week 14

 The Vietnam war was a crazy time for the Americans. its to be called the longest war in American history and it was very unpopular. Many people died over 60,000 actually and heard to be 2million Vietnamese deaths. Many Americans ask if this war was nectary, I do not think it was. I feel as if it was, they were just helping their allies. They just wanted to bully them and show who was more dominant, but we lost many men and women because of it. The Americans where on the side of the south while the north tried to start with the south. The Americans sent over 2,000 troops to support the south, but that number grew.  In 1963 the number went up to 16,300. In 1963 the south lost fertile Mekong delta to the Viet cong. During the year of 1965 President Lyndon Johnson turned the war up. He sent air strikes to north Vietnam and ground forces. It was a total of 536,000 troops there by 1968. In 1968 Tet offensive by the north turned Americans against the war. This all changed because our next president brought our troops back and gave the south most of the responsibility for the war. Then came 1970 Nixon attempted to slow the flow of north Vietnamese sol dried and supplies by destroying community supply bases in Cambodia. this violated Cambodia neutrality and provoked antiwar protest on the nation’s college campuses. This was not posed to be done but the Americans did it anyway. Now that I’m reading more on it the Americans should’ve let the south have most of the responsibility from the jump, they could’ve helped but they have to look out for our troops as well. I feel like they did not do that all but they are doing a better job at it now which is good because those people are someone’s family.

Week 13 Reflection

During the 1960s it was a lot going on for African Americans and so many others. These times where very rough for many. I commend and thank them for everything because without them we would not be where we are today. That goes for feminist, Mexican, and native Americans, they walked so we can run. The African Americans did many sit-ins, freedom rides also march to stop the miss treatment of blacks. They fought against segregation, poverty, and unemployment. Due to all the fighting the African Americans did it made the federal government pass the Civil Right Act of 1946. The Act means that they cannot discriminate anymore. Also, the 24^th amendment and the voting rights act of 1965 allowed all African Americans to vote. Women also fought for their own rights for better education, employment opportunities. This help women make their mark in society. The things they did help shape who women are today strong and beautiful, and women can do anything a man can do. Mexican Americans had to work for their education, unionization of farm workers, improved job opportunities, and more say so in the political world. The Mexicans felt as if they were getting left out and not treated with the respect they deserved. The natives also wanted control over their land and resources, they wanted to save their natural culture and their self-government. The native had to work hard for the things they had and would fight hard to keep it.  The gays and lesbians also wanted something out of this, and this was to be treated fairly like the others and not to be discriminated. They are human to and the way they were treated was wrong. I learned that everyone is equal no matter who they are if they black, white, blue it does not matter. We have all humans and should be treated as such and nothing less. Its crazy to think that even though our people did all these things for us Blacks, Natives, Mexicans, Gays that we still do not get treated fairly. Its not as bad as it used to be, but they do it in different ways which have a long way to go and I hope someday we get there. That way everyone would be looked at as equal and not less than.

Week 12 Reflection

The 1950s was a great time for America but also bad due to racism. The economy had amazing growth after World War II.  The industrial production grew due to the cold war. There was a mass production of cars. The standard consumer package of the 1950s was a Home, TV set and car. The bad that was still going on was the racism. 7 million whites left the cities and moved to the suburbs, while 3 million blacks moved into the cities. The whites started the profile where the blacks stayed as ghetto places of crimes, poverty, and welfare. The government provided much more for the whites and the middle class than they did the poor. Which is crazy because those are the ones who need the most help. A lot of things happen such as the gross national product grew by 250% and the baby boom happened before which increased the population by 20%.  Also, America became “Consumers republic” this means all citizens were encouraged to consume because it was good for the nations and its economy. The suburban life was segregated, and it was a black suburb. People of the same income usually lived in the same neighborhoods. Many highways were created during this time 40,000 miles of highway were built in the 1950s to link suburbs and cities. The reason for doing this was to make people get cars and drive. The other reason highways were made was because of President Dwight Eisenhower that way it was easier to move troops and military equipment around. What’s crazy is that it took Eisenhower 62 days to travel unpaved roads from Washington D.C. to San Francisco. today that trip only takes 72 hours. Which is amazing how much the improvements have done. As of today, there are 46,300 miles of interstate highways, which cost a lot approximately good $129 billion to build. I’m happy that this was done because I couldn’t imagine trying to travel without them it’ll be very bad. Things would take forever. The 1950s was a very busy time and a lot went on bad and well.

Week 11 Reflections

after reading about this it was very crazy and sad in other words. How they were treating people was crazy man and so unfair. the way the treated the Japanese really stood out to me. it’s said to be over 30 year that this went on. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, the hungry miners, longshoremen and fisherman of the frontier town piled into the greasy spoon. tanaka and others was incarcerated for several months and then sent off to internment camps that were all over the country. There were 120,000 Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans detained in World War II internment camps. This wasn't right at all. they are humans to and should be treated as so just because they were Japanese doesn’t mean anything. The U.S. internment camps had so many people in them and the poor living conditions was unbearable. he is living conditions of Japanese American internment camps were very hard for the Japanese because of housing, food, and the daily experiences Japanese went through. they treated them as if they were so different from other just because of their ethnicity. Tanaka and many others were held at their will at the short lived-camps. when they had to leave, they home they only had 2 days and they could only take a few things. there were so many families that were taken away from each other and people lives were just messed up. I couldn’t imagine just getting taken away from my family for nothing. This made it hard for Asian to live in America. the racism the Japanese faced in America still goes onto today and its sad because many Americans still have that mind set. Many Japanese people came to America for the freedom and a better living for themselves and kids. then you think to yourself is better because they still are looked at is as if their nobodies.

Week 10 Reflection

The great depression was the worst economic downturn in history it was crazy it lasted from 1929 to 1939. I learned that before all this had happen the country was booming. The economy was growing, and the nation’s wealth had doubled between the years of 1920 and 1929. The great depression had begun after the stock market had crashed in October of 1929. This had sent wall street into a panic and took away millions of investors. The next couple of years everything was just going bad. Business wasn’t making enough money, people getting laid off from their jobs it was a nightmare. When it had got to its lowest point 15 million Americans was unemployed nearly half the country. Many people don’t know that during this great time when the everything was booming stock market was expanding. There had already been a decline in production and unemployment had risen. That means that stock prices where higher than they should’ve been. So instead of buying stock for something that’s worth 50$ you’ll now be paying 100$ for it. Once this began to happen people started to go in debt because they didn’t have the money to pay for it and jobs where cutting people so people would have no money. So that’s just debt just growing. While all this is going on the stock prices continued to rise and its nothing was being done. I feel as if the U.S. or the business could’ve paid people more that way, they’ll be able to afford the things and wouldn’t be in debt. Till this day the country is still trying to recover from the depression slowly but surely. I feel as if a lot could’ve been done to if not stop to at least stop it from getting so bad. One thing they did do is create something called the new deal that help recovery from the great depression. The TVA and WPA made a job program the employed 8.5 million people from 1935 to 1943. This was such a big boost it was a start but still had a long way to go. Also in 1935 the country passed a act called the social security Act and this allowed Americans with unemployed, disability and pensions for old age. The county was going in the right direction to get things back on track everything started to go back up and improve.

Week 8 Reflection

In the 1920 the modern was good it had great economic growth . They had great migration of African American to cities in the north. The technology grew in mass production. The automobile was the key leader in mass production. The United States produces half of the worlds manufactured goods.  I believe this was an era of progress because great things happen. From creating more jobs, creating new goods. Also many businesses thrived. Where women liberated yes and no. I say that because yes things changed they got to open up and wear more but they wasn’t necessarily free to wear what they want. There was still rule of sort you could show skin but only so much. So I would say yes and no. Did the consumerism lead to more freedom I would say no just because things changed for the good doesn’t mean it changed for everybody. The African Americans still had to go through it the struggle, the unfairness but some hood things did come out of it. The experience for African Americans was good and bad. Lets also talked about my favorite part of the 20s The Harlem Renaissance. IT was a golden age for African American artists, writers and musicians. It gave these artists pride in and control over how the black experience was represented in American culture and set the stage for the civil rights movement. The Harlem Renaissance was the development of the Harlem neighborhood in New York City as a black cultural mecca in the early 20th Century and the subsequent social and artistic explosion that resulted. Lasting roughly from the 1910s through the mid-1930s. Im actually from New York so hearing about this growing learning about it always been my thing. It was a lot of good and bad that came out of the 1920 but it was a very interesting time .. 

Week 6

World War I began in 1914 after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and lasted until 1918. During the conflict, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire which were known as he central powers fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan and the United States know as the allied powers. The new military technologies and the trench warfare, World War I saw so much  carnage and destruction. When the war became to come to an end  and the Allied Powers claimed victory, over 16 million people were dead. World War I probably had  many consequences. It had more than any other  war. From a political stand point it resulted in the downfall of four monarchies  which was Russia in 1917, Austria-Hungary and Germany in 1918, and in Turkey in 1922. It contributed to the Bolshevik rise to power in Russia in 1917 and the triumph of fascism in Italy in 1922. It started colonial revolts in the Middle East and in Southeast Asia.World war 1 really messed up the economy especially the European economies. When that happen it allowed the United States to become the world's leading creditor and industrial power. The war also brought many social problems that wasn’t needed, including the mass murder of Armenians in Turkey and an influenza epidemic that killed over 25 million people worldwide. It got way out of hand nothing anybody seen coming. No one thought a war like world war 1 could happen it caught everyone off guard. It really messed up both the people who won and who lost. In a single day at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, more than  100,000 British troops plodded across no-man's land into steady machine gunfire.  The German trenches a few yards away,  Some 60,000 soldiers were killed or wounded. At the end of the battle, 419,654 British men were killed, missing, or wounded.