American Heritage Research Articles

Redefinicja „indiańskości” przez ruch Nowej Ery

Redefinition of Indianness by the New Age MovementThe term New Age movement defines a heterogeneous, non-religious Western spiritual movement that emerged in the second part of the 20th century. It combines Euro-American spiritual heritage, widely understood Eastern philosophy, numerous native traditions, infusing this hybrid with elements of psychology, healthy lifestyle, as well as quantum physics. Because New Age spirituality is practiced occasionally at commercially held workshops, those kinds of seminars have soon become a lucrative business for educators and coordinators involved.The objective of the article is to follow the general history of New Age in the context of Native Americans, provide its characteristics, and investigate the “Native American” threads within the New Age movement both in the United States and in Poland. The author focuses on the ethical aspects of commercial exploitation of Native American heritage, examines Native Americans’ stand on misappropriation of their spiritual legacy for commercial purposes, as well as actions they take in order to restrict this practice.

The Coloniality of Nature: An Approach to Latin American Political Ecology

A translation of ‘The Coloniality of Nature’ from the book La Naturaleza Colonizada. This piece is an examination of a particularly Latin American perspective on political ecology. In a quest for a sense Latin American identity and heritage, it looks at how the continent has been shaped since the Spanish conquest through environmental factors. It argues that human societies have been just as shaped by the traumatic destruction rendered to nature, as the environment has been shaped by said societies.

High Incidence of COL4A Genetic Variants Among a Cohort of Children With Steroid-Resistant Nephrotic Syndrome From Eastern India

High Incidence of COL4A Genetic Variants Among a Cohort of Children With Steroid-Resistant Nephrotic Syndrome From Eastern India

Dame Edna and ‘the help’

‘Dame Edna Everage’, a persona originally created by the Australian comedian Barry Humphries in 1955, is a character designed to simultaneously shock and amuse. Dame Edna voices (and satirizes) the discourse of ‘average’, older, politically conservative Anglo-Australians who feel compelled to ‘tell it like it is’ – no matter how offensive their opinions might be. In the Anglosphere, Edna’s humour is well understood and sustained international success has followed Edna for more than 60 years in Britain, Canada, the US and Australia. However, Edna occasionally misfires. In 2003, for instance, Edna’s satire outraged Latinos across the USA, in fulfillment of Poe’s Law (Aikin, 2009). Simply put, Latinos assumed that Edna’s comments satirising negative mainstream attitudes towards them were expressive of Edna’s authentic racism. This paper investigates the Edna joke in the overall context of failed humour and then specifically for the offensiveness it generated amongst the Latino minority in the United States. It then tests whether this reaction was the result of a discursive frame specific to the US context, by conducting an exploratory study amongst a small sample of highly educated Australian bilingual Latin American immigrants and their adult children, to see whether they thought Edna’s joke was funny. These Australian individuals of Latin American heritage responded via an online questionnaire, and an analysis of their responses is presented here. The study’s main finding is that while these individuals generally demonstrated a high comedic literacy across both English and Spanish, including a prior awareness of Edna’s and Australian humour, they overall rejected the intention and humour of Edna’s joke. This paper asserts that, when it comes to humour, some transnational migrant speech community loyalties transcend other notions of identity and language competence.

Gordon Keith Chalmers and the Politics of Advanced Placement

This article investigates the role of mid-century conservatism in shaping the College Board's Advanced Placement program. Kenyon president Gordon Keith Chalmers and superintendent of New Trier public schools William Cornog, who led the committee that directly gave rise to the AP Program, understood themselves as classically liberal but socially conservative, and their proposed program was rooted in principles associated with that movement. In keeping with other mid-century conservative thinkers, they promoted humanistic inquiry that introduced all American students, regardless of backgrounds, to the notion of individual freedom, in spaces set apart from economic activity. This article explains that Chalmers and Cornog agreed that schools should focus on reinforcing and transmitting a distinctly American heritage of constitutionalism, individualism, and universal morality by way of the liberal arts. The article ends by establishing how this ideological framing contradicts the Advanced Placement program's current shape.

