Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Ideas of presentation

The Chinese Exclusion Act is a great example of showing how the U.S. government was using racism to develop its imperial power in the world. The Chinese Exclusion was just an excuse for helping white Americans to keep their opening of job during the economic recession.. Due to the fact, the U.S. government wanted to protect its own residents. Many white Americans were unemployed, received low wages. It was the battles between organized labor and capitalist class.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

draft for vietnam war essay

The Vietnam War were happened from 1958 to 1974, and it was the most representative war which showed how the United States was struggled in dilemma since many people were opposed the scheme to fight with Vietnamese, and judge it as a “mistake”. It also caused the greatest antiwar movement that our nation had never experienced before, and led the war to the end. The reason why the United State decided to help South Vietnam was because our country wanted to prevent the spread of communism power in Vietnam.  Also, it was a good chance showing how strong our military power was to the world. Unfortunately, there were many negative images about the soldiers reported by the photographers in Vietnam. By watching those pictures or films, most people started to think how these soldiers could do it. Who was the enemy that we should kill?
              According to the film “Hearts and Minds”, we could clearly see that our military power was developed very well, and we had no fear either to fight with Vietnamese or others. Our soldiers used the repeating rifle, the primitive machinegun, the submarine, and the steam powered ironclad warship to kill the enemies mainly. When the U.S. soldiers were bombing those peaceful villages, it didn’t make sense if we were using strong military power to kill those innocent people who didn’t even have weapon on their hands. These facts led us felt indignant at our government because they were destroying innocent people’s families but it didn’t relate with the war for our freedom. It had enraged our minds, those images were violent, bloodiness especially a soldier was recorded and said “we are counting dead bodies of dead women and children to prove we are being successful in the Vietnam War”. This was really unacceptable, deplorable, and disgraceful. If the goal of Vietnam War was to kill women and children who lived in the village, then it meant our congresses who had agreed to get involved in the Vietnam War were imbecile. The whole story was an innuendo.  In The Impossible Victory: Vietnam by Howard Zinn. The antiwar movement not only convinced the residents, but also the juries. “One sign that the ideas of the antiwar movement had taken hold in the American public was that juries became more reluctant to convict antiwar protesters, and local judges too were treating them differently.”(p. 241) People that were on the pro-war sides started to change their minds, too.
              In fact, our government was refused to show the images of Vietnam War because the truth would make most Americans felt ashamed. From Realism to Virtual Reality by Anthony Swofford has indicated that “To control these images, the U.S. government set up pools of selected reporters and photographers, confined them to certain locations, required them to have military escorts when gathering news, established stringent guidelines limiting what could be reported or photographed, and subjected all written copy, photographs, and videotape to strict censorship” (p.22) This would prevent a lots of pictures showed to the audiences, but it wouldn’t able to block all the truth that government were planned to hide behind. During the war, many individual viewers would hear other people’s commons from schools, media, newspapers, or work places. That was the main reason why we could see the antiwar movement was being expanded after the images were transferred by war correspondent.
              It would be ethical to show graphic images of war and suffering while the war was just happening. All residents in the whole world have responsibility to know the truth at the first time, and different countries’ government need to update the latest information about the war. The war correspondent who was working into danger had the right to decide what kinds of image should show for viewers. Many people would think that the images provided by news were being chosen since they have relationship with the local government.  Furthermore, if people saw the same image in documentaries, or fictional films, it will catch more people’s attention. The most unforgettable images shape the Vietnam way the war has been remembered is when the American military burned the villages.
              Overall, the Vietnam War is the most important example of showing how images can affect people’s attitude. We should echo people’s voice not only treated them unequally since they have different races. We shouldn’t killed innocent residents and judged them as zombie. Human body lives are valuable.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

power analysis (Draft)

As we know, the Chinese Exlucsion Act affected most Chinese immigrants' lives in 1882. We can see the U.S culture had seriously racism on Asian people. Compared to current century, racists were not allowed to say or do something make the conflicts between different cultures since it is illegal. In 1882

In February 1881, a United States Congress John F. Miller had argued that Chinese immigrants were " machine-like", and introduced a bill to bar Chinese immigration for twenty years. Our president Chester Arthur vetoed the policy from twenty years to ten years because Arthur feared that the Qing government would shut Chinese ports to American trade.

