America was widely known as a “melting pot” of sorts for many generations. The country earned its title by accepting immigrants of various cultures and molding, or melting, them into the American lifestyle. However, the “melting pot” idea of America is starting to dissipate. According to a Newsweek Poll on the public, “only 20 percent still think America is a melting pot” (Morganthau and Wolfberg, par.4). As more Americans push away immigrants and create stereotypes against said immigrants, America continues to lose its title as a “melting pot.” There is ethnic friction in America and people have begun to have a hard time assimilating (Morganthau and Wolfberg, par.18). .America is beginning to place a negative outlook on its culture. Authors Jack Shaheen, Richard Rodriguez, Peter Marin and Zora Neale Hurtson all shape American culture in a detrimental way.
Jack Shaheen’s essay “The Media’s Image of Arabs” explains how the media has birthed false images of Arabs. The media continues to maintain stereotypes of Arabs. The majority of Arab characters shown on the television are rarely shown as victims or ordinary people (Shaheen 85). If America were a melting pot, it would show diversity in a positive way. There would be more acceptance of Middle Eastern immigrants and their descendants. Likewise, Americans would be more accepting of all cultures that inhabit America. As a melting pot, the numerous cultures, races and individuals of America should blend together as a whole (Merriam-Webster). Though, America today is not blended. Americans as a group are not a whole, but they are made up of different groups sectioned off by invisible boundaries. In order for America to be the “melting pot” it is claimed to be, Ameri...
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...ican immigrants. He has published many works
including Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez which is a collection
of autobiographical essays. He received his B.A. from Stanford University and his M.A.
from Columbia University.
Shaheen, Jack. “The Media’s Image of Arabs.” Writing on the River. 3rd ed. Boston: McGraw,
2012. 85-87. Print.
Jack Shaheen earned his Ph.D from the University of Missouri. He has been a professor
at multiple universities, a television reporter, and a radio announcer. Some of his works
include The TV Arab and Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People.
Stubblefield, Anna. "Racial Identity and Non-essentialism About Race." Wilson OmniFile Full
Text Mega Edition. H.W. Wilson, n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
Anna Stubblefield has very clear views on race and labeling. She wrote “Ethics Along
The Color Line.”
Throughout history, Americans have always been intimidated by immigrants. The idea of an immigrant coming to America and easily being able to get a job scared Americans. Americans feared that good jobs would be taken from hard working Americans and given to immigrants for less pay because they required less money to live on or were used to no wages or lower wages in their Country of origin. People would immigrate to America in search of a better life, and often times they could find homes and jobs that made them want to stay. A melting pot is described as being a mixing of different cultures into one universal culture. In Erika Lee’s, The Chinese Exclusion Example, immigrant exclusion helped re-define the melting-pot
In the excerpt from “From the Melting Pot to the Tossed Salad Metaphor: Why Coercive Assimilation Lacks the Flavors Americans Crave” Gloor evaluates several metaphors used to describe the diversity of America, beginning with the most common ideas of the United States being considered either melting pot or a salad bowl. After analyzing both metaphors, it becomes evident that while these ideas sound great, in reality, they are not only a flawed depiction of what America is like but altogether undesirable considering the implications of a “melting pot” or “tossed salad” society. In the text, Gloor brings up a third and new metaphor that symbolizes America as an ethnic stew, but in reality, the stew theory is more accurately wishful thinking than it is an actualized reality. Gloor’s writing piece not only exposes the flaws of the melting pot and tossed salad metaphors, but exemplifies the complexity of our society due to the several moderate inaccuracies of the ethnic stew theory.
...d not assimilate to accepted American culture. However, by the time society learned which ethnicities were ‘unassimilable’, the cultures had already begun to take root in America. At first America had a knee-jerk reaction to this realization and began passing more resolutions preventing ‘non-whites’ from entering the United States. However, as America experienced the increase in cultural communities in reaction to prejudice formed by immigration laws, the government learned that only through a loosening of immigration law and lessening of prejudice would America become a true melting pot. The mid-1900s saw this manifestation in America, as immigration laws allowed more people from around the world to immigrate. As prejudice lessened, the cultural communities sprinkled throughout America that created a mosaic became less prevalent and have begun to form a melting pot.
concerns racial equality in America. The myth of the “Melting Pot” is a farce within American society, which hinders Americans from facing societal equality issues at hand. Only when America decides to face the truth, that society is not equal, and delve into the reasons why such equality is a dream instead of reality. Will society be able to tackle suc...
Sabbagh, S. J., & American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee, W. C. (1990). Sex, Lies, & Stereotypes: The Image of Arabs in American Popular Fiction. ADC Issue Paper No. 23. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Has the New York Times negatively stereotyped Arab Muslims for the past forty years? The goal of this research project is to reveal the negative stereotypes directed towards Arab Muslims in the New York Times. The critical focus of the research is the consistency of the negative stereotypes. The underlying focus is what theoretical and historical effects result from the negative stereotypes.
