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Ronald Takaki's A Different Mirror

743 Words3 Pages

In the book A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America by Ronald Takaki, he argues that the “Master Narrative of American History” does not accurately reflect the meaning behind what it means to be an American, because this country is populated by immigrants from around the world. Therefore, Takaki wrote this book to make us look into a different mirror and showing us a more inclusive outlook by reflecting us the true history of America that includes Native Americans. Many also lack information about the history of several other ethnicities and for that reason, society created a construction through a separation between the minorities and whites. By conveying the history of the original settlers who have been inhabiting America, Takaki is able to exclude many people’s mentality that the history of whites are more superior than other racial minorities, in which have made them feel unimportant because of their lifestyle, when America is a country of all people, and not only …show more content…

This system creates a social construction through a separation between minorities and the Europeans. “I believe our education system as a whole has not integrated histories of all people into our education system, just the Eurocentric view of itself… What I find is that most people don’t know the fact that they don’t know, because of the complete lack of information” (Takaki, 5-6), said Nicholas Takaki, a 14 year old student. He implies that in his American history course, it had taught him only about the Europeans. This absence of knowledge have affected their ways that only the whites have created and nourished America resulting in what we are today, seeing people of other races as inferior. Because of this, we percept ourselves as different, and feeling left out from the history and America

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Ronald Takaki's A Different Mirror

412 Words | 2 Pages

Reader Response of Chapter 2 of A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America by Ronald Takaki In the book, A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America, Ronald Takaki gives an anecdote about how the lives of both the Indians and the Irish were dramatically destroyed and how they were even almost extinct because of the violent and corrupted acts of the English. Moreover, the English expansion led to the “making of an English-American identity based on race” (Takaki 26). Furthermore, the Irish were the first people to be considered as savages. The English felt as if the Irish did not have any respectful manners or obedience to God.

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Summary Of Chapter 4 By James Loewen

748 Words | 3 Pages

In the book written by James W. Loewen, Loewen studies the biases of an ordinary history class, beginning each chapter with quotes from various historical figures. Loewen indicates that the root of the problems Loewen discusses comes from the history textbook itself. This being said the textbook gives a dull, culturally biased description of the past, often alienating readers such as Latinos, Native Americans, and African Americans. Throughout Loewen’s chapter four, there are many ways in which Loewen discusses the Native Americans to be talked about more highly than the Natives should be. The Native Americans were talked about in many negative ways, and the Natives are said to have been “lied about” more often than any other portion of the

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Summary Of A New Perspective By Ronald Takaki

1255 Words | 6 Pages

This essay is written for the purpose of analyzing Takaki's approach on why we live in such a diverse society and how we came about it. He shares the importance of the making and the history of our country. There are many takes on how this country was formed and I will be reviewing Takaki's approach to this and personally determine if his perspective is fair and just. America in a New Perspective As a Japanese American, Ronald Takaki was born in America and is a citizen of this country. Did this have an effect on how he portrays the white race in dealing with the issues of minority groups migrating to this country?

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Industrialization In Upton Sinclair's The Jungle

939 Words | 4 Pages

The Out of Many textbook discusses the history of America. A huge part of the history in America is industrialization. Chapter 19 of the textbook talks about the industrial city in which The Jungle by Upton Sinclair opens the realities factory life and work in the early 1900’s. The Jungle tells about the lives of the workers in factories, specifically meat, and how harsh and disgusting their work really was. The topic of industrial cities and their living and working conditions from the Out of Many textbook is weaved in The Jungle .

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Summary Of Ronald Takaki's A Different Mirror

1024 Words | 5 Pages

Introduction In Ronald Takaki’s book, A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America, Takaki argues that despite the first slave codes emerged in the 1660’s, de facto slavery had already existed and provides evidence to support this claim. While he provides a range of data, these facts can be categorized in three groups: racial, economic, and historical. These groups served as precursors to what eventually led to slavery codes to be enacted and the beginning of one of the darkest chapters in American History. Racial

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Prejudice And Discrimination In A Different Mirror By Ronald Takaki

