Coursework Essays on the United States and Population Implications

First Essay

The United States of “Latin” America: Realizing an Untapped Potential of a Growing Population

Before the Pilgrims reached shore in Massachusetts Bay (1621) and before the English settled in Jamestown (1607) Spanish explorers had already taken root in parts of Florida and present-day New Mexico.  Not only has Hispanic culture had an impact on the United States from the nation’s inception, but it also played a role in shaping and defining early American politics (Balkaran).  This dual impact—on culture and politics—has continued and accelerated up to the present day. Since 1960, in fact, the Latino population has grown from 6.3 million to more than 55.3 million in 2014 (Stepler and Brown).  While the Latino impact on American culture and politics is notable, it has only started to realize its potential influence and factors to only become a more powerful force in years to come.  

From food, to language, to music, to Hollywood and Major League Baseball the impact of Latinos on American culture is undeniable. The impact has been felt not only in more traditionally Latinized states, such as Florida and Texas, but even in the heart of the Midwest. 2015 World Series Champions, the Kansas City Royals, sported eleven Latino players who played a prominent role turning one of the Midwest’s most popular sports franchises around—and the team’s Latino players are among the most popular in the largely conservative and mostly Caucasian Kansas City market (Baez). 

In no way is the significance of the growing Latino influence on American culture more evident, perhaps, than in the CW’s smash hit Jane the Virgin. Not only is the show led by a mostly-Latin cast, but it depicts three generations of Latino families, weaving their daily lives into the mainstream of the larger American context. Striking a balance “between entertainment and political awareness” Jane the Virgin has taken the reality of Hispanic life in America and advocated for the beauty and complexity of an increasingly trans-cultural American environment (Martinez).  

Political pollsters pay what might seem to be an undue amount of attention upon the Latino population. While immigration issues—particularly those related to illegal immigration—are important to Latinos polling has shown that they are less one-dimensional when it comes to issues than sometimes assumed. Polling has consistently revealed a triad of issues—education, jobs, and immigration—as the top concerns for Latino voters (Center for American Progress 13). Accordingly, the political affiliation of Latinos has proven more pliable and less predictable than other established populations. Both predominant political parties perceive the Hispanic population as a “swing vote” population that has yet to definitively entrench itself in the Republican or Democratic Party platforms. A part of what makes the Latino vote so unpredictable is their underrepresentation in the voting booth. Only 45 percent of America’s Latino population is currently eligible to vote. Among those eligible, more than half declined to cast ballots in the 2012 Presidential election. That said, this number of untapped voters is nearly 11 million—and with 2012’s election decided by a margin of just over 3 million votes, this underrepresented population has the potential to effectively change elections (Center for American Progress 11-12).

While the Latino impact on American culture and politics has already proven significant, it factors to inevitably play an even more sizable role in shaping American society in the future. In politics, even as current polling of Latinos leans Democratic there is evidence that this tendency could easily shift as the economy and education rival immigration amongst Latino concerns. The growing and, politically untapped, Latino population could effectively decide the nation’s political future even while adding a rich layer of diversity to American culture that enriches the universal American experience.   

Second Essay

Finding One’s Moral Place

According to Jonathan Haidt’s enlightening talk on the moral foundations of liberalism and conservatism, humans have evolved with a sort of “first draft” of morality that orients human beings, from birth, with several moral “channels” or matrices through which values are developed: harm, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity.  While liberals tend to have a two-channel morality that embraces the harm and fairness ideals, conservatives tend to have a broader five-channel morality that also cherishes loyalty, authority, and purity.  Haidt concludes that both liberals and conservatives are necessary for a healthy society—liberals provide an impetus for change and progress while conservatives uphold stability. Like the Taoist’s Yin and Yang and the Hindu’s Shiva and Vishnu, “liberalism” and “conservatism” is neither good nor bad, but representatives of both ends of the spectrum are necessary for a flourishing human society.  

My results on the “Moral Foundations Questionnaire” were interesting, though not altogether surprising. While I tended to score high on both harm and fairness—which Haidt claims both liberals and conservatives tend to do—my scores coincided with liberals in the categories of loyalty and purity while my scores fit with conservatives with respect to authority. This would suggest, most likely, that I am left-of-center on the liberal to conservative spectrum, but not far left from center.  While I do not resonate well with conservative perspectives on loyalty or purity, their respect for authority reflects what I believe is necessary for an ordered society.  These results were not surprising, but it was very helpful to see my views reflected in Haidt’s categories and it explains a lot about how I understand various issues and why.  In the “I Side With” questionnaire it revealed that the political candidate I most agree with is Hillary Clinton.  This makes sense in light of the prior “moral foundations” quiz as well—while I tend liberal I am not as far left-leaning as Bernie Sanders.  My “I Side With” questionnaire even showed that I side with Donald Trump on immigration.  This reflects the emphasis on “authority” that I share with conservatives as revealed by the “moral foundations” quiz.  These results were not surprising to me. 

After taking both quizzes it confirmed much of what I already know—I am left-of-center but I am not extremely liberal. I tend to agree with the Democratic candidates, but I would not necessarily rule out a moderate Republican if he or she were open on social issues and embraced important policies that I agree with.  The results of both quizzes were strikingly similar—the value of “authority” in the “Moral Foundations” quiz meshed well with the single-appearance Donald Trump made on the “I Side With” quiz regarding immigration.  Immigration is largely a matter of authority, respecting the laws of the land, and preserving order.  This made sense.  I think putting my views in these categories, especially those measured by the “Moral Foundations” quiz, really helped me understand where I really fit on the political spectrum and how I relate to either the liberal or conservative side.  

Third Essay

Dr. King's Righteous Fury

Sociologist and author, Jonathan Rieder, has challenged popular notions about the patriotic motivations of Dr. Martin Luther King.  In a 2013 New York Times article, “Dr. King’s Righteous Fury,” Rieder suggests that King’s often-quoted appeals to the American dream and his evocation of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence represented occasional remarks, rather than the core of his sentiments. Rieder shows that much of King’s rhetoric and writings focused instead on justifiable indignation characterizing the Black experience in American life.  The high and noble words of the Declaration of Independence were not, in King’s estimation, the righteous core of American identity but an ideal that America’s forefathers never fully embraced and American culture has only hypocritically and selectively adhered to. Such selective and hypocritical adherence has been manifest in no instance more than in the centuries’ of oppression experienced by Blacks on the North American continent from the earliest days of white settlement until his present day during the Civil Rights era.  What emerges from Rieder’s assessment of King is not a man who championed the ideals of American equality, expressed in the Declaration, but one who sought more frequently to cynically chide the white American majority for embracing these ideals disingenuously. 

Questions

1. " King’s letter, written on scraps of paper smuggled out of the jail and first made public on April 16, 1963, began as irate jottings of rebuttal.", - (Reider)

• Question: In your view, how much did the frustration of King’s present predicament being in jail contribute to the tone in this letter and was this “irate” tone found in other writings?  

2. " What we remember today as a stirring piece about freedom and justice was also a furious reading of American history and an equally indignant attitude toward King’s white contemporaries.", - (Reider)

• Question: Well credited as one of the 20th century’s best rhetoricians, do you believe that some of this “fury” was more rhetorical, intended to persuade through force, or was he genuinely venting his anger here?  

3. " You don’t have to be a literary critic to sense the cold fury: “For years now, I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity.”", - (Reider)

• Question: Do you believe this was an isolated “cold fury,” or is he expressing his fury to drive home a point, or to call political figures to immediate action?    

4. " Hardly naïve about the power of moral appeal to stir the white conscience, King flirted with the idea that whites were virtually incapable of empathizing with the black plight.", - (Reider)

• Question: If King believed that there was a powerful appeal to white conscience that was possible to make, how could he also believe that these same people he appealed to were incapable of empathy? 

5. " At its core, the “Letter” was a proclamation of black self-sufficiency.", - (Reider)

• Question: Is it that King believed Black’s should achieve their equality by themselves or was it more an expression that even if whites fail to advocate for them, they will seize equal rights for themselves in time regardless?   

6. " Reading those lines on paper barely hints at the force of those stanzas as King usually spoke them: a defiant assertion of a black right to belong that rested on something more primal than, and prior to, the nation’s official documents and civic heroes.", - (Reider)

• Question: If that’s the case what did King mean when he said that “our destiny is tied up with America’s destiny?” If this was King’s point wouldn’t it be more accurate for him to say that their destiny was larger than and even independent of America’s destiny?  

7. " The story of the slaves was of a people in “exile,” King said, whose skin color and forced labor made for a different kind of “exceptionalism”: They were other people’s property, the instruments of somebody else’s dream.", - (Reider)

• Question: If they were a people in “exile,” in King’s view, were they in exile from the American homeland that had been theirs as well as anyone else’s before, or were they exiles from their homeland in Africa?  Or, was the “exile” metaphor simply a metaphor likening the Black experience to enslaved and exiled Israel and a component of King’s black liberation theology?  

8. " “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights. That’s a beautiful creed,” King told his crowd. It is easy to read such sentences in “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and other works by King and leave it at that. But it is vital to read what he said next: “America has never lived up to it.”", - (Reider)

• Question: The comment that America has never lived up to this creed could be read in two ways. It could be either an exhortation to Americans at large to take this creed seriously for the first time, or it could be a word of condemnation and cynicism.  Based on the thesis of this article, why should the latter interpretation be preferred to the former?

Works Cited

Baez, Rochelle. “17 Latino Players to Follow During the 2015 World Series.” The Flama. 27 Oct. 2016. Web. 2 June 2016. < http://www.theflama.com/17-latino-players-to-follow-during-the-2015-world-series-1448653411.html>

Balkaran, Stephen. “Commentary: What Would America be like Without Hispanics?” The Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy. 11 Mar. 2014. Web. 1 June 2016. <http://www.harvardhispanic.org/commentary-what-would-america-be-like-without-hispanics/>

Center for American Progress. Latinos are Shaping the Future of the United States. Center for American Progress, Nov. 2015. Web. 1 June 2016. <https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/23114334/CAP-CIDE-report2-WEB.pdf>

Haidt, Jonathan. “The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives.” Ted Talks. March 2008. Video Clip. 2 June 2016. < https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind?language=en#t-1097460>

Martinez, Diana. “Jane the Virgin Proves Diversity is More than Skin Deep.” The Atlantic. 19 Oct. 2015. Web. 2 June 2016. < http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/10/jane-the-virgin-telenovelas/409696/>

Reider, Jonathan. “Dr. King’s Righteous Fury.” The New York Times. 15 April 2013. Web. 2 June 2016. < http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/opinion/dr-kings-righteous-fury.html>

Stepler, Renee and Anna Brown. “Statistical Portrait of Hispanics in the United States.” Pew Research Center. 19 April 2016. Web. 1 June 2016. <http://www.pewhispanic.org/2016/04/19/statistical-portrait-of-hispanics-in-the-united-states-key-charts/>