Twin Pillars of Resistance: Vodou and Haitian Kreyòl in Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s Ti difé boulé sou istoua Ayiti [Stirring the Pot of Haitian History

Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s first book, Ti difé boulé sou istoua Ayiti [Stirring the Pot of Haitian History] (1977), exposes the foundational role of Haitian Vodou and the Kreyòl language in Haiti’s Revolution (1791-1804). The unprecedented victory achieved by the enslaved people in the former French colony of Saint Domingue was a useful paradigm for subsequent Latin American independence movements, starting with Simón Bolívar’s liberation of Venezuela (1811-19). This essay analyzes selected passages from Ti difé boulé that explicitly incorporate Vodou songs, prayers, and terminology to show how Trouillot provocatively deploys oral sources of historical narrative and memory. The young activist, writing in Haitian Kreyòl from New York City during the darkest days of the Duvalier régime, powerfully contests official versions of Haitian history by emphasizing the Haitian people’s agency. Vodou and Kreyòl, born out of struggle within a repressive colonial framework, are the great coherencies underlying Haitian resistance. Ti difé boulé examines neocolonial patterns of oppression emerging during the nineteenth century and critiques revolutionary icon Toussaint Louverture, revealing how Haiti’s predatory State harnessed Vodou to continue systematically subjugating the Haitian people. Trouillot’s innovative yet understudied masterpiece offers contemporary readers “new narratives” of Haiti. As twin pillars of Haitian resistance and cultural identity, Vodou and Kreyòl remain a vital and vibrant part of the American heritage. They merit more nuanced understandings within a cultural and political context where they have increasingly come under siege, inside and outside of Haiti.

Synergistic Effect Formation Mechanism

Synergy, also known as synergism, refers to the combined effects produced by two or more parts, elements, or individuals. Simply stated, synergy results when the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. For example, two people can move a heavy load more easily than the two working individually can each move their half of the load. Synergy can be a positive or negative outcome of combined efforts. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, the term "synergy" is derived from the Greek word sunergos, meaning "working together." Positive synergy is sometimes called the 2 + 2 = 5 effect. Operating independently, each subsystem can produce two units of output. However, by combining their efforts and working together effectively, the two subsystems can produce five units of output. Negative synergy can be called the 2 + 2 = 3 effect. Again, individuals operating alone can each produce two units of output. However, with negative synergy, the combination of their efforts results in less output than what they would have achieved if they had each worked alone. Negative synergy can result from inefficient committees, business units that lack strategic fit, and from other poorly functioning joint efforts. The state and efficiency of any organization is influenced by many internal and external factors. According to the property of emergence, the combined effect of several factors is almost always different from the sum of separate effects. It is this difference, commonly referred to as the synergy effect, interaction factor, or cooperative effect, that is the quantitative expression of synergy. The paradigm of synergy proceeds from the recognition of the fact that in the process of development, beneficial results obtained by the integrity of the organization are responsible for the well-being of its parts, members. In essence, the doctrine of synergy is an "economic" theory of complexity. Synergy is emphasized in organization theory. The principle of emergence of complex systems is put at the head of the law of synergy: the joint action of several factors always or almost always differs from the sum of separate effects. Thus, the synergy effect is not only a favorable combination of resources, but also coordinated behavior, connections, relationships; in a word, the entire set of parameters characterizing a complex developing Key terms Keywords: Synergy effect, Combined efforts, Statistical and dynamic synergy, Investment synergy system.

