Christine O'Donnell

Christine Therese O'Donnell was the Republican Party's candidate for Delaware in the Senate special election (to fill Delaware's Class II Senate seat, which was held by Ted Kaufman) of 2010, but she lost the race to Chris Coons, 57% to 40%. This was not her first time in a political race, and she did not win the previous ones either.

She can be described as conservative when it comes to political and social matters:

• Pro-life and opposes abortion in ALL cases, unless the mother was going to die in which case her family members would decide which life to keep. Also opposes stem cell research and human cloning.
  
• Says she would never agree to raise taxes.
  
• Harder punishments for employers who hire illegal immigrants.
  
• Raising the age you can claim Social Security benefit.
• She revoked her original opinion of anti-masturbation. (1996) "I was a pundit. I was very passionate in my 20s and wanted to share my beliefs."
• Supports building more oil refineries.
• She signed the Tea Party's "Contract from America" which would change the Health Care legislative act to a system that is "competitive, open, and transparent free-market."

After revoking her comment from 1996, O'Donnell has stated that she would, if elected, make all political decisions based on the Constitution and not her own opinion or beliefs.



This is the 2008 Campaign ad for Christine O'Donnell entitled "I'm You."

In this ad she tried to use her own mistake, (in this case saying "I dabbled into witchcraft. I never joined a coven.") to relate to the public by trying to show that she is a normal person and that nobody is perfect.

Therefore as a 'normal person' she is going to act in the best interests of the American people if she is elected. However, this ad just increased the attention given to her declaration made over ten years ago on the TV show, Politically Incorrect. After this ad was aired, she was then quoted as saying in an interview, "I haven't publicly stated this, and I don't know if I'll get in trouble for saying that, but our intention was to kill it, and that's not what happened."

It also led to many parodies of the ad coming out, such as the one below from Saturday Night Live. (Embedding was not available for the full version.)



O'Donnell then released a second ad campaign, called "What I'm made of." It gave the same message as the first, that she is like the regular American, but this time it highlighted her stance on taxes and that they should not be raised, something that would be popular with the public.



Following on from O'Donnell's belief in following the constitution, here are some quotes I found from her on one of the major news network sites:

"A convenant based on divine principles."

"The agents of anti-Americanism who dominate the D.C cocktail crowd have disrespected the hallowed document."

"Republicans must champion the American values enshrined in our sacred text. There are more of us than there are of them."

However, it should be mentioned that the Constitution never once mentions Jesus or God.

Other sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/21/christine-odonnell-i-regr_n_771236.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/

Please note that because we have had to juggle the weeks in the module schedule, week 7's task is as follows:

Find, post and comment on any recent US campaign video made by a candidate in the 2008 or 2010 elections. Your first choice should not be Obama or McCain - try to find a campaign video in support of a Senator or a Congressman. They do not have to be the winner, but make sure you know what the result was. Also make sure you comment both on its content and on its style.

If you don't know how to embed Youtube videos, now is the time to learn. If you look under any video you will see a bar which includes the word "Embed". Click on it and it will highlight a code which you can then copy and paste into your blog post. The video should then appear directly in your post - no link required. Try it.

The Filipino historical presence in America

During my research for various ethnic groups in America, I discovered an interesting website called "Anchorage Daily News" with an article titled "Filipinos helped shape America of today"
This particular article was published recently, (within the last month) as it attempts to make known the importance of other cultural groups in America when it comes to the elections as their votes are equally as significant as those of any other American citizen.
It opens with a brief history of Filipino presence in the United States. A particular quote interested me concerning the settlement of Filipinos: "The first Filipinos landed on the continent in 1587, several decades before the Pilgrims arrived. Before our Founding Fathers declared independence from the Brits, a group of Filipinos had already settled in Louisiana. More than a century before Alaska became a state, Filipinos had already made it here, engaging in fur trade with Alaska Natives."
It then goes on to talk about how Filipinos have helped to build America through the ages, and how their contributions can be recognised throughout history from the very earliest periods as this quote reveals: "In the early 1920s, many Filipinos, called the manongs, left their native country and their family to work in the plantations of Hawaii and California and the fisheries of Washington and Alaska."
And interestingly how they fought both as a separate colony and a unified country "During WWII, Filipinos, both here and in the Philippines, fought with and for the U.S. to help protect our freedom and secure peace in our world."
And more recently the increased opportunity of work available to Filipinos that America presented to them encouraged more people to go to live there, quoting the website: "In the late '60s and '70s, many Filipino professionals left their native country to help fill the workforce of our rapidly growing technology and health industry. As the families of the manongs, veterans and professionals grew, their family members took on the critical jobs that helped in the development of our nation's health and economy. Filipino-Americans worked in the health field, service industry, hospitality, technology, education, government, armed forces and construction, among many others."

