An American Experience

An American Experience

Ronald Lubin

Institution

American Experience

This paper will shed light on American experience using writings from the late 19th century. First writing is a journal article “Women and American Experience” written by Woloch Nancy, which explains the experience that women faced in late 19th century and how the experience is related to American dream. The article focuses on the challenges that women faced in achieving their status as a working-class in 19th century. American dream for most groups is simply their beliefs and making them into realities. What really attracted different groups of people to an American dream is freedom of choice. In late 19th century, women have been facing various difficulties to get recognized and to become contributing part of society. An American experience in women’s perspective is the challenges that women faced in achieving their dreams CITATION Wol84 \l 1033 (Woloch, 1984). American experience of women has changed with time on the basis of women’s intelligence, empowerment, and strength CITATION Law00 \l 1033 (Lawson). With the prospering economy of the country, women have been attracted to America because of equal rights they can have. Both men and women have helped in building America, women in America are no longer dreaming of getting marrying and having children. In this era, women are dreaming to become lawyers, doctors, engineers and CEOs which can be possible today as there are almost the same opportunities for women in America as that men get. For a woman an American experience is the struggles that they done to achieve their career goals. In the late 19th century women began leaving the status of “just a housewife”, and entered the formal workforce, becoming an equal competitor in job market. In the 19th century, the modern education system in America encourages kids to develop skills and work to achieve their own goals. With having equal opportunities and right of education, women in America have developed their own version of American dream based on their experiences. American experience of women in this era has strengthened women in American community.

The second writing which has been chosen for this paper is an article “The Black Man’s Burden” written by HT Johnson in 1899. The paper explains the struggles of African American community to get recognition, identity, and equality in United States. Africans who were brought to the United States in the early era were all slaves. There are many biographies of African American from early era to explain American experience of Black people. Black slavery ended in the 19th century, but African Americans face new difficulties in achieving equal status as white people. With the end of slavery after the civil war, African American community has realized that freedom is not just equal opportunities because of bias treatment of government and other people to the blacks. In this era African Americans were harshly punished for petty crimes, and the new concept of slavery has developed under the facilities of correction CITATION ame15 \l 1033 (Sinha). Black people were sentenced for a long time for small petty crimes, and eventually they will be doing labor work like in the era of slavery. In this era, African Americans dream about getting equally treated by other Americans. Another aspect that has been discussed by Johnson is the issue of identity of African Americans. According to the writer, blacks have to achieve their identity through their actions CITATION Joh99 \l 1033 (Johnson, 1899). A new American dream for the black community in this era is to get complete freedom according to the new definition of freedom. Along with getting absolute freedom, black people also struggle to get an equal opportunity as that of white people. Even if a black person gets his freedom, and had never been wrongly accused he still struggles to get a decent job. Unequal opportunities were not only subjected to the job market for African Americans. African Americans had to struggle for equal opportunities in education, healthcare, employment, and justice system.

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY Johnson, H. (1899). The Black Man's Burden. Voice of Missions. Retrieved from https://www.thatenglishteacher.com/uploads/6/6/8/5/6685188/johnson-theblackmansburden.pdf

Lawson, H. (2000). Ladies on the lot: Women, car sales, and the pursuit of the American dream. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.pk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=jl1LByCY6wcC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Women+Perspective+on+American+Dream&ots=IKVooeexFz&sig=VdWkKYOeaB7Xq9CET6ZeVUoWO7w&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Women%20Perspective%20on%20American%20Dream&f=false

Sinha, A. (2015). Slavery by another name: Voluntary immigrant detainee labor and the thirteenth amendment. Retrieved from https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/stjcrcl11&section=4

Woloch, N. (1984). Women and the American experience. (A. A. Knopf, Ed.)