The Italian American Studies Association at Fifty-Five: 1966–2021

The Italian American Studies Association at Fifty-Five: 1966–2021

Prepositional phrases and case in North American (heritage) Icelandic

AbstractThe paper investigates the use of PPs, specifically prepositions and the case marking on their DP arguments, in moribund North American (heritage) Icelandic (NAmIce), using data from a map task experiment. Since prepositional phrases combine semantic properties with morpho-syntactic properties, PPs allow us to investigate the relative vulnerability of both domains at once. Our results show that while the prepositional inventory of NAmIce is not reduced as compared to Modern Icelandic, the choice of prepositions is subject to crosslinguistic influence from the dominant language English. For case, we find an increase in the use of nominative and accusative case at the expense of the dative; prepositions may take over case functions too. Our results are in line with previous research on case in heritage languages as well as studies on language change, while partially contradicting the assumption that loss is reversely related to acquisition.

Johnny Cash International: How and Why Fans Love the Man in Black

Johnny Cash International: How and Why Fans Love the Man in Black

Americana Foundation's American Heritage Grants

Corporate Philanthropy ReportVolume 36, Issue 7 p. 13-14 Grant Alerts Americana Foundation's American Heritage Grants First published: 10 June 2021 https://doi.org/10.1002/cprt.30983Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume36, Issue7July 2021Pages 13-14 RelatedInformation

Effect of acute kidney injury on hospital-based outcomes in patients with multiple myeloma.

e20006 Background: Multiple Myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells, is treatable, but incurable. 5-year survival rate is about 54% depending upon the stage. Studies have suggested that up to 50% of the patients experience acute kidney injury or chronic kidney disease at some point in their disease course. Approximately 3% of the patients will end up on hemodialysis. In this study we utilize the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) to understand the effect of acute kidney injury (AKI) on inpatient mortality in multiple myeloma patients. Methods: This is a retrospective study utilizing the data obtained from the NIS for the year 2018. We queried this NIS database for ICD-10 codes for multiple myeloma or plasmacytoma that had not achieved remission or was in relapse. We also looked at codes for acute kidney injury as secondary diagnosis. Primary outcome was inpatient mortality. Secondary outcomes were hospital length of stay and cost utilization. We then ran multivariate logistic regression analysis in STATA MP 16.1. Various comorbidities were accounted for by adding them into the analysis. These included previous history of coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, stroke, smoking, hyperlipidemia, stem cell transplant, neutropenia and chemotherapy. Results: The population of multiple myeloma patients under investigation were all adults more than 18 years of age and numbered in 3944 patients. The mean age was 65.71 years. Among these 45% were females. While examining inpatient mortality we see that for patients that had AKI the odds of inpatient mortality are higher (Odds Ratio (OR) 1.75, p = 0.003, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) 1.21 – 2.56). History of Heart Failure (OR 2.28, 95% CI 1.59 – 3.28), and increasing age (OR 1.02, 95% CI 1.01 – 1.04) also appear to contribute towards higher odds of mortality. The effect of other comorbidities was not statistically significant. Among demographical characteristics being of Native American heritage or not belonging to any descriptive race predicted higher odds of mortality. Mean LOS was 11 days. Patients with AKI stayed in the hospital longer by ̃1.4 days (Coef. 1.39, 95% CI 0.41 – 2.37). LOS was higher in patients with a history of heart failure (2.61, 95% CI 0.89 – 4.34 and in those with a history of neutropenia (5.52, 95% CI 4.42 – 6.62). LOS was lower in patients with a history of smoking by 1 day. Age lowered the LOS by a clinically insignificant amount. Teaching hospitals had higher LOS by ̃4 days. The total charge for hospitalizations from AKI is higher by $31019 (95% CI 14444.23 – 47594.37). Other factors incurring higher cost include history of neutropenia, and teaching hospitals. Hospitals in the Midwest had lower cost compared to hospitals in the Northeast. Conclusions: Among patients that present with a principal diagnosis of multiple myeloma, having acute kidney injury, adversely affects inpatient outcomes that include, mortality, hospital length of stay and total hospitalization cost.