Movies, one can argue, are one of America’s greatest pastimes. Unfortunately, after 9/11, films have become increasingly prejudiced against American Muslims. In movies Muslims are frequently portrayed negatively. According to James Emery, a professor of Anthropology, Hollywood profits off of “casting individuals associated with specific negative stereotypes”. This is due to the fact that viewers automatically link characters with their clichéd images (Emery). For Muslims, the clichéd image is of the violent fundamentalist, who carried out the terroristic attacks on 9/11. As a result, the main stereotypes involved in movies display Muslims as extremists, villains, thieves, and desert nomads. An example of a movie that has such a negative character role for Muslims in film is Disney’s cartoon Aladdin, depict...
As the world progresses, developments occur that have a profound significance on the entire nature in which society functions. One such event is the growth of the film industry that has prompted restructuring of the way we view certain groups of people. Hollywood can be seen not only as a major driving force behind cultural, political, and social change, but also as an enforcer of preconceived notions and an outlet of misrepresentation. Among the various groups of people illustrated on the silver screen, Arabs are perhaps one of the most misunderstood and stereotyped groups of Hollywood. This multi-billion dollar industry produces a wide range of movies that heavily influence the way we perceive this group, and most importantly, the way in
Following the 1890’s, the world began to undergo the first stages of globalization. Countries and peoples, who, until now, were barely connected, now found themselves neighbors in a planet vastly resembling a global village. Despite the idealized image of camaraderie and brotherhood this may seem to suggest, the reality was only discrimination and distrust. Immigration to new lands became a far more difficult affair, as emigrants from different nations came to be viewed as increasingly foreign. In the white-dominated society of the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the only way to truly count oneself as American was to become “white”. For this reason, the idea of race, a socially constructed issue with no real physical basis, has become one of the most defining factors which shape immigration and assimilation in the United States.
Numerous countries of the world have very distinct cultures and are typically composed primarily of one type of race, religion, or nationality. For instance, France, Mexico, Japan, China. The United States differs greatly from these countries listed because we are known as the "melting pot." According to Merriam Webster dictionary, the term "melting pot" is metaphor for a society where many different types of people “blend” together as one. However, the United States is also associated with and known as a "nation of immigrants.". This name was given due to the fact that almost every citizen of the country has an immigrant ancestry, with the exception of the Native Americans. In the Francis Walker publication over “Restriction of Immigration
“The media serve as a tool that people use to define, measure, and understand American society” (Deo et al., 149). Thinking of the media as a tool for the American people also extends into the realm of race and ethnicity. The United States has had a long and difficult history pertaining to the racial and ethnic identities of the many different people that reside within and outside of it’s borders. That history is still being created and this country still struggles with many of the same problems that have plagued this area since before the founding of the U.S. As stated above, the popular media has a large impact on the way that race and ethnicity are understood by people, especially when considering the prevalence of segregation in the U.S.
Though the United States is home to many immigrants, controversy surrounds the issue of immigrants in the United States. The United States in a melting pot of various backgrounds and cultures, yet it is hard for all to merge into acceptance of one another. The first chapter of Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and class covers stratification, prejudice and discrimination, and inequality.
The age old question that many ask today is “what is an American?” America is continued to be called the “melting pot” of the world. This statement refers to the combination of different cultures and ethnicities throughout the United States. The diversity of America should not take away from the history and foundation it was found upon. ...
September 11, 2001 forever changed the landscape of the generalized view of the Muslim community in the United States; these acts created a defining stereotypical image that all Muslim’s are extreme terrorists, or condone such behavior. Although this view of the Muslim community was not necessarily new, it was not widely acknowledged in America until the events of September 11th as it was continually thrust upon the public by print and news media. This study will discuss the dichotomy between representations of the Muslim community held by many in the Western culture as well as the psychological cause and effect of such depictions. The sociological “norms” as determined by popular American culture, the development of “terrorist” stereotypes through modern media, and the cause and effect postcolonial literature has had on the subject are all topics that will be evaluated. The objective of this research is to provide enhanced comprehension of the situational attitudes held by Muslims and Americans alike. Also, this will offer an educated understanding of the gap between what is believed and what is factual, in hopes of creating emphasis for the need of a new approach in creating a discrimination free partnership with the Muslim community while maintaining awareness and security.
We live in an age and time where media influence is at its highest. The media has an impact on us as an audience through every possible medium including both television and print media. As scientists find and cure diseases, as America finds a new country to invade, as the European markets fluctuate, there has been one constant subject prevalent in the Western media- Islam. 1.6 billion people in the world are of the Muslim religion (Desilver 2013), making it the world’s second largest religion, second to Christianity. Even prior to the events of 9/11, the religion of Islam has been under scrutiny by the media. Edward Said, infamous for his works on Orientalism has greatly contributed to our understanding of the Western misunderstanding of the Eastern based religion. Said has defined Orientalism as the Western’s style of domination, reconstruction, and authority over the Orient (Said 1978: 3). Orientalism has observable effects in the most forms of media. As a result, and irrational fear of Islam and those that practice the religion began-Islamophobia. As defined by the International Civil Liberties Alliance, Islamophobia is “a term which is widely used by NGOs and frequently appears in the media, tends to denote fear, hatred or prejudice against Islam and Muslim” (ICLA 2013). This project will attempt to understand what the audience perception is about Islamophobia in the media. It will aim to uncover the ways in which television channels amplify common misperceptions about Islam. As a Muslim myself, this is an area that has always been of interest to me, and like many audiences I have been able to witness the dimensions of Islamophobia s depicted by the western media. After the events of September 2001, the fears of Islam and ...