From Front Porch to Back Seat

Beth L. Bailey

In the 19th century, men came to "call" on women. WOmen were in control of who could come in and visit; it was in the "woman's sphere"; and a man could come to call with no money in their pockets.

However, people in the city often had no parlors for callers. They, often poor and lower-class, went out on "dates" to the movies, to dance halls, or to restuarants, where no "respectable" woman was allowed to go. This moved the courtship into the man's "sphere." He took economic responsibility to pay for things, and often the economic exchange was understood to be for sexual favors. This change gave the power of courtship to men.

The rise of cars was coincidental, but gave young people a lot of freedom.

Contrary to popular belief, in the 19th century women had a great deal of power over whom they chose to allow to court them.

Christian Fundamentalism and Prominent Sociopolitical Values among College Students in a South-Korean University

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2007/2007-25.html

Eun Jung Oh, Stacy L. Bliss, and Robert L. Williams

The authors gave about 200 South Korean students a survey to see if their sociopolitical beliefs and religious affiliations had any correlation with American sociopolitical and religious beliefs, specifically that fundamentalist Christians are less tolerant of dissent than other religions and more nationalistic.

The students were Protestant, Catholic, Buddhist, and agnostic/atheist.

Protestant students in South Korea do not exhibit the same blind patriotism and disrespect for civil liberties as American fundamentalists. Dr. Seig: We worship different gods! Christianity in the two countries are not the same Christianity.

"One possibility strongly suggested by the comparison of the Korean sample with the previously studied American sample is that Christian fundamentalism may be associated with a different worldview in South Korea than in the U.S. It appears that Christian fundamentalism has become less negatively linked to such notions as respect for civil liberties and tolerance of dissent in South Korea than in the U.S. Thus, there appears to be less tension between Christian fundamentalism and democratic principles (e.g., respect for civil liberties and tolerance of dissent) in South Korea than in the U.S. 35"

"The current findings suggest that South-Korean Christians may be less inclined to use their Christian beliefs to restrict the personal and legal rights of individuals within a society than appears to be the case for American Christians having a fundamentalist perspective."

Beyond Multiculturalism: A Two-Way Transformation

bharati mukherjee

She was raised a Bengali Brahmin. Sent to the US to study writing, she impulsively married a Canadian. 14 years later, she chose to become an American because she was disgusted by the hypocrisy of the Canadian "mosaic" idea of multiculturalism.

She chooses not to hyphenate herself because, it seems, she feels anger towards Indo-Americans who do so and seem to care more about their previous homelands than about America. She despises those who live here yet denounce America's ideology. She believes forgetting the past is a natural growing process.

Yet, she still denounces "otherization" and violence towards the Other.

Reinventing "America": Call for a New National Identity

Elizabeth Martinez

She argues that white America has an origin myth that Whites settled America for the good of all conquered peoples, glossing flippantly over the genocide of the Native Americans and the antagonism of Mexico for territorial gains. She hopes America can rewrite its national identity, recognizing the many contributions of non-White peoples.