Implicit Bias on Policing: A Review

Day by day, societies experience various social problems that expose them to other inhibited vulnerabilities. Social issues are evident in almost all communities, and they vary significantly in terms of their impacts on the lives of people and other related individuals. The main social problem that I will focus on in this assignment is racial discrimination or prejudices. Studies from American heritages affirm that racism as a social concern is defined in two significant ways. First, it is a belief that our race accounts for substantial differences in the individual's ability and character and that specific races are superior as compared to others. In every society, racism takes several forms and happens in many places. It is associated with discrimination, hatred, or prejudices directed at a person because of his nationality, color, and ethnicity. Racism can be depicted in the attitudes and actions exhibited by people as well as institutions and systems that are pertinent to them. However, sometimes it may fail to be revealed because most of them are not as apparent as one might think. For instance, in most job application lists and applicants, one may decide not to interview a specific group because of color or ethnicity. Though this might be seen as a light thing, it may eventually cause severe complications. Racisms supersedes words, actions, and beliefs; it includes various available barriers that have been put in place to prevent people from enjoying specific equalities or dignities due to their race. In most cases, there are a particular group of people who thinks that their race is better than the rest and enjoys dominance. Though laws, both local and international, have been introduced to address the concept of racial discrimination, most people still practice it unnecessarily.

Digital dispossessions: the importance of regional specificity and sovereign spaces to video game representations of native American cultural heritage

ABSTRACT Indigenous peoples and their culturalheritages, their ways of knowing and living, are tied to land. As Mishuana Goeman states,“Land is foundational topeople’s cultural practices, and if we define culture as meaning making ratherthan as differentiation and isolation in a multicultural neoliberal model, thanby thinking through land as a meaning-making process rather than a claimedobject, the aspiration of Native people are apparent and clear,” (Goeman, 73).Goeman asserts here that land is not limited to physical space, and that landlocates a group of people physically, culturally, spiritually, intellectually,etc. and provides them with both an internal and external locus of understandingfor and within broader society. When digital representations of Indigenouspeoples are completely removed from any meaningful connection to their land, anerasure of culture occurs. Moreover, the physical removal of Indigenous peoplesfrom the virtual representations of their lands is another form ofdispossession and the enactment of digital Manifest Destiny. This paperutilizes a decolonial Indigenous framework to analyze the dispossessions thattake place within the digital realm of the video game, why they occur sofrequently, and why they are so harmful.

Restless Legs Syndrome - Clinical Features.

Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is one of the most common neurologic conditions, with an estimated prevalence in European and North American heritage populations of about 2% to 5%. Because RLS diagnosis is essentially clinical, a careful evaluation of the symptoms is mandatory. It is important to exclude RLS mimics and evaluate factors that could exacerbate RLS symptoms. It is mandatory to evaluate systemic iron parameters, because the initial treatment depends on this result. Other complementary tests could help support the diagnosis or exclude mimics. The decision about when and how to treat should be carefully tailored to each patient.

Worse for girls?: Gender differences in discrimination as a predictor of suicidality among Latinx youth

IntroductionGender and ethnic differences exist in suicidal ideation, plan, and attempt among adolescents in the U.S. However, limited research has used theoretically-informed approaches to integrate how cultural and classic risk factors together account for suicide-related pathways among vulnerable populations. Informed by the interpersonal theory of suicide, the present cross-sectional study examined gender differences in the association between a cultural (i.e., discrimination) and classic (i.e., depressive symptomatology) risk factor, and suicidality among youth of Latin American heritage. MethodsA total of 390 Latinx adolescents (ages 13–18; 50% female) attending a high school in Southern California, U.S.A. completed a series of questionnaires that included measures of depressive symptoms, suicidality (including ideation, past attempts, and likelihood of future behavior), perceived discrimination, and demographics. ResultsWe found that discrimination was associated with increased suicidality among Latinx adolescents. The discrimination-suicidality association was stronger for girls versus boys, such that girls who experienced greater discrimination demonstrated the highest levels of suicidality. Although depression was also significantly associated with suicidality, the discrimination x gender interaction was found above and beyond the main effect of depressive symptomatology and covariates. Additional analyses revealed significant gender and moderation effects only for suicidal ideation and not for attempts. ConclusionsThese findings indicate that the relationship between discrimination and suicidality (particularly ideation) is more pronounced for Latinx girls than boys. This study also highlights the importance of drawing on theory-driven and culturally informed work that incorporates classic and cultural correlates of suicidality among diverse subpopulations.

