Monument Protection Laws and the Evolving American Monumental Landscape

* Abbreviations: AAP — : American Academy of Pediatrics VVN — : Vital Village Network The American dream is a fundamental ethos of the nation passed from generation to generation. In 1931, James Truslow Adams coined the term as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone.” Most Americans across all incomes still believe their children and grandchildren will achieve the American dream.1 Yet, in reality, it is out of most children’s reach. The American dream is intrinsically tied to the capacity for upward mobility, whereby children can grow up to surpass their parent’s income level. The groundbreaking work of Harvard Professor of Public Economics Dr Raj Chetty reveals that there is less upward mobility in the United States today than at any other time, likely because of lower overall economic growth and greater inequality in its distribution. Specifically, Chetty et al2 found that, since 1940, the fraction of children who earn more than their parents has fallen from >90% to ∼50%. However, the decline in the American dream is not equally distributed across the United States. Chetty et al3 has revealed great variation in upward mobility, with significant differences even among neighborhoods within the same city. Higher–upward-mobility areas are associated with less residential segregation and income inequality and greater … Address correspondence to Arvin Garg, MD, MPH, Department of Pediatrics, University of Massachusetts Medical School, 55 Lake Avenue North, Worcester, MA 01655. E-mail: Arvin.Garg{at}umassmemorial.org

Series Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Roth's America Part 1: American Pastoral Introduction to Part 1 2 was not supposed to happen had happened and what was supposed to happen had not happened: Subverting History in American Pastoral, David Brauner 3. Critique of the Pastoral, Utopia, and the American Dream in American Pastoral, Andrew Gordon 4. America's Haunted House: Racial and National Uncanny in American Pastoral, Jennifer Glaser Part II: Human Stain Introduction to Part 2 5. Race, Recognition, and Responsibility in Human Stain, Dean Franco 6. Possessed by the Past: History, Nostalgia, and Language in Human Stain, Catherine Morley 7. The Pointless Meaningfulness of Living: Illuminating Human Stain through Scarlet Letter, Gabrielle Seeley and Jeffrey Rubin-Dorsky Part III: Plot Against America Introduction to Part 3 8. Just Folks Homesteading: Roth's Doubled Plots Against America,Brett Ashley Kaplan 9. My Life as a Boy: Plot Against America, Elaine M. Kauvar 10. Autobiography and History in Plot Against America, or What Happened When Hitler Came to New Jersey, Timothy Parrish Collected Notes Works Cited Further Reading Notes on Contributors Index.

Arthur miller (1915-2005), as the most outstanding master of drama in the United States and known as the "conscience of American drama", accurately depicted the post-war real society in the United States and the changes in social values. In 1949, Miller wrote the Death of a salesman, which became the peak of his drama creation and won the Pulitzer prize and the New York theatre critics circle award. The play tells the story of the United States in the turbulent social background of the 1940s, the protagonist Willy Loman's dream and the collapse of the whole family. By means of the combination of realism and expressionism, the drama reproduces the changes of social values and the sadness of the little people. In previous studies, most scholars focused on the disillusionment of the "American dream" of the minor characters in the drama, and took the deterioration of the "American dream" and the change of values in American society as the starting point. However, it may be difficult to understand Arthur Miller's interpretation of the "American dream" in the play without tracing the root of the "American dream" and exploring the deep cultural genes of the United States. This paper aims to analyse Arthur Miller's contradictory writings on the American dream in Death of a salesman from the perspective of meme.