Friday, October 29, 2010

Today, I have found a really interesting article The Terrible Chinese which posted on New York Times in March, 12, 1882. Basically, it described Americans' point of view about how Chinese immigrants affect their "jobs". "They are the best imitators in the world" is what New York Times descibe all Chinese workers in 1882. We can see that Americans have racism on Chinese immigrants deeply, especially Chinese. They were the first Asian immigrant in American history and were hired by low-wage. Although this is not fair to all of the Chinese immigrants, it can't change anything since no one were stand on their side. Also, I have found an other useful article The Sino-American Alliance During World War II and the Lifting of the Chinese Exclusion Acts which indicated that how Chinese immigrants band into America's society to earn money after WWII.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Rebrainstorming

I have learned a lot about the Chinese Exclusion from 1882-1906, and it really attracts my attention because it has many details which we can clearly see the relationship between the United States and China. In 1882, our president decided to establish the Chinese Exclusion for 20 years originally, but he afraid it would affected the relationship between  these big countries economically. This is the main reason he changed it from 20 years to 10 years. The U.S. government tried to isolate Chinese immigrant because they believe Chinese couldn't band into the society since they have different cultural background. Therefore, they even declared the citizenship either ABC (American borned Chinese), and mixed Chinese. Within 24 years, the law had been changed again and again, and the situation had improved after 1906.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Research Paper

In fact, I felt so confused about which specific topic should I picked for my research paper. Then, my professor had given me some advice to help me think about which direction that I can go search for. Finally, I have decided to choose Chinese Exclusion as my topic because I want to know more information about Chinese Americans' history in early 19 century. Especially, I am a Chinese immigrant so it will be fun for searching more history about our ancestor. I have notice that Chinese immigrantion in U.S. history had 3 waves, but I would like to focus on the first wave. Also, this situation had changed after the WWII happened. U.S government started to changed Chinese immigrantion law little by little after the WWII.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Hearts and Minds

The film "Hearts and Minds" showed us the "truth" about the Vietnam War. The name of the film representing the opinion by different people. Some people's voice came from their hearts, and others came from their minds which means what you are saying were considering. In fact, I didn't have any knowledge about the Vietnam War since I never pay attention in history class before. I learned a lot in this film, and I was so mad about this country, America. They supposed to let every soldiers know what were they fighting about, accordingly, those soldiers didn't even have a clear idea about the Vietnam War. I really can't understand how could the American government did such unbelievable thing. They were just sending soldiers there, and kill innocent people. Those innocent people were elders, children, people with no wiptom on their hands. What made people felt so proud about the Vietnam War? I really can't understand this. 

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Brainstorming~

I am going to choose China as my topic for research paper. In fact, I didn't know much historical information about China, so this is why this research paper can bring me more knowledge and I will be more understanding about its development. I believe China has a good relationship with United States. Both countries are strong in the world, so it is common if they have some business dealing with each others. I knew the United States government didn't allow any Chinese immigrants came in 1980s because the government thought Chinese were too different as Americans. According to the Wikipedia, I have noticed that "most immigrants were illiterate, poorly educated peasants and manual labourers, historically called coolies." They went to Americas, Australia, South Africa, Southeast Asia, Malaya, and other places. I think Wikipedia can bring me some beift summary about the history of China. Before China became Republic of China, two main leaders created a civil war which affected most of the Chinese. Also, the World War II stole a lot of Chinese culture and stuff back to its country, and this is why most of the Chinese dislike Japanese. The Wikipedai also help me understand how did the civil war happened, and how did it end. In addition, I also find out that we have 23 U.N. member states currently maintain official diplomatic relations with China, but it didn't show which 23 member states and I would like to find it out. The sport, recreation, science, religion, and technology information wouldn't be useful for my research paper. For some reason, the Wikipedia didn't tell us about how did China build up it’s economic, and who is the epitome hero in all Chinese' mind. I'll going to find it out by some articles.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Draft