Rule of Low as Factor of Investments in Ukraine

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to study the dependence of investments in the Ukrainian economy on two components of the rule of law, namely, the protection of property rights and the fight against corruption (according to the American Heritage Foundation). Design/Methodology/Approach: Empirical assessments were made for two periods – 2000-2019 and 2010-2019, which aims to test the resilience of the obtained results to structural changes, which characterize the period after the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. Findings: The inverse relationship between the monetary unit's devaluation (in nominal and real dimensions) and investments is very convincingly traced, which can be explained by the significant import intensity of investment goods and technologies. The received dependence means that any attempts to maintain the hryvnia's reduced exchange rate, as observed since mid-2020, threaten to stagnate domestic investments. Practical Implications: According to the data of 2000-2019, it was found that more reliable protection of property rights can be considered as a factor of increasing investments, but the corresponding favorable effect weakens in the post-crisis period of 2010-2019. This corresponds to the empirical research for foreign countries, and at the same time, it allows to assert that the property rights had a stronger effect on the investments in the 2000s when state property was privatized and consolidated. Originality/Value: The budget deficit clearly hinders investments, which can mean preferences for private consumption and raw materials branches. Money overhang, which is determined by the difference between the actual and trend values of the monetary aggregate M2, could stimulate investments in the 2000s, but in the post-crisis decade of 2010-2019 creates a clear negative effect.

Welcome from the Editors

Welcome from the Editors

The American Heritage Project: A Legacy of Public Libraries and Community Discussions

Abstract From 1951 to 1955, the American Library Association’s (ALA) national reading and discussion program, the American Heritage Project, facilitated community conversations about democracy across public libraries in the United States. In partnership between the ALA and the Ford Foundation’s Fund for Adult Education, the American Heritage Project was born from decades of emerging adult education programs across the United States that existed inside and outside of public libraries. The American Heritage Project is significant because it developed a platform of discussion groups that demonstrated the library’s newly established commitment to defending intellectual freedom through adult education.

Rising from the ashes: The biggest South American deers (Cetartiodactyla: Cervidae) once roamed Northeast Brazil

The tragic fire at the National Museum (Brazil) in September 2018 caused invaluable losses to South American natural and cultural heritage. However, previous visits to the paleontological collection generated photographic and descriptive records of mammalian fossil specimens from the Pleistocene of Brazil. Thus, it was possible to redescribe and revise the taxonomy of Cervidae fossils from two important paleontological sites in the Brazilian Intertropical Region (João Cativo and Lage Grande). These fossils include antlers and lower teeth, and they were described and taxonomically identified by morphological comparisons with all extant and extinct South American deers. A new diversity of Cervidae was recognized, differently from that proposed in the literature, which recognized the presence of Hippocamelus sulcatus, Mazama americana, and Ozotoceros bezoarticus. Instead, the Cervidae fossils from João Cativo and Lage Grande sites belong to the extinct deer Morenelaphus. Although some specimens could not be identified at a specific level (Cervidae indet.), a comparative analysis of the estimated body mass pointed out the most massive deer in South America (including extinct and extant) and recognized Morenelaphus as the second heaviest. The record of these large deers with huge antlers suggests the presence of natural grasslands areas and milder climatic conditions for late Pleistocene in the Brazilian Intertropical Region. Climatic and environmental changes may have driven these large deers to extinction in the Pleistocene/Holocene transition. This study reveals an unprecedented Cervidae diversity for the Brazilian Intertropical Region, emphasizes the relevance of dental features, together with antlers morphology, in taxonomic studies of Cervidae, and also highlights the importance of South American natural heritage in the retrieving of knowledge and new scientific discoveries through collection specimens.