AMERICAN STUDIES

UFES - 2012/1

Questions to think about:

What is culture? What do you know about the ethnic diversity of the American population? Where did people originally came from? How have patterns of immigration to the US changed over the years? Do you think its possible to make generalizations about Americans?

Culture hides much more than it reveals, and strangely enough what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants. Years of study have convinced me that the real job is not to understand foreign culture but to understand our own.

Edward T. Hall

Steinbeck:

America did not exist. Four centuries of work, of bloodshed, of loneliness and fear created this land. We built America and the process made us Americans--a new breed, rooted in all races, stained and tinted with all colors, a seeming ethnic anarchy. Then in a little, little time, we became more alike than we were different--a new society; not great, but fitted by our very faults for greatness, E Pluribus Unum.

"Out of many, one"

Two things to remember about the United States:

The size of the country; The ethnic diversity.

Jamestown - 1607

By the time America was settled, a middle class had begun to develop in Europe, particularly in England. This was largely an entrepreneurial class. Previously, during the feudal period, most people were either a landowning lord or a serf. The vast majority of people were serfs. By the time of the Revolution, there was a significant middle class in the Colonies.
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry. com

St Johns Church - Williamsburg

St. John's Church became famous as a living memorial to American liberty when over 100 Virginia colonial leaders, including Patrick Henry, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, and Peyton Randolph met here in March of 1775 to avoid the wrath of Royal Governor Lord Dunmore in Williamsburg. St. John's Church was the only building in Richmond suitable to hold the delegates. Patrick Henry's famous "Give me Liberty or Give me Death" speech was delivered on 23 March 1775 inside the church. Henry's timely resolutions passed by a narrow margin and the American Revolution began the following month when shots were fired at Lexington and Concord.