United States.  For instance, the political beliefs of my parents were profoundly shaped by the experience of the Depression and World II.   My own beliefs were shaped significantly by coming of age during the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, and Watergate.  The political beliefs of my children—and many of you–have been shaped and affected by coming of age in the late 20^th and early 21^st century Los Angeles and in the era of 9/11, the War on Terror, and the presidency of Barack Obama.   To understand America in 2014 is to understand our generational differences as well as our differences of religion, region, gender, class, and race/ethnicity.

 

–Our identity has been shaped by our history, but our historical DNA is complex, composed of dominant and recessive traits, and we can draw on better or worse sides of our history, and we need to be mindful of our worst history as well as our best history.

 

–American patriotism demands not blind faith or uncritical reverence for the USA but vigilance to hold the country accountable to its ideals and principles especially in times when there is pressure to betray its ideals in the name of the ideals.