AMH23Blog

      The essay I selected for this immigration journal entry was "Funny in Farsi" The "F Word"" by Firoozeh Dumas (2003). This account discusses an Iranian woman's experience of growing up in America within her Iranian family and the discrimination both her and her family experiences. Specifically, the topic of having a foreign name is discussed throughout Dumas' essay in which she mentions the ignorance and apathy Americans had towards her and her family when it came to the most personable part about a person. Dumas' points out that she knew that "moving to America would be fraught with challenges," but she didn't expect her name to be one of the biggest ones. Throughout her life, she found that Americans would, at best, mispronounce her name or give her a new name entirely, and at worst, turn her name into an insult like "the F Word." In her adolescence and young adulthood, Dumas would eventually give herself an American n

      This week's module discusses political polarization, terrorist attacks, and civil rights advancements (LGBT, people of color in politics). In this post, I will be focusing on the topic of political polarization, which is the idea that parties in government could create rifts in the country on the basis of ideologies. As a result, citizens could begin to fight with each other and prevent progress and solidarity within that country, such as the US. Two of the largest political parties today are the Republican and Democratic parties. Admittedly, there are other parties besides these, however, they are much smaller and have significantly less influence of politics and the country. This division amongst a country's own people can become very dangerous and express itself in protests, riots, and even civil wars.      On the same spectrum of polarization due to differences in beliefs, a recent case of this in the US can be seen in the 'Black Lives Matter' movement. This m

       This week's module is discussing changes in American power (specifically the executive branch), democracy v. communism, and new American policies and acts that were put in place. For this post, I will be focusing on the topic of the fight between democracy and communism. To provide some background knowledge, two main 'players' in this fight are the US, representing democracy, and the Soviet Union, representing communism. A very real fear at the time, for both parties, was that one of the two political ideologies would spread and get rid of the other one, thus weakening it's power. On the side of democracy and the US, the spread of communism would rid freedom, individuality, and quality of life for all. As a result, the strategy of 'containment' was created in order to help prevent communism from spreading to other unaffected nations. In doing so, the US would be able to spread democracy and peace to other nations by preventing them from falling under the