Chinese and Japanese Immigrants and the California Dream Essays

In the 1850’s, Chinese immigrants began entering California in search of gold and the California dream. They had heard that California was the new frontier, a frontier that would provide them with the opportunity for economic riches. Young and ambitious, many of these Chinese immigrants quickly married in their homeland and set out for the gold rush, promising to return (with wealth). Likewise, in the 1880s, when the state of California was undergoing rapid economic transformation, Japanese immigrants — just as young and ambitious as their Chinese counterparts — set out for America where they had heard the streets were â€Å"paved with gold.† But little did these Chinese and Japanese immigrants know that what they would discover in California would not be gold and riches, nor wealth and opportunity, but a hostile land that would accept them as half-humans and treat them as slaves. In the end, faced with systematic oppression, societal discrimination, racis t laws, and outright violence, these immigrants would be forced to inhabit various ethnic enclaves and communities to protect themselves from the dominant culture that would eventually strip them of their identity, sexuality, and family. In essence, they would be stripped of all the building blocks of a true community. Immigration In 1852, attracted by the discovery of gold, more than 20,000 Chinese immigrants passed through the San Francisco Customs House to the gold fields in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Between 1867 and 1870, partly in response to recruitment efforts by the Central Pacific Railroad Company, which was building the western section of the first transcontinental railroad, some additional 10,000 poured into California (Chan 1991). The added presence of so ma... ...g how far removed from the Californian dream of wealth and well-being Asian immigrants had become. References Book, S. W. (1976). The Chinese in Butte County, California, 1860–1920. San Francisco: R and E Research Associates. Chan, S. (1991). Asian Americans: An interpretive history. New York: Twayne Publishers. Cole, C. L. (1973). A history of the Japanese community in Sacramento, 1883–1972. Diss. California State University, Sacramento. Gillenkrik, J. and Motlow, J. (1987). Bitter melon: Inside America’s last rural Chinese town. Berkeley: Heyday books. Lukes, T. J. and Okihiro, G. Y. (1985). Japanese legacy. California History Center. Matsui, S. (1919). Economic aspects of the Japanese situation in California. Diss. University of California at Berkeley. Nee, V. G. and Nee, B. D. (1974). Longtime Californ’. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Matrix Movie Review

Brad Davies Sociology 11:00-12:15 a. m. MW 2/20/2010 Swanson Movie Paper 1) In the movie The Matrix, Keanu reeve stars as a character whose world is based on a futuristic reality. This fact plays the role to why this movie demonstrates social imagination. The basis is that the individuals in the movie have to be aware of their enemies, the machines and artificial intelligence. Social imagination is also expressed through the virtual reality the humans go into where they have certain advantages that they wouldn’t have in the real world.The environment determines the reality of the characters in many ways. In The Matrix, that was created by computers to limit and reduce the human population, reeves character forms a rebellion against the machines with others who escaped the cyber world. When he enters the matrix, he continues his constant struggle with Agent Smith, a virtual character created by the machines to destroy Reeves. These, I believe, are good examples of the social im agination. ) The deception of this movie is that the future, many movie producers believe, we humans will be at some sort of worldwide war with artificial intelligence.Along with the characters in the movie, the writers, producers, and directors are the ones who created this deception. The Matrix, which is the â€Å"fake reality†, is created through the minds of the characters by the means of technology. The advancement in technology that the movie portrays is the basis behind the â€Å"artificial reality. I believe, after viewing the movie, the main characters figure out the difference between fact and fiction by simply going through the metamorphous of the real world and the matrix. I feel that the reality of this movie is the possibility that the future of the humans may indeed involve a conflict with machines, artificial intelligence, and/or the entire cyber world. 3) Yes, I do believe that it is possible to create a separate reality in our minds. People do this every da y through hypnosis.When people go â€Å"under† and it is said that their conscious minds are released. This is done so that we can escape our very stressful, worrisome, everyday lives. Our minds are endless and we go through hypnosis, we can explore the unexplored of our inner-conscious. When it comes to create a â€Å"fake reality† like the matrix in our minds and live in it, I don’t think it’s possible, without the help of some sort of machine or computer basis. I’m sure some people try to do this, but nothing can compare to the reality portrayed in the movie. )I did like The Matrix, along with the rest of the trilogy, because of the Sci-fi, fictional baseline. It is pretty cool to think about what it would be like if we could actually hook up to a computer and travel into a different world. This assignment was pretty tricky and I really hope that I nailed all the key points and that my examples make sense and go along with the questions. I think the class is going fairly well so far. Can’t go wrong with learning new things every day!

Australia Does Not Have Its Own Culture Essay examples

Australian culture has vanished and turned into multiculturalism. There is no longer a typical Australian culture, but it has been replaced by a melting pot of diversity. There is no longer a typical Australian food, instead it has imported and embraced cuisines from around the world. There is no longer a typical Australian life instead each immigrant can have their own culture in Australia. There are few national holidays and festivals that are unique to Australia, but rather have come from other cultures. To get a better understanding of this, culture is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as: ‘The behaviour and beliefs, characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group’, and ‘the appreciation and understanding of literature,†¦show more content†¦So what’s so unique about that? Therefore, there is no longer a typical Australian food as the foods have come from many various cultures. Secondly, Australia consists of many cultures where each cultural group is allowed to have their own unique culture without integrating with Australian people. One could come from China and not even have to speak English because there are so many Chinese people in Australia over 1,950,000 Chinese live in Australia. Since Australia has many mixed cultures one could have their own culture in Australia. So many immigrants have come in a short space of time from over 226 different cultures thus diluting Australia’s original culture. Migrants have enriched almost every aspect of Australian life, from business to the arts, from cooking to comedy and from science to sport. Australia’s laws allow immigrants to express their own culture here. This all the more showing that Australia consists of many diverse cultures and that immigrants have changed the lifestyle in Australia. Lastly, most, if not all of Australia’s national holidays and festivals, have come from diverse cultures. Six of the main festivals celebrated in Australia are Chinese New Year, Oz Asia festivals, Christmas pageant, Brisbane’s French Experience, St Patrick’s Day, and Australia Day. Quite frankly not one of those festivals can teach someone a single thing about Australian culture but rather other cultures. Out of those sixShow MoreRelatedCulture of Australia and Corporate Social Responsibility906 Words   |  4 Pagesprocesses, by contributing educational and social programs, and by earning adequate returns on the employed resources. CSR is also considered as a strategy to create, develop and sustain positive company reputation and brand images. BreadTalk who owns businesses in China had practiced in CSR programme during one of the world’s most horrifying disasters – the Sichuan earthquake which happened on 12th May 2008. 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