In the United States (U.S.), adolescent identity development occurs within a socio-historical context characterized by an ethnic-racial hierarchy, as well as an unequal distribution of power and privilege. The current study examined the associations among two ethnic-racial identity components (i.e., exploration, resolution), perceived ethnic-racial discrimination, and U.S. American identity among White, Black, and Latino adolescents in the U.S. A cross-sectional sample of self-identified White, Black, and Latino adolescents (N = 1,378) completed self-administered surveys (M age = 16.16 years; SD = 1.12, 52.8% female). A sequential model-building approach using multiple-group path analysis revealed that both exploration and resolution were positively associated with U.S. American for White and Black adolescents, but no association emerged for Latino adolescents. Furthermore, among Black adolescents, the association between exploration and U.S. American identity was moderated by perceived ethnic-racial discrimination, such that these two identity dimensions were positively associated only among those who reported higher levels of discrimination. Overall, ethnic-racial identity and U.S. American identity were more strongly associated among White and Black adolescents compared to Latino adolescents. Future research is needed to better understand the intersections between ethnic-racial identity and U.S. American identity.

<i>The Prestige of Violence: American Fiction, 1962–2007</i> by Sally Bachner, <i>Roth and Trauma: The Problem of History in the Later Works (1995–2010)</i> by Aimee Pozorski

The article analyzes the Chinese and American dreams and traces the difference between the ideal social needs of China and the United States of America. The aim of the article is to define a similar and distinct the “Chinese dream” and the “American dream” in the perception of the theoretical and scientific community. That is why the study of the concepts of the Chinese and American dreams is relevant and of considerable scientific value. The main methodological principles of the research are the analysis and comparison, which allowed determining the key parameters for the evaluation and selection of factors influencing intercultural interaction and cooperation, holism and individualism of the “Chinese dream” with the “American dream”. In addition, the historicism method was applied to consider the primary forms of the “Chinese dream” and the “American dream” and with which you can provide insight into the difference between the ideal social needs of China and the United States. Conclusions. It is proved that the original form of the “Chinese dream” has come from China ideal society`s requirements and had a more secular character since the earliest times. The source of the “American dreams” was the “Eastern dream” and a puritan reform movement to promote American political and social reforms. The “American Dream” is based on individualistic values such as personal prosperity, which appears via personal achievements, family happiness and material well-being. The “American dream” journey begins with political system, economic environment, cultural tolerance, etc. Moreover, on the basis of the intrinsic rights to liberty, equality and fraternity, Americans have specifically identified the right to the pursuit of happiness. The “Chinese dream” is more expressed in the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, the prosperity and power of the country, etc., it is more comprehensive, while the “American dream” is mostly realistic and material.

The study aims to determine “American Dream” role in formation of personal and national identity of the central character in the novel “American Pastoral” by Philip Roth. The article examines constitutive elements of the studied utopian project, analyses peculiarities of its evaluation by the characters in regard to their existential plans, on the basis of which dialectical nature of “American Dream” as an aspect of identity construction is revealed. The work is novel in that it chooses material that is little-studied in the Russian literary criticism and research perspective that has not been previously used to analyse this novel. As a result, it is proved that failure of the “American Dream” project leads to its restructuring, which confirms its self-stabilising nature and fundamental role in the process of personal self-determination of the character.

This chapter attempts to map some of these neglected topics, such as the mosaic of identities of Jews in Latin America, as well as the identity of those Jewish Latin Americans who have relocated to Israel, the United States, and Europe. The argument in the chapter is twofold: First, people are far from a normalization of Jewish Latin American historiography. And second, in these times of globalization and multiculturalism, with the growing legitimization of transnational ties and identities of all sorts, one should expand the territorial boundaries of one's field so as to include Jewish Latin Americans who have relocated to other places, such as Israel, the United States, and Europe. Exceptionalism suggests that ethnicity is a not a national phenomenon, that ethnic group members are either separate from or victims of a certain national culture. Keywords:ethnicity; Europe; Israel; Jewish Latin American historiography; United States

The American Dream is a central component of American culture and image; its frequent exploration in popular culture means the concept is familiar to domestic and global audiences. However, in the context of a profound economic recession and internal social and political struggles, the American Dream is met with increasing skepticism, both within the United States’ borders and abroad. In this paper, I investigate how contemporary representations of the American Dream on film are reflecting and dealing with this remarkable historical period when the Dream is in decline. I examine the concept’s origins, exploring how it has evolved to mean domestic felicity and economic security. I discuss how it has been interpreted in popular culture, with a focus on more recent interpretations, and in particular a close reading of the 2011 film The Descendants. Employing textual analysis, personal observations, and an analysis of the film’s wider cultural meaning in light of its box office performance, awards, and reviews, I argue that the film represents a reworking of the American Dream, emphasizing land and domestic felicity over economic security and the “good life.” I suggest that this conception is likely a result of the current state of the Dream, particularly the impossibility of achieving the “economic security” component.