     In the novel “Lucy” which written by Jamaica Kincaid clearly described an immigrant’s first impression when she just moved to the United States. Lucy’s voice not only represented herself, it also helped the majority of new immigrants to express their feelings. If you didn’t have a chance to visit here, then you wouldn’t have any ideas about the life in the U.S. In fact, I thought New York City is an euphoria which becomes many people’s dream of the world. The reason why I had this feeling is because most of the TV shows tell us that NYC is a wonderful, prosperous city. I realized the truth after I had my first travel experience with my family to this famous city, New York City.
     According to the passage, we could see that Lucy felt disappointed, frustrated about her “new” life. As my point of view, most TV shows only reflect positive sides instead or negative sides, and this is why Lucy had such bad feeling since everything was totally opposite to what she expected. We can’t judge if the TV was doing a right thing or not, but it really attacks a lots of people come visiting, and working. Yet, the number of people who come to travel, or work keeps increasing year by year. You can’t believe how powerful of these TV shows. I can surely say that the number of the people who is planning to leave this country is increasing also because of the economic recession.
     Compare to Lucy’s hometown, America is like a wrong shell for snail that Lucy didn’t feel comfortable, familiar to this new environment. She didn’t  like this place from her deepest heart, but she had to adapt into this place. Lucy would miss, imagine her native county during the dark night, and she loves her country from her deepest heart. Although Lucy wasn’t come from any luxury county, the happiness Lucy had couldn’t be replaced forever. We couldsee her soul was really loyal to her native country. Sometimes, some small countries brings people simple, easy, and happy lives because this is their life styles. Lucy thought she could have a better life after she came the the U.S. but it wasn’t true. Maybe she could earn more money here, but she feels lonely, sad about her “new” lives.
      When a person came to a strange country to begin their new life is really hard. They would easily get emotional problems. In Lucy’s case, she had conflict with a woman named Mariah. At the beginning, Lucy thought Mariah could become her real and only friend in this strange country, but it iwas out of her expectation again. After few days, Lucy changed her minds because she felt Mariah was a devil and never watched our her mouth. In this point, we can see the power of friendship. Moreover, there are different reasons effect people’s personality in the U.S. It is true that we can’t find a “real” friend in this country easily. I strongly believe that living in a luxury country will make people turning into crazy. They need to worry about their lives, or future especially to those menial labor workers such as, Lucy. Basically, these people don’t have a normal life as others because they have to work hard everyday, and they don’t have their social lives. All the pressure they have is hard to imagine. No one would like to be their good audience. They don’t have a healthy way to relieve stress; therefore, people will easily become mean, and unfriendly. If the number of people turning into this way, then it is hard to help each others out. Our society should really concern about this issue, and do something to help new immigrant out.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Lucy

         The novel "Lucy" which written by Jamaica Kincaid made me feel thoughtful about my own experience. When Lucy just came to the America, all she felt is the sadness and loneliness. It's becuase everything looked different as she thought. Many places were ordinary, dirty, and worn. Lucy didn't have any excitement about the place where she lived since everything was opposite from her imagination already. Furthermore, she was suffering in homesickness that she wanted to go back to where she came badly, but she knew she couldn't do it. At that time, she believed that she had no future if she was coutinuing stay in this country. Lucy lived in a maid room, and she worked for the family. She couldn't complain about the bad condition of her living enviornment since she was definient in money, and this was the main reason why she came to the United States. Sometimes, she had to write a letter for describing her situcation to her family.
Although she felt sad, lonely, and depress, Lucy never wrote anything bad to reflect her real minds.
           In fact, my own experience is totally same as Lucy's. I felt so surprised when I just stepped out of the JFK airport. All the buildings I saw around that area was worn. At the begining, I couldn't adapt into my school life, and I refused to make friends with others. Compare to the others, I am sure many new immigrants have the same problems, and they need to take times to cover it. After 2 years, I started to fall in love with New York City. I feel happy that I can live here. I understand that the education is so important to all of us, this is the only way we can become success which can bring us a better life in this wonderful city. In my hometown, Hong Kong, many students can't even get into the college because we just have few schools are available for students. That is why we can see many people in my hometown are doing menial labor jobs. If you want to rethink about my future, I will choose to stay in NYC at least I can have a "white" or "whiter" future.