American exceptionalism

my desire for an American one. I wanted nothing to do with being Vietnamese or Asian because all that it had brought me was a sense of inferiority and constant bullying. My desire to suppress my Vietnamese identity brings up a point that is brought up by Ms. Mori, the protagonist’s friend with benefits. During one of their conversations, she asks, “So why are we supposed to not forget our culture? Isn’t my culture right here since I was born here?” (73). She is a Japanese American who has…

American Social Issues and Revolutionary Ideas “The distinction between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders, are no more. I am not a Virginia, but an American,” Patrick Henry declared in his 1774 speech at a meeting of the First Continental Congress (“Patrick”). This rhetoric illustrates the sense of society Americans felt. According to Gordon S. Wood in “Rhetoric and Reality in the America Revolution,” there is a link between American social issues and Revolutionary…

Letters From an American farmer tried to define “who then is America, this new man” in the way that contrasts European countries. However, America does not always act in accordance with the national identity given by the author, Crevecoeur. In other words, things can vary because of intersectionality. As one of the key documents of American Studies, the Letters From an American Farmer are a direct attempt at depicting the image of America, especially the Letter III titled “What Is an American”.…

implying that borders no longer serve their original purpose – division. Anzaldia’s, The Homeland, Aztlan, (specifically the poem by William H. Wharton) touches upon concepts such as: primitivism, manifest destiny, colonization (or expansion) and the American dream. “The justice and benevolence of God will forbid that . . . Texas should again become a howling wilderness trod only be savages, or . . . benighted by the ignorance of and superstition,…

God chose white people over all other races to be the ruling elites who dominate the world. They are the chosen people, in similar ways to Israel, who were God’s chosen people, determined to rule and colonize the “Promised Land”. Not only would Americans colonize, they would also proselytize and set an example of what pious morality ought to look like. In being an example, whites began to understand themselves…

The British and French Empires spent the majority of the period between 1793 and 1815 at war with one another; imperial conflict in this period was not uncommon – the two powers had previously clashed during the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) and the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783, with direct French involvement from 1778). [CITE THESE DATES????????] Though by 1815 the Napoleonic Empire had fallen and been replaced by the restored Bourbon Monarchy, which adopted the British ideological…

government opposed bad morality and honor issues from such actions against Mexico. These people included some military leaders such as, Abraham Lincoln, General Andrew Jackson, General Zachary Taylor, but even with these Americans in high positions against president James Polk, they were powerless to stop him. This was because of the element of deceit and propaganda he used very well to get him the support needed to conduct such a campaign. At the same time, some of the ones…

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was one of America's greatest rhetorical manipulations; as well as, a tragic fate for thousands of Native Americans. President Jackson addresses Congress stating, "It gives me pleasure to announce to Congress that the benevolent policy of the Government...in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a happy consummation” (President Jackson's address to Congress). The language used not only misrepresents what actually…

treaties with the kingdoms of Spain and Russia. By the 1830s, the American people populated a third of the North American continent, but alas it was still not enough. A nationalistic belief coined by John Sullivan as Manifest Destiny revived American interest in westward expansion under the pretense that the United States was predestined for continental domination. Manifest Destiny painted westward expansion as an opportunity to spread American democracy to lands still wretched with tyranny,…

wilderness on early American life. While the Old World mentality presented wilderness as mysterious and filled with demons, the new American nation viewed it differently. Rather than possessing a sense of fear, their belief in the divine mission to spread democracy and civilization inspired them to journey west. Accordingly, they did so with a sense of excitement and a thirst for discovery. As such, I wholeheartedly agree with Miller’s view that the early romantic images of the American…