The article examines two concepts that are often used in the political environment of the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China. These are the American dream and the Chinese dream, which determine the domestic policy of the two centers of modern politics. The historical prerequisites of the American and the Chinese dream formation are analyzed and the most characteristic differences between the concepts of the Chinese and the American dream are identified. It is proved that, despite the closeness of the interpretation, the concept of the Chinese dream differs significantly from the American one in many respects. The differences in these concepts are due to historical factors, cultural development and geographical location, as well as China’s orientation to its own strength, in particular, the Chinese nation; the American dream is realized at the expense of the citizens of the United States, representing mostly different ethnic groups: they are given all the opportunities to realize their needs, including financial ones. As a result, Chinese dream rests on the power of the masses, the American dream on the nomination of an individual. t is determined that the ideas of the American and Chinese dreams play a significant role for both the American and the Chinese establishment. For the first, it is important to use the American dream and its realization as a tool of increasing the political support, while for the second, it is primarily the ideological unification of the Chinese nation.

The United States currently has one of the highest levels of inequality among industrialized economies. In addition, numerous scholars have shown that social mobility in the United States is significantly lower than it was in the period between 1945 and 1970, when inequality was declining. The combination of these trends is dangerous because it risks transforming the United States into a society where small elites capture most of the gains, a pattern in which growth cannot be sustained over time. The level of inequality in the United States after taxes and transfers are taken into account is much lower, but it is still higher than in most OECD countries, and the trend is still for inequality to increase. This article explores how the U.S. tax system can be used to counter these trends and concludes that the key is not to increase taxes on the rich (although some reforms in this direction can be adopted) but instead to adequately fund and even strengthen the social safety net. The only way to do this in the medium to longer term is to adopt a broad-based federal consumption tax.

