|
(2016
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2016 (Index to # 1 samples) #1: Long Essay: learning, challenges, issues |
 |
Burgundy Anderson
America as a Melting Pot
In
the third grade, I had a teacher who did not actually teach much. We had a lot
of School-House Rock videos and The Magic School Bus.
But one important thing I did learn that year is that America is a
“melting pot.” As I have grown older I have realized that despite having many
people of many different cultures across America, we truly fail at recognizing
and teaching all the cultures. It is not enough to say to students, “America is
a melting pot,” we must teach them about every culture that has gone into this
continent.
There
have been culture wars over America ever since Europeans came here. Reconciling
the two cultures is absolutely possible, and indeed necessary. We must teach
both Americas- the dominant culture’s history and literature as well as the
multicultural version. In teaching this way, we are able to gain knowledge of
our own historical periods. The more we know about every culture that feeds into
our history and literature the more we can attempt trans-historical unity,
progress, and evolution. There is no way to teach a single story of America, but
reconciling the cultures in America is not impossible.
One of the most obvious reconciliations
of cultures we see is in religion. I have been absolutely fascinated by our
studies in syncretism this semester, particularly the Virgin of Guadalupe story.
There is of course no possible way that the Virgin Mary could be the Mother of
Guadalupe. The combination of Aztec symbolism and Roman Catholic symbolism
creates a story that merges the two cultures in a flawless way so that the
natives can understand and relate to the newcomers already held beliefs. This
makes it easier to convert the aforementioned natives to Christianity. In
studying this particular combination of stories, we can observe a long standing
tradition that attempts to reconcile the existing cultures in America with that
of the newcomers.
The
fervor these religious observers showed could only be matched by the zeal shown
by the soon to arrive puritans. Their passions for daily life in their own
communities was shown by a wide variety of authors, including Anne Bradstreet.
Her writings give a firsthand account into the everyday life of puritans. She is
able to provide a trans-historical insight into motherhood in the mid-17th
century, particularly with her poem In
Reference to her Children. The extended metaphor draws parallels between the
poets’ family and a nest of birds. In the poem, each bird is a stand in for one
of her children and the so called flight that they have taken from her home. The
writings make it apparent that despite Bradstreet’s’ own education, her
daughters were expected to marry and not hold any significant position outside
of their role of wife and mother.
Slaves and slavery narratives are also a huge part of our history and past
cultures that define us as we are now. There has been no point in time in
America, especially within the United States in which African Americans or
persons of color have been treated as equals. The first written work by an
African American to be published in the United States was Jupiter Hammon’s
An Evening Thought in 1760. This
particular poem is remarkable for its prominence of defining features of
American minority literature. I was particularly fascinated by the poem as it
showed me clear examples of things I have been hearing about for more of my
life. I had heard about African American slaves using scriptures as a model and
reference point for salvation and freedom, but until we studied this in class I
had never explicitly seen it in practice. I was also intrigued by the double
language used throughout the poem, and this is the first time such language has
been apparent to me. This minority culture was extremely important to the birth
of the nation of the United States, and it would be a tragedy to ignore its
influence on the USA and our history.
While
the dominant culture is always important- history is of course written by the
victors- it has become very clear to me that to forego teaching and
understanding minority cultures and their history is to deprive ourselves of a
true understanding of our own history. In some ways the dominant and minority
cultures have already combined, which is wonderful, but we must also ensure we
teach the differences among ourselves so we can understand one another. I have,
in this semester, learned “the melting pot” is only part of our story and it is
imperative we teach the history and literature of each flavor as it melts into
our wonderful mixing of cultures and traditions which we, as a nation, seem to
truly pride ourselves on.