Despite perhaps enjoying a more prosperous lifestyle in America, the site goes on to say that "The manongs faced much discrimination and injustice. In the 1930s in California, they were not allowed to marry Caucasians. It was also not uncommon for them to see the sign, "No Filipinos Allowed," on the windows and doors of some business establishments in parts of California. Those who worked in plantations and fisheries faced poor working conditions and did not receive decent pay."
(For reference, the name "Manong" is generally given to the first-born Filipino male in a nuclear family)
Having looked into the reasoning for this, I managed to find that, according to another website under the name of Senator Leland Yee, Ph.D. of California state senate, "The Filipinos were specifically targeted in California because they were known to be romantic bachelors, and were accused of taking away American women from the American farm workers"
This law was amended, however, following a serious raid by radical white men on a dance club, whereby many Filipinos were assaulted, and by the end, one Filipino had been killed. The law then allowed them to marry with people of other Asian background. California was also the first US state to eventually overturn the law and allow Filipinos the right to free marriage in 1948.

I feel that a final quote from the "Anchorage Daily News" website sums up Filipino attitudes in a modern day American society: "Although such blatant forms of discrimination and injustice do not seem to exist today, discrimination and injustice are still problems faced by Filipino Americans. In my recent research study with my colleagues among Filipino-American youth and adults in Anchorage, many still express that they have been subjects of negative stereotypes, racism and discrimination in their schools and workplaces."

I found it very informative to look into the history of Filipinos as I think that we can learn a great deal from the ethical backgrounds of the individual cultures that make up America and how their own fundamental ethos has contributed to the United States' own cultivation from which we can use to look at each individual group to piece together an idea of how their views and perspectives cohere with one another.


Websites used: http://www.adn.com/2010/10/06/1489766/filipinos-helped-shape-america.html

http://dist08.casen.govoffice.com/index.asp?Type=B_PR&SEC={DA377F1D-8DF2-4AE6-B3A0-7909404FC1D1}&DE={09B4D711-EC4C-4B55-B9FF-EB671F34F3E0}

Minorities in America- Asian Americans

I am going to discuss in this post my findings from the website http://www.asian-nation.org/ this website shows the view of Asian Americans and aims to educate others about Asian Americans.

According to this website the Asian American community makes up roughly 5% of the American population and is rapidly increasing, it says 'we are one of the fastest growing racial/ethnic groups (in terms of percentage increase) in the U.S'. However, despite the fact that this community is quite large they still feel that they are unfairly treated: 'the Asian American community has received a lot of scrutiny over the years but in many ways, still remains misunderstood'.The website also describes how Asian American is quite a broad term and acknowledges that there are many Asian groups within Asian Americans (Korean, Indonesian, Japanese, Filipino etc), it also defines the term Asian American as:
'the population living in the U.S. who self-identify as having Asian or Pacific Islander ancestry, in whole or in part, regardless of whether they're U.S.- or foreign-born, a U.S. citizen or not, length of residence, or in the U.S. legally or illegally. I also use the following terms to mean the same thing: Asian American, Asian Pacific American (APA), and Asian Pacific Islander (API). Of course, being "Asian" is not necessarily the same as being "Asian American" and I focus on this distinction throughout Asian-Nation'.