514 China Review International: Vol. 2, No. 2, Fall 1995 left out completely. Finally, again, the organizers ofthe conference clearly made an effort to cover the politics, economy, and society of the three areas discussed. In any conference, however, contributors will naturally differ in individual interests , expertise, or focus, and thus in their choice of specific topics. There seems to be room, merit, and in fact a need for a coordinated, comprehensive, and balanced cooperative study of these three areas and their future. Danny S. L. Paau Hong Kong Baptist University Richard Madsen. China and the American Dream: A Moral Inquiry. Berkeley , Los Angeles, and London: University ofCalifornia Press, 1995. xxiii, 262 pp. Hardcover $27.50. In this book Richard Madsen brings together China and the United States, which hitherto he has been studying separately, by writing a moral history of the two countries. His theoretical perspective "denies the sharp distinction between subject and object characteristic ofpositive science." To this integrative study the author brings his rich experiences as a former Maryknoll missionary, as a China scholar and sociologist for almost three decades, and as a member for fifteen years of the Robert N. Bellah team that has explored a "public philosophy" for Americans. That Bellah teamwork produced two provocative books: Habits ofthe Heart (University of California Press, 1985) and The Good Society (Alfred A. Knopf, 1991). Madsen wrote China and theAmerican Dream as "someone trained in the sociology of culture and moral philosophy." The "American Dream" seems to be a catchall term for a "liberal myth"— both imprecise notions used interchangeably by Madsen throughout the book as constructs in attempting to make sense out ofthe very complex relations between China and the United States in the last quarter-century. Simply put, the "liberal myth" is what many mainline Protestant Americans (and those whom they have influenced) like to believe about themselves and their country. Before the Communist victory in 1949, China was seen as fertile soil where these Americans could 1995 u ? ¦ make money, convert people to their religious beliefs, or extend their democratic ofHawai'iPressideals. Diplomats, businesspeople, Christian missionaries, and academics—all had their own agendas for shaping China according to their best image ofAmerica. That myth was part and parcel of the American Protestant Establishment. In 191 1, Reviews 515 when the Maryknoll Fathers were founded as a Catholic Foreign Missionary Society ofAmerica, they did so because (as I was told by a senior priest) "we wanted to do no less than the Protestants." Madsen sees this liberal myth as having reemerged in 1979, following the normalization of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China and the subsequent opening of China to Japan and the West for the technology it very much needed in its effort to achieve modernization. This new turn ofevents is seen by the author as having been made possible by the timely and no less mythic initiative of President Richard Nixon, with his historic, well-orchestrated, globally televised visit to the People's Republic in 1972, driven by the emerging Soviet threat as it was perceived by both countries. According to Madsen, the new relationship with China revived a waning "liberal myth" and gave a new lease on life to venturesome and altruistic Americans and their liberal institutions. However, within a short decade, that myth was suddenly challenged in the aftermath of an overheated Chinese economy and the tragic events in Beijing in the spring of 1989. Madsen underscores the severity ofthat tragedy for Americans (more than the brutality ofthe suppression itselfwarranted ), whose dreams for both themselves and China were shattered. Madsen reviews with critical, post-Tiananmen hindsight the tendency of Americans over the last quarter-century to look wistfully at China as a mirror of their highest hopes and aspirations. I can recall a colleague (Tom Fenton) in the mid-1970s claiming that "China-the-Idea" (rather than "China-the-Place") appealed to him because it showed that "Socialism in the United States is a possibility !" (One World, A monthly magazine of the World Council of Churches, Geneva, May 1976, p. 12). Though belated, Madsen's call for sobriety is still needed to help Americans avoid the classic oscillation between love...

Results from a number of U.S. public opinion polls collected in the past two decades are used to examine trends in attitudes about the American Dream. Trends are examined in the following areas: What is the American Dream? Is the American Dream achievable? and What is the role of government and politics in the American Dream? Findings suggest that a majority of Americans consistently reported that the American Dream (for themselves and their family) is more about spiritual happiness than material goods. However, the size of this majority is decreasing. Most Americans continued to believe that working hard is the most important element for getting ahead in the United States. However, in some surveys, an increasing minority of Americans reported that this hard work and determination does not guarantee success. A majority of respondents believe that achieving the American Dream will be more difficult for future generations, although this majority is becoming smaller. Americans are increasingly pessimistic about the opportunity for the working class to get ahead and increasingly optimistic about the opportunity for the poor and immigrants to get ahead in the United States. Although trends show consistency in Americans blaming Blacks for their condition (not discrimination), a majority of Americans consistently support programs that make special efforts to help minorities get ahead.

This thesis examines the ways in which spirituality as a religious form interacts with political economy in the United States. Based on 22 months fieldwork in two small Northern Arizona towns, Sedona and Valle, it traces the way spirituality is enacted by individuals through foodways, bodily practice, and relationships to nature. I argue that it is pursued as an alternative to ‘mainstream’ American values, often summed up by my informants in the ideal of the ‘American dream’. For them, the American dream is that any individual can succeed in a meritocratic system through hard work, increase their economic prosperity from one generation to the next, and pursuing this will lead to personal happiness and fulfilment. Pursuing one’s spiritual path means foregrounding personal happiness and fulfilment often at the expense of economic prosperity. Spirituality is an alternative way of living and of making a living. This renegotiation of traditional American values is held to be the necessary response to the political, economic, and environmental crises of late capitalism. Spirituality is a category of growing salience for many Americans; while its genealogy remains complex and usage fluid, it has come to mean something specific for my informants, referring to what was once known, often pejoratively, as ‘new age’. This thesis delineates the religious form called spirituality, defining it as a constellation of beliefs and practices clustered around the central concept of ‘energy’ as an all-pervasive force; ‘the universe’ as a pantheistic conception of divinity; and progressive stages of enlightenment described as a ‘spiritual path’. The centring of the individual in spirituality mirrors the emphasis on individual responsibility at the heart of neoliberal policies implemented by successive governments since the late 1970s. At the same time, the expansion of agency to all nonhuman actors in spirituality destabilises the notion of human superiority as well as American exceptionalism. In this way, spirituality presents a challenge to dominant discourses in American society at the same time as it is constrained by the limits of those discourses.

