new book of lectures USA Новик Н,А.... new book of lectures USA Новик Н,А... Учебное пособие по дисциплинам Страноведение иЛингвострановедение
 Скачать 3.6 Mb.
|
|
Economic effects of immigration: According to James Smith, a senior economist and lead author of the U.S. National Research Council "The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration" (NRC), immigrants contribute as much as $10 billion to the U.S. economy each year. Overall immigration is a net economic gain due to an increase in pay for higher-skilled workers, lower prices for goods and services produced by immigrant labor, and more efficiency and lower wages for owners of capital. And although immigrant workers compete with domestic workers for some low skilled jobs, some immigrants specialize in the activities and perform services that otherwise would not exist in an area, and thus can be beneficial to all domestic residents. Some immigrants mostly do jobs Americans don't want to do. The Kauffman Foundation’s index of entrepreneurial activity is nearly 40% higher for immigrants than for the U.S.-born. Immigrants were involved in the founding of such prominent American high-tech companies as Google, Yahoo, Sun Microsystems, and eBay. Brain drain: We should not forget that the U.S. attracts the best professionals and intellectuals from different walks of life from developing countries offering them better salaries, better working and living conditions and better chