The American Dream Documentary Analysis

The Klondike Gold Rush was a hard time for the miners. Many of them set out on a dangerous route to find nothing in the end. The two passages and the one video tell about the gold rush very well, from different point of views. The first passage called Klondike Gold Rush, which tells about how hard the journey was to Dawson City. It states how steep, dangerous, and hazardous the trails were. Many people ended up heading home when they got there. The second passage called A Woman Who Went to Alaska by May Kellogg Sullivan, is about how the government had lots of rules and laws for the miners. Lastly, the video called City of Gold, talks about how their father was a miner in the gold rush. Many of the miners went through

The Unnatural Causes: Place Matters video, explains how environmental factors impact the health and lifespan of an individual. Additionally, the video also gives some history on how disadvantaged neighborhoods were created through government policies that favored Caucasian families. Also, the video focuses on Richmond, a disadvantaged city in California, and the detrimental health of its community members. Lastly, the video focuses on an improved and former disadvantaged neighborhood called High Point located in Seattle, Washington.

The documentary film “The Harvest/La Cosecha” is based on migrant agricultural child labor. In some countries, children work 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. One of those countries is the United States of America. Every year there are more than 400,000 American children who are torn away from, their friends, schools and homes to pick the food we all eat. The film has three main characters being Victor who is a 16-year- old boy, and two girls who are Zulema (age 12) and Perla (age 14).Out of those 400,000, three of them are Victor, Zulema, and Perla. Throughout the documentary it gives you a view about how migrant families live and all the obstacles they encounter and how they overcome them.

Jennifer L. Hochschild describes the American dream as “the soul of the nation.” She clearly illustrates the importance of the dream to American culture. So, what is the American dream according to Hochschild? She was referring to John Locke and his fantasy, then said “But the sentence evokes the unsullied newness, infinite possibility, limitless resources that are commonly understood to be the essences of the “American dream.” She also pointed out the flaws in the American dream and how at times the pursuit of it can lead to counterproductive outcomes not just for the individual but society as a whole. Moving on, into how exactly she described the dream. She pointed out that there was definite division between the way the whites and blacks

The first real study of social disorganization happened during the 1800’s in France by two men, Adolph Quetelet and Andre-Michel Guerry. They studied social disorganization by taking the recently released criminal records and mapping them. They were able to show that crime is related to places. After Adolph and Andre Michel came Robert Parks and Ernest Burgess who studied the similarities between ecology and urban social structures. Parks and Burgess after seeing how time played a role in how cities are affected, created a theory called the Concentric Zone theory. This theory correlated ecology means of invasion, dominance, and succession and combined it to cities. After Parks and Burgess, two men by the names of Shaw and McKay took up this theory and applied it social disorganization and its effects on delinquents.

In the Frontline documentary titled “Two American Families” it shows the hardships that two families, one white and one black, face. The white family was called the Neumann’s and the black family was called the Stanley’s. Both of them faced the hardships of how to make a living. They had to make sacrifices in order to try and keep their house, pay their bills and everything else as well. The Neumann’s unfortunately had harder times than the Stanley’s did. Mrs. Neumann ended up having to work more than one job and the hours did not match up with what her

People ignorant about the struggles of homelessness and would rather make homeless people “disappear” than help them

The Oxford Dictionary defines the “American dream” as, “the ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative”. The American dream hasn’t evolved since the coining of the idea; the dream is still to have a steady job, a nice house, and a pleasant family. However, that dream does not appeal to everyone. Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild looks back upon the incredible journey of Chris McCandless. The story of a well-to-do young man who after graduating from a high-ranking university, donates all of savings to charity, burns the cash in his wallet, abandons all of his material possessions, and cuts ties with all of his family and friends to embark on his own personal odesseye in nature to carry out an adventure living in

Some of my most notable memories take form as early morning breakfasts. Most days I’d eat a variation of cereal, yogurt, or maybe some fruit. But once in a while, there’d special morning where my Dad cooked up a breakfast. Now, the meal itself had little notability; sometimes there were eggs, sometimes whole-wheat popovers, sometimes toast. What really made those breakfasts special, though, were the stories. Stories of my Dad’s dreams of owning a little restaurant on the lakefront, of little chairs and little tables, of having a laminated menu with items ranging from his eggs, to his whole-wheat popovers, to his toast. “Joe’s Café,” he’d call it. Day after day, he’d tell me his aspirations of owning a gourmet restaurant, even though an hour later he’d sit in the driver’s seat of his Toyota on the way to his office job.

Nowadays Detroit is all but synonymous with failure. Popular news media is filled with images of broken down buildings and abandoned factories. Rather than follow this trite depiction, Rebecca Solnit’s piece “Detroit Arcadia: Exploring the post-American landscape” gives the reader a new glimpse into the city of Detroit. On the surface, the article seems to agree with most others on the subject by describing the deterioration that has come to define the city. Upon further inspection, however, the article brings to a light a different side of the city -- one of hope and rebirth. Solnit achieves this deeper image of Detroit through her use of the beginning metaphor, contrasting diction, and shifts in tone.

Response to: What would you change about the mental health system after seeing “Skid Row”? (meaning resources for individuals with mental illness.) (King 2010)

It was around 7 on a hot August afternoon in 1965, in a Los Angeles south central neighborhood; when a twenty-one year old man named Marquette Frye was on his way home after a few beers to drop off his Brother. Not far from his house they were pulled over by an officer Lee Minkus who then proceeded to give Marquette Frye a field sobriety test. As Mr. Frye stumbled along the curb his brother Ronald Frye walked a few blocks over to the Frye residence and shortly returned with their mother. As the events unfolded the number of curious onlookers grew.

Detroit is now known as the better city. Change is the act or instance of making or becoming different. Detroit: An American Autopsy,LeDuff talks about how many things in Detroit changed, some changed for better, but others changed for the worst. In many years, Detroit went through Difficult times, but is still trying to fix all the problems and the corruption. Through all the years Detroit was have hard times solving problems but also there was good things, including murders increasing year after year, the corruption in politicians, and people are compassionate.

In “Show Me,” by John Legend presents a theme of wishing to annihilate poverty from every country in the world especially in Guinea a third world country in Africa. This very powerful moving music video was directed by Lee Hirsch. This music video showed a little boy running around from his house around the city being followed by an anonymous person. Throughout the city, the young boy experiences his normal day which consists of a lack of healthcare, education, public transportation, food, and agriculture style. While traveling through the city the young boy learns about the easiness of better-developed countries kid’s lifestyles.

“Requiem for the American Dream,” a documentary arranged by Peter D. Hutchison, Kelly Nyks, and Jared P. Scott, features an MIT professor of linguistics, Noam Chomsky, who narrates the film on the topic of inequality, democratization, solidarity, and unjust systems of today’s economy. Noam Chomsky intends to convince American citizens that the economy and democratic systems have negatively changed over the 20th century and into the 21st century. Additionally, Chomsky emphasizes that a shift in the economy from manufacturing to financial institutions is the result of the concentration of wealth and the Republican agenda for reformation. Due to the changes in the economy and the unjust vicious cycle, Chomsky is passionate and persistent in informing American citizens of the problematic economic shifts, spurring from the ideologies of recent presidents. Furthermore, Chomsky informs the public about how these illusory changes, implemented by the government, are negatively impacting the unaware lower class. The effectiveness of Chomsky’s argument is based upon his reasoning, explanation, use of historical documents and footage, and the tone development of the film.