The Great Nation of America - Assignment Example

STANDPOINT THEORY OF THE SOCIAL FABRIC (A serious look at assimilation and discrimination in America) ID Number: of Course/ number: Professor’s Name: Name of University (affiliation) Location of University: Word Count: 2,498 (text only) Date of Submission: August 19, 2014 Introduction America is a great country and this greatness was derived from a glorious tradition of a unique kind which is the welcome mat for immigrants. It is right to say that America today is the melting pot of the world as it was decades and centuries ago. Even the Founding Fathers realized the importance of immigration as a strategic move in the early years of the American republic to deliberately welcome new immigrants as a matter of national policy. America as a country is vast in terms of geography and it has plenty of natural resources but it cannot develop adequately if it lacked the right people to populate the new nation after it gained its independence.i America has been a country of choice for most would-be immigrants because of many advantages and benefits it offers such as political freedom, a good educational system, and a good economy that gives hardworking people a real chance of realizing their goals in life such as the attainment of the “American Dream” of a well-paying, stable job and a comfortable urban lifestyle. These and many more make America a perpetual magnet for immigrants. In its early years, America welcomed immigrants with open arms with Thomas Jefferson complaining that the English King George III had deliberately prevented emigrants from coming over to America as revenge for its former prized and largest colony fighting to gain its own independence. The young nation back then was largely an open and empty space and it needed new immigrants to make the country progress and attain its promise and potential as a global power in economic, political, and military terms. America did attain its stated aims in a matter of just a few centuries since birth and is today considered the sole superpower largely due to the contributions of its immigrants in the fields of science, economics, engineering, and other areas. The great nation of America was founded on the back-then experimental idea of having less government and more personal civil liberties and political freedoms for its varied citizens. In many ways, this basic democratic principle had worked perfectly well as people went about their own business with minimal interference from the federal and state governments. The very first Congress after independence established uniform rules for naturalization of new immigrants to help assimilate them into mainstream society. All immigrants were made eligible, subject to certain minimum qualifications, for all the elective federal offices except for the positions of president and vice president as a manifestation of this open policy that continues today. However, this openness was also severely tested at various times when the immigrants came to America in waves from certain regions of the world and the make-up or composition of American society changed over time. Successive waves of immigrants fought for the same jobs and wanted a fair share of its resources; natives such as the American Indians and descendants of black slaves were subsequently slowly marginalized due to overt and subtle discrimination by the majority or dominant sector of American society. Immigration policy is a major reflection of the prevailing social attitudes at a particular time in contemporary American history. History records showed immigration policies that were clearly discriminatory in terms of outright exclusion or tight quota restrictions indicative of a growing prejudice and racial bias. Enlightened political discussions had mitigated somewhat the discrimination in America today but the fact remains that questions linger on who is considered to be an American and what is the definition of a true American? A sociological viewpoint can help explain social attitudes and practices in terms of prevailing social theories and in particular, the Standpoint Theory. Discussion Just as history is written by the victors, the laws of any society are usually written and adopted by the dominant cultural or ethnic group in society. Sociology is more than helpful in a closer examination of the dynamics of how various groups that make up a society vie for both political and economic power. The Enlightenment Period during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries produced a good number of brilliant thinkers who discussed social theories although not yet in a strictly academic sense but rather in more philosophical terms. Great thinkers like Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1788), and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) had published important essays on how human nature is shaped by society that in turn can lead to either smooth integration or social conflicts caused by deviant behaviors. These in turn were further expanded by the ideas of subsequent philosophers like that of Auguste Comte (1798-1857), John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), Karl Marx (1818-1883), Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923), Max Weber (1864-1920), and also Pitirim Sorokin (1889-1963) but it was Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) who earned the distinction and credit of his theories having solidified and edified sociology as a valid academic discipline with the publication of his ground-breaking “Rules of the Sociological Method” back in 1895. Sociology posits or advances the idea that society shaped human development but also admits that man can change society and his environment depending on the circumstances that are prevailing and also on the motivation of the actors or groups within that society. In particular, it can help explain the stratification of society based on the power distribution of the groups in that society due to the power differentials that exist based on the laws passed and adopted.ii In a general sense, the essence of sociology is how people of privilege and power tend to oppress the other lower groups of people to maintain their upper-class status in society by the use of a variety of means and methods but primarily that of passing the laws that oppress others. A legalistic but sociological viewpoint is that laws passed by the dominant group help to define what constitutes deviant behaviors and hence how certain actions become crimes and also all the ensuing