This website also describes how there are 2 stereotypes of Asian Americans: 'all Asian Americans are the same' and 'all Asian Americans are foreigners'. The first stereotype, they say, is negative because (as mentioned above) 'many people are either unable or unwilling to distinguish between different Asian ethnicities' leading to over-generalization and thus some ethnic groups get ignored altogether. The other stereotype is viewed as also negative because people assume that every Asian American is a foreigner although some Asian Americans come from families where many generations have been U.S. citizens; the website says, 'it becomes easier to think of us as not fully American and then to deny us the same rights that other Americans take for granted...that means prejudice and discrimination'.

The website has many sections such as culture, ethnic groups, and issues (each including various articles and blogs) but I will now focus, in brief, on the early history of Asian Americans portrayed on this website:

• The first Asians settled in the U.S (around what would be Louisianna) in 1750 and then just less than a century later Asians were brought over as slaves to the islands of the Caribbean, Peru, Ecuador, and other countries in South America. However, in 1848 there was large-scale immigration to America due to the Gold Rush and economic hardship in China
  
• Chinese miners in California were discriminated against in the Foreign Miner Tax which should have been collected from all foreigners but was only collected from the Chinese. Objection to paying this led to being victims of murder and attacks.
  
• From 1865 many Chinese worked for Transcontinental Railroad project doing the most dangerous jobs but only getting paid 60% of what European immigrants received
• After their labour wasn't needed and they were seen as an econmic threat there was anti-Chinese movements culminating in the Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882. 'This act barred virtually all immigration from China and prevented all Chinese already in the U.S. from becoming U.S. citizens, even their American-born children. For the first time in U.S. history, a specific ethnic group was singled out and forbidden to enter the U.S'. As a response to this discrimination Chinatowns developed from which the stereotypical images of Chinese restaurants, laundry shops and Japanese gardens come from; this was not them trying to force their culture on America but out of neccessity as they had nowhere else to go.
  

I find all of this history about the early Asian Americans fascinating because it isn't as well known as say the history of African Americans yet they were so horribly discriminated against; this is obviously an example of American history which has been excluded from being taught in schools as it does not show the popular ideology of America. The website says that this 'prejudice, exclusion, and institutional discrimination...still continues in many respects today. Nonetheless, even in the face of this hostile anti-Chinese climate, Chinese Americans fought for not only their rights, but also for their dignity and self-respect...though much of their efforts would be unsuccessful, the actions demonstrated that above all else, they wanted to become Americans and be treated just like any other American'.

History of Hispanics with The United States

My source for this weeks post is http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3761/is_199710/ai_n8769255/ a website with an article on the "Generations of diversity: Latinos in the United States." It also has other articles on subjects such as "How the United States racializes Latinos; white hegemony and its consequences" and "Latinos/ a rights and justice in the United States; perspectives and approaches."

It begins by explaining how Latinos are now the largest minority group in the United States and that "population is projected to swell from 28 million in 1996 to about 100 million in 2050, and is projected to outnumber African Americans by 2005.1."
It then goes on to explain what it is meant by 'Latino' and that "Hispanics are an ethnic group, not a racial group, according to U.S. government guidelines, but this distinction escapes most Americans. Hispanics can be of any race. Most classify themselves as white, a minority classify themselves as black, and an increasing share identify their race as "other," which underscores the ambiguity of race and ethnic-group definitions in the United States."

This site primarily focuses on the history of the Latinos, starting with the Spanish setting up St. Augustine, (Florida, 1565) Sante Fe and New Mexico. (1609) The Spanish then lost some of their territory to the Mexicans after Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821. In 1836, Texas won its independence from Mexico and went on to join the United States in 1845. The rest of the Mexican territory was gained by the United States in 1848, after the war with Mexico.
"The treaty brought the United States land that later became the states of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming."
The people who were living in these areas then became U.S citizens and that is where the Hispanic population arose from.

The Latino population continues to grow because of high numbers of immigration from Latin America and the Caribbean. The different generations of Latinos living in America have different ways when it comes to their heritage and background.