Reviewed by: Ellis Island Nation: Immigration Policy and American Identity in the Twentieth Century by Robert L. Fleegler Danielle Battisti (bio) Ellis Island Nation: Immigration Policy and American Identity in the Twentieth Century. By Robert L. Fleegler. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013. Pp. 280. $49.95 cloth; $49.95 ebook) In Ellis Island Nation, Robert L. Fleegler makes an important contribution to the field of American immigration and ethnic history in his examination of both the evolution of American immigration laws and the changing ways in which Americans viewed European immigrants and their children in the twentieth century. Fleegler argues that after a sustained period of discrimination and immigration restriction in the early twentieth century, Ellis Island–era immigrants (largely Catholics and Jews of southern and eastern European origins) were gradually accepted into the American mainstream, and by 1965, American immigration laws had been amended to reflect changing American attitudes toward them. Fleegler’s work is part of a cohort of recent scholarship (including [End Page 698] work by Wendy Wall and Kevin Schultz) which gives serious consideration to the many social and cultural factors that led to changes in American attitudes about race and ethnicity, and by extension, American immigration policies in the twentieth century. Historians have long considered how Cold War foreign policy concerns weakened the National Origins System in the postwar period, but, until recently, less attention has been paid to the domestic climate, which also contributed to changes to American immigration laws. Fleegler addresses this gap in scholarship by studying social and cultural changes in the United States that created a more inclusive climate for Ellis Island immigrants and their children (while demonstrating how and why non-whites largely remained beyond the pale), and which prompted changes in American immigration laws to reflect new attitudes. Perhaps most significantly, World War II and the Cold War accelerated the embrace of cultural pluralism by the public, instead of the previously accepted paradigm of cultural assimilation. Both wartime practicalities, such as the need to foster political and social unity at home, and the ideological imperatives of the war prompted Americans to redefine the meaning of democracy and liberalism in the United States. The result was the official endorsement of tolerance and unity for all racial, ethnic, and religious groups, with white ethnics reaping most of the actual benefits. According to Fleegler, the Cold War was perhaps even more influential than World War II in fostering such changes; it prompted Americans to support the idea that American democracy fostered, and indeed flourished from, the ethnic and religious diversity of the United States. Fleegler’s most important addition to the current literature on immigration, ethnicity, and Americanism is his introduction of the concept of “ethnic contributism.” Fleegler argues that a new ideology, which he labels “contributism,” emerged at mid-century and “emphasized that the United States was enhanced by the ideas and skills brought by eastern and southern European immigrants and [it] expanded the definition of American identity to include this generation of former undesirables” (p. 2). As lawmakers, cultural elites, [End Page 699] educators, and the general public embraced the idea of “contributism” (for European immigrants at least), American immigration laws were liberalized to reflect the new position of white ethnics in American society. However, although Fleegler’s concept of “contributism” is significant (particularly the material in chapters five and seven), and he certainly shows how various individuals and groups used the rhetoric and ideology of contributism from the 1930s through the 1960s, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish how “contributism” differs from the “cultural gifts” movement (see Diana Selig, Americans All), which began in the interwar period. Ellis Island Nation is worthy of attention by all scholars of immigration and ethnic history. It continues the Euro-American immigrant, or ethnic, narrative well into the twentieth century, paying particular attention to critical changes that occurred in American society between 1924 and 1965. Although immigration rates for European immigrants fell well below their turn-of-the-century highs after the enactment of restrictive legislation in 1924, the dominant presence of Euro-American immigrants and their American-born children in the United States influenced both the changing nature of American immigration...