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Spaces and exchanges

        I am going talk about the notion of Spaces and Exchanges.

        This notion deals with the geographical and symbolic areas that all societies occupied and interaction between men and different societies. The different spaces of the world are nowadays more and more connected to each other. The exchanges can appear on many forms : people, trade, information.

In order to illustrate this notion, I have chosen to talk about immigration on the USA and attempt to answer the question Is immigration always advantageous for the migrants ?

To answer this question I will present three documents: an extract from a novel, a video and a photography.

        The first document I have chosen is an extract from the novel “Ellis island”, written by Fred Mustard Steward. The story is about a man called Jacob, a Russian Jew who is passing the immigration's control in Ellis Island. The autor comments on his immigrations' reasons ans insists on the joy of Jacon when he passed the control : he must have always dreamed of coming to the USA and starting a new life to escape  poverty and religious persecutions. With this document, we imagine for sure that comming to the USA has always been a dream for jacob, and he will do his best to have a better life.

But, it is really hard to immigrate, and not all the people succeed on it. That is why I choose my second document to illustrate this. The recording “crossing over” talks about the US-Mexico border who is one of the longest borders in the world. This document indicates that the border is very dangerous. The journalist refers to the fact that more than hundred of migrants die each year crossing the border. The document shows a limit to immigration: many people want to immigrate to have better conditions of life, but most of the time immigrants take some dangerous risks to imigrate and the end is not happy.

My last document is a photography taken by Margaret Bourke-White during the great depression. It is called “Louisville Flood”. We can see on the foreground a line of black people, looking resigned waiting for food in front of a billboard. On the billboard, we can see a promotion of the American way of life, with a white family represented in a car. We can see the slogan “There's no way like the american way”. The poster is ironic, and the photographer wanted to denounce the american dream, and show that the life in the USA is not always beautiful. I find the photo very interesting, because it permits to show that migrants not always find what they were expected and sometimes its really hard to find a life better than they had.

To conclude, I would say that for me the United States has always been a country where there is a lot of interaction between different cultures: the story of USA began with immigration, and the country isstill the subject of immigration. It is the subject of many controverses and migrants took some really hard risks to leave their country but not always find what there were expected.

Myths and hereos

        I am going talk about the notion of Myths and hereos.

        A myth is a popular story which tries to guide the society toward certain values, or some ideal. Usually, it is composed of unreal fact and action, often led by a Hero. A hero is a courageous person who is ready to sacrifice himself to rescue other people’s.. We can ask ourselves which myths or heroes were pushing the people to immigrate to the US ? And are they really true nowadays ?  To answer this question, I’m going to use the following documents: The picture Louisville Flood, the cartoon of Pismetrovic.  

        First of all, with the document :                    , we have explained the the story of the Pilgrims and the birth of this american dream. English people were obliged to leave England 400 years ago because of religious persecutions.They travelled across the sea in rough conditions and reached Massachusetts in November. Fortunately, they were rescued by an Indian tribe called Wampanog who taught them how to grow crops ans that's how the pilgrims survived. They embody the American dream, a few days before landing, the Mayflower Compact was signed by all passenger and remains until today one of the sources of the American democracy. This is with this story, wich became a myth than american began to be an attractive area and that all the people wanted to go there.

        To continue, lots of icons contribute to promote positive images of the country. Some artists like to promote a positive image of the USA. I choose to illustrate this the cartoon of Peter Pismestrovic, Dreamland, published in 2004. The places, things and people seen in the cartoon were the embodiment of the American way of life and present America like land of plenty (Coca-Cola, McDonald’s), a land of freedom (Lady Liberty), a land of achievement (The Empire State Building, Mount Rushmore), a land of entertainment (Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, Mickey Mouse). These images are at the same time attractive, conventional, truthful and idealized images.

However, the reality is quite different sometimes. This reality is well illustrated across the photography Louisville Flood by Margaret Bourke-White. In fact the photo is based on a contrast between the foreground and the background, between black Americans queued up and a white family living the american way. The American Way of life, promoted by Hollywood is the model of a close-knight family living in a beautiful house with a garden, a car, children who are going to go to university and in turn live the American Way of life.This photo underlines that some people are left out from the system. In reality all american citizens are not equal. I think the photographer’s goal is to make people realize that some people in the USA are confronted with a social and economic problem. Poverty can exist in a rich society with a high standard of living such as the United States.

Seats and form of power

        I am going talk about the notion of  Seats and forms of Power.

        Power can be understood as the ability to exerce a control on someone or on a group of people in order to be sure about how they act.  In order to illustrate this notion, I attempt to answer the question How power can be used to influenced the history and the society ?

In order to illustrate this notion, I have chosen three documents because they deals with the influence of the powers.

        The first document I have chosen is an extract from “Rich Man, Poor man”, written by Irwin Shaw, in 1969. In this extract, an history professor meets one of his former student. He reveals to that the university President is plotting against him in order to get rid of him, because he is suspicious of beeing a communist. This passage shows that those who were in power used innocent people as scapegoats to protect their own jobs. In this text, there is no denying that Denton is in for trouble because he is powerless.