1236 Words | 5 Pages

The main difference that we see between both racial ethnic groups is that white Americans believed that they could strip Native Americans from their culture and civilize them while “nurture could not improve the nature of blacks” (67). Although some Native Americans did try to live under the laws of white Americans, they were eventually betrayed and forced to leave the

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Summary Of Andrew Jackson's Treatment Of Native Americans

826 Words | 4 Pages

The US’s treatment of native tribes emphasized their inferiority to white America, denying the founding value of equality. The Declaration of Independence states, “all men are created equal.” Unfortunately, the US did not uphold this value with its relations with

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879 Words | 4 Pages

First, Gravlee explains the cultural perception of race in the United States and how

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A Different Mirror Ronald Takaki Analysis

287 Words | 2 Pages

Ronald Takaki a renowned pioneer in the field of ethnic studies has over the years authored numerous books on diversity in American society. As a grandson of Japanese immigrants who became the first black studies professor at UCLA, Takaki for many years has continually tried to bridge cultures and ethnic groups in the United States. In his book “A different mirror: A history of multicultural America”, Takaki addresses the idea of multiculturalism in our society, and also talks about how for many years we have been told to acknowledge the notions that the core principles of our nation uprooted only from one group rather than a contribution from other various cultures as well. The ‘master narrative’ posed by Takaki describes the growing

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Immigration Reform Act Of 1965 Analysis

676 Words | 3 Pages

For generations, many Americans have seen their country as a haven for immigrants, a “melting pot,” of different cultures. These different cultures and traditions brought from countries across the world shaped the modern American identity, some would argue. While it is true many cultures from Europe, Africa, Latin America, etc. have contributed to molding the modern American society, immigration history is marred by resistance. Patterns in immigration throughout American history have created a culture de jour that is at the center for the most ardent opposition. From the Irish, to the Asians, and now Hispanics, it is easy to interchange the culture or race, while keeping the hysteria in any given decade from America’s past.

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Native Americans In The Gilded Age

1707 Words | 7 Pages

This period was described as [one] whose Constitution is so perfect that no man suggests change and whose fundamental laws as they stand are satisfactory to all..” However, while both Native Americans and European immigrants theoretically experienced similar rights to those of citizens and were granted citizenship/naturalization in the early twentieth century, both groups lived in crude and unsatisfactory conditions in the 19th century; it would be inaccurate to describe their situation as “satisfactory” at all. During the 19th century, Native Americans lived unsatisfactory lives due to forced assimilation and the dissolution of their identities and sovereignty. At the beginning of the 19th century, Native Americans and Americans had gotten into a series of conflicts as a result of American migration to the west, the lands that the Native Americans

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The Impact Of Westward Expansion On Native Americans

847 Words | 4 Pages

Native Americans flourished in North America, but over time white settlers came and started invading their territory. Native Americans were constantly being thrown and pushed off their land. Sorrowfully this continued as the Americans looked for new opportunities and land in the West. When the whites came to the west, it changed the Native American’s lives forever. The Native Americans had to adapt to the whites, which was difficult for them.

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Racial Inequality In City College

190 Words | 1 Pages

While the critique of ideologies of American exceptionalism are necessary to reflexively decouple nationalist myth from empirical analysis, the inverse alternative of conceiving of the United States as ontologically racist is also problematic. First, such a conceptualization has difficulty accounting for changes and variations in racial inequality and racial identities. While racial inequality has been an enduring reality throughout U.S. history, which groups suffer from racialized inequality, and the forms such inequality take, vary across time and space in ways that the notion of a singular underlying structure has difficulty grasping. In particular, in the case City College, the racialized status of Jews varied over time. As will be shown

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152 Words | 1 Pages

In the essays “A Quilt in a Country” by Anna Quindlen and in “The Immigrant Contribution” by John F. Kennedy, the two authors shared their point of view on America and it’s people. Quindlen viewed America as a mongrel nation because of it’s ever changing disparate parts. Kennedy viewed America as a nation made up of immigrants.     Anna Quindlen’s view Is similar to Kennedy’s by how they both see that America is not like any other nation because we are made up of different ethnic groups. Say you were in Britain you would see brits.

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Globalization In Native American Culture

1579 Words | 7 Pages

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