• First Generation often speak little English and keep all ties to their "home" countries and generally live with other immigrants.
  
• Second Generation are split between the heritage of their parents and that of American society. They still speak Spanish, but from schooling learn English.
  

The article raises the following, rather interesting questions: "Many look to the second generation as the key to Latino ethnic identity in the future. Will Latinos blend in with the larger society, as did the European immigrants who arrived at the turn of the century? Does maintaining a Latino identity mean remaining economically and socially marginalized and disadvantaged?"

It talks of the differences between the different Hispanic groups and that because they are so varied in education, class and immigration status, it would not be "wrong to assume that Hispanics are making gradual progress towards parity with Anglos." (Jorge Chapa)

Other facts raised within the article:

• Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens no matter if they are born in Puerto Rico or the United States and they can move from one to the other as they please.
• They are only counted as part of the Hispanic population if they live in the District of Columbia and they are the largest Hispanic group after Mexicans.
  
• Many Cubans have entered the U.S since 1980 and in 1996 they made up 4% of the Hispanic population within the U.S.
• "Dominicans are the largest single group within the Other Hispanics category."
• "Hispanics live in every state, but historically their population is concentrated in nine states: California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado."

Mexicans moved to the Midwest in the 1800's for agricultural work and then factory work. Mexicans made up around 80% of the entire Latino population within Los Angeles in 1996 and have a very strong presence there, to this day because Los Angeles was a part of Mexico in the 1800's and because it is so close to the Mexican border. (Approx. 200 miles.)

"In the past decade or so, immigrants and refugees have increasingly contributed to the labor force in rural and suburban areas throughout the United States.16 Traditionally, foreign-- born Hispanics, particularly Mexicans, have worked in agriculture in Texas, California, and other southwestern states."

One final point that the article makes is about immigration again, and how it has changed throughout history.

"During the l9th and early 20th centuries, the U.S. Hispanic population expanded little beyond the scattered settlements in the American Southwest. Only 178 immigrants from Latin America were recorded in 1820, the first year immigration statistics were kept. More than 8,000 people entered from other countries that year, primarily from Europe. Land arrivals were not completely enumerated until 1908 and official records underestimate the total flow across the largely unregulated U.S.-Mexico border in that period-or into U.S. states along the Caribbean. The statistics show only 750,000 immigrants from Mexico, the Caribbean, and other parts of Latin America between 1820 and 1920. These early Hispanics-about half of whom were from the Caribbean-- contributed only about 2 percent of the 34 million immigrants who settled in the United States in that period."

This website would be highly useful for anyone looking at the growth of Latinos within America and the obvious problems that go hand in hand with immigration, as well as touching on the issues of American identity and if an identity can ever be achieved with the population of Hispanics increasing so much.

Crévecoeur's 'Letters from an American Farmer' & The Hills

http://www.mtv.co.uk/shows/the-hills

After thinking long and hard about what ideas I could link to Crévecoeur's ideas of America, I decided to focus on one of my favourite TV shows - MTV's 'The Hills'. It focuses on the 'real-life' drama of a group of friends set in Los Angeles over a period of 6 seasons. The main character in the first 5 seasons - Lauren Conrad, leaves Laguna Beach in hope of pursuing a career in fashion design and writing in Los Angeles. This is where my link to Crévecoeur begins, as he and/or his alter ego Farmer James, in a way leave France to discover farming oppurtunities abroad in the new land America. For both these characters, they are leaving what they know to discover new opportunities in a more exciting land. Both these characters are used to what is familiar, what they would call "home", and so both are surprised by the abundance of the new land, and what opportunites are in store for them.

In our seminar we discussed how Crévecoeur's writings were perhaps an early onset of the Hollywood era, where he is adopting the persona of his alter ego - Farmer James, rather than writing about himself. This can also be linked to The Hills, as there was a lot of controversy over the last episode in particular, as to whether the show was real-life, scripted or a bit of both. This can be applied to many of the reality shows aired on MTV, namely The Hills, The City, and Laguna Beach: The Real OC (which also followed Lauren Conrad's life).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8gyXYr1ZAM - The last ever episode of The Hills - the controversial ending.