consequences of deviance such as punishment by imprisonment, exclusion or expulsion. An example is a rich man defining the taking of bread by a hungry person as a crime of theft. How a person views society in general is colored by his or her own knowledge and experiences. This is what the Standpoint Theory is all about; that the persons perspective is a product of all his experiences within a social context. The theory allows people to understand the events surrounding their lives from the viewpoint of an outsider who is ironically situated inside a certain group but feels a sense of being excluded and this is critical in the production of an alternative cultural discourse (Carroll, 2004, p. 12).iii In the film “The Color of Fear” by director Lee Mun-Wah, six people of the eight portrayed in the film showed an outsider’s perspective. The group of men shown in the film consisted of two Latinos (Hispanic-American), two Asian-Americans, two blacks or African-American, and two white Americans and this varied ethnicity gives the film its perspective of being a small representative or microcosm of America. Each of the six had a story to tell of being discriminated against or oppressed in their view by the dominant white ethnic group in America while the two white men in the group gave their own views of what it is like being an American today. An example was the case of Roberto Almanzan who got flagged down by a white police officer and asked to produce his drivers license.iv Almanzan was challenged by the white officer to make a wrong move so he (the white police officer) can arrest him (Stirfry Seminars & Consulting, 2014). Being a Latino, Almanzan was viewed as probably an illegal alien who does not deserve to be in the country in the first place and for this reason, he was harassed. The police officer flaunted his authority in the encounter which is a case of using power and privilege to oppress others (Johnson, 2006, p. 12). In the experience of Loren Moye (a black American) who merely asked for directions in going to some place but instead got subtly threatened with a knife; it was reminiscent of the genocidal war in Rwanda in the months between April until July of 1994 (Gendercide Watch, 2006).v Many white Americans have a jaundiced view of people who belong to minorities, those whose skin color is not white. This prejudiced view is exemplified by David Christensen who is of the opinion that non-white people are to blame for their predicament and sorry situation. He said stated blacks are irresponsible people, the Chinese are extremely greedy, and Hispanics or Latinos are too lazy (taking frequent afternoon rests or siestas).vi He did not reckon how people of color are often discriminated against in the workplace and have a hard time making ends meet due to their low wages, being paid only the minimum or even lower (Ehrenreich, 2008, p. 11) which partly explains why these same people do not find an incentive to work that hard anyway. David Christensen had stereotyped people of color such as blacks being dependent on government welfare checks by saying they are blocking their own progress; he had conveniently forgotten his own ancestors were once immigrants themselves centuries ago from England and Denmark.vii History shows that earlier ethnic groups once they gain power and privilege will then try to exclude or marginalize subsequent immigrant groups (Cortes, 1980, p. 20) for control especially if these immigration was involuntary or forced by some circumstance.viii The increasing cultural and ethnic diversity of America makes it important for people to make themselves feel accepted by the majority (the dominant white Americans). The encounter of David Lee with a woman at a laundromat illustrated this effort to be assimilated by that woman trying very hard to pronounce things correctly with an American accent. However, it is this effort that made Victor Lewis (a black American) angry and question why people of color have to adjust themselves to the white people to be acceptable and be natural.ix A problem in America today is majority of white people are like Gordon Clay (the second white American in the film) who is sympathetic to people of color but unfortunately is apathetic. The prevailing dominant notion of an American as a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant (or a WASP) is changed with the alteration in American demographics. In short, it is now quite hard to define who is an American; it could be anyone like Hugh Vasquez who is of Mexican and Irish descent or Yutaka Matsumoto who is a third-generation Japanese-American but who found it difficult to put down “American” as his nationality when applying for a passport. Each of them had a different perspective of what it is to be an American due to their social experiences. What is happening in America today is termed the de-Wasping of America (Naylor, 1997, p. 346). Conclusion All the pain, struggles, and conflicts related to ethnicity can be avoided if people are to practice the Christian way of brotherhood, by accepting everyone as a brother and as an equal. The culture of fear is perpetuated by a lot of misconceptions due to both prejudice and ignorance that in turn cause discrimination, racism, bias, and stereotyping. Fear is a learned behavior but if people try to be patient and kind, it can be learned too as a passion (Bader-Saye, 2007, p. 26). References Bader-Saye, S. (2007). Following Jesus in a culture of fear: The Christian practice of everyday life. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press. Carroll, W. K. (2004). Critical strategies for social research. Toronto, ON, Canada: Canadian Scholars Press. Cortes, C. (1980). “Ethnic groups in the United States: A short history.” In R. Luhman & S. Gilman (Eds.), Race and ethnic relations: The social and political experience  of minority groups. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Incorporated. Ehrenreich, B. (2008). Nickel and dimed: On (not) getting by in America. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company. Gendercide Watch (2006). Case study: Rwanda, 1994. Retrieved August 7, 2014 from www.gendercide.org Johnson, A. G. (2006). Power, privilege, and difference. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Naylor, L. L. (1997). Cultural diversity in the United States. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Publishing Group. StirFry Seminars & Consulting (2014). “The Color of Fear”. Retrieved August 6, 2014 from http://www.stirfryseminars.com/store/cast_cof.php Endnotes Read More