I have chosen Letter III "What is an America?", as there are also some difference that are clear to point out about the two topics. Crévecoeur sees America as non discriminatory, where there is no space between the rich and the poor, drawn from a quote in the book; "those of the poor: here they rank as citizens" (Page 43). This is most definately not the case when referring to the Hills, as there is an abundance of wealth in the area of Los Angeles that the show is set in, and most definately a class divide is evident.The positivity of both is evident though, as Crévecoeur uses quotes such as "can change the world" (Page 44) - evident of the American Dream, which is also present in The Hills, pursuing their dreams; "smiling country" (Page 47) - this can be used to describe America on Crévecoeur's behalf or Los Angeles if the same were to apply to The Hills. The idea that they will succeed in what they want to do and be who they want to be is the underlying motto in both these mediums.



Is America still Exceptional?

The idea of America being a 'new' and 'exceptional' country is strongly conveyed by De Crevecoeur in "Letters from an American Farmer" when he contemplates how new European settlers must feel upon arriving in America for the first time in Letter 3 (p40)

"I wish I could be acquainted with the feelings and thoughts which must agitate the heart and present themselves to the mind of an enlightened Englishman, when he first lands on this continent."

He very clearly expresses his own pleasures of living in this new land, and feels that upon witnessing America for the first time, those arriving there for the first time get a sense of just how magnificent and opportunistic America is for them.
In fact he contrasts the differences between the new world and Europe itself:

"It is not composed, as in Europe, of great lords who possess every thing, and of a herd of people who have nothing."

De Crevecour is quite openly passionate that America is pure and perfect for creating and shaping a more ideal civilisation that is free of possessive hierarchy where everyone is treated equally.

This belief does appear to have stood the test of time. A quote from one particular website looking at how America can still be seen as "exceptional" reads:

"The United States remains exceptional in other important ways. It is still an outlier at one end of many international indicators of behavior and values. It is still much less statist and welfare-oriented, and its governments (federal and state) tax and spend much less in proportionate terms than European governments. It is the most religious country in Christendom, the only one still strongly influenced by the moralistic and individualistic ethos of Protestant sectarianism. It has higher rates of mobility into elite positions than any other nation. It combines exceptional levels of productivity, income, and wealth with exceptionally low levels of taxation and social spending and equally exceptional levels of income inequality and poverty." (http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/6621)

From this quote we can see that America has kept government involvement at a lower level then in Europe by keeping taxes low, therefore allowing its citizens to earn a better living through their jobs and enjoy a better quality of life.
As well as this, social spending means that the country can prosper from not overspending on things that are not necessary.

Crevecouer's Idea of New and Exceptional America

In Letters from an American Farmer Crevecouer clearly shows his view that America is superior to any other country in the world. When searching for a website which agrees with this view, I came across www.goodcitizen.org which is a website that encourages people to do more to become good citizens. This website suggests that America is exceptional but only if everybody plays their part; then America can remain new and untarnished (the website says 'The lack of citizen involvement is a quiet epidemic and a threat to our future'). The tagline for the organisation is clearly shows this idea: 'The Responsibility Part of Freedom'.

Crevecouer says that America has 'the most perfect society now existing in the world' (p50) and he suggests that this is partly to do with the hard work of Americans like himself:

'We are all tillers of the earth, from Nova Scotia to West Florida. We are a people of cultivators...united by the silken bands of mild government, all respecting the laws, without dreading their power, because they are equittable. We are all animated with the spirit of an industry which is unfettered and unrestrained, because each person works for himself' (p49-50)

The website also reflects the ideal that through hard work America is made exceptional:

'Effective citizens do simple, yet powerful things on a daily basis that keeps our country strong and free. we call thes acts citizen actions'.

Another point which reminded me of Crevecouer when I looked at the website was the fact that the organization were especially interested in getting youth to get involved. This reminded me of this quote:

'I bless God for all the good he has given me; I envy no man's prosperity, and with no other portion of happiness that I may live to teach the same philosophy to my children; and give each of them a farm, show them how to cultivate it, and be like their father, good substantial independant American farmers' (p46-7)

Both explain the importance of children to work hard to maintain America's exceptionality for future generations.

Criticism of America

I have found an article on the independents website titled 'Hatred of America Unites the World'. The article gives different reasons as to why different countries may hate America, poll results of peoples opinions on America and Americas thoughts and reactions to other countries dislike for them.

The article says that "being hated is what happens to dominant empires", this being a main reason for why America is targeted with so much hate from all over the world. It also discusses how the countries that America thinks are it's biggest threats or enemies do not always reciprocate the hatred and that many of Americas so called allies look unfavourably towards them.

It shows the change in attitude Britain has towards America from 1999 where 83 percent of Brits had a positive opinion of America which falls to 56 percent only 7 years later in 2006. It also shows that Britain, as a whole, surprisingly favours both Japan and Germany over America as 69 and 75 percent favour the two countries.

As well as all of this it shows that some countries are quite suspicious of America with the example of Germany believing that during the situation with Sadam Hussain and the weapons of mass destruction 60 percent of Germans believed that it was actually to do with America wanting to control Middle Eastern Oil and 47 percent thought it was to do with America and world domination.

The article gives a lot of interesting facts about countries opinions towards America and I like the way that it compares several different countries opinions rather than focusing on just one.

An account of a French settler

I found an account of colonisation by Sieur Daniel Greysolon Duluth, I got this from www.americanjourneys.org.

Duluth was a Frenchman who in 1678 decided to go to a French colony in America and explore the Sioux country (and other tribes) in the North West.

Firstly he describes how everyone thought it would be impossible for him to explore the Sioux country ‘because of their distance, which is 800 leagues from our settlements, and because they are at war generally with all sorts of tribes’. He then says that he didn’t feel worried because they had already ‘assured [him] of their friendship’ and that the Sioux Indians, as proof, had given him 3 slaves. This section surprised me because it differs so much from Percy’s account of the Native Americans: in Percy’s account there seems to be severe mistrust between the colonists and the Indians; whereas in this account not only is Duluth certain of their friendship but the Indians show their trust in him by giving him 3 of their people. Duluth then states that he wants to bring peace between all the nations around Lake Superior; this shows that he wants to help them. Later on, he describes how this did happen. He then appears to change his view when describing how a reverend and two other Frenchmen had been kidnapped by the Indians; this contrasts with the earlier view on Indians and shows that things between colonists and Indians aren’t entirely friendly. After this point, he starts calling the Indians ‘savages’. After this he goes about letting the Indians know of his resentment against them. However he doesn’t seem to purely hate them, it seems that he’s more disappointed in them. Another thing which surprised me when I read this account was that he never seems to be amazed at what the Inidans are like and how they live (unlike other accounts) he seems to just view them as people (who are perhaps in his view slightly inferior and in need of help).

‘Having made with the Assenipoulaks and all the other nations of North America a rendezvous ... they all appeared there, where I had the good fortune to gain their esteem and their friendship, to bring them together, and in order that peace might last longer among them, I believed that I could not better cement it than buy causing marriages to be made mutually between the different nations. This I could not carry out without much expenditure. During the following winter I caused them to hold meeting in the forest, at which I was present, in order to hunt together, feast, and thus draw closer the bonds of friendship’.

This I feel is the most revealing section because it shows how influential Duluth, a colonist, was to the many Indian tribes living in the North West. Again, as I said earlier, this greatly contrasts to Percy’s account because in that account the settlers and the Indians were locked in constant conflict and (even at the start when they sometimes helped the colonists) they were never close to being friends. Yet here not only is Duluth a friend to them but he is instrumental in bringing all the tribes together in peace. The very thought of the Indians in Percy’s account listening to a colonist seems ridiculous, yet here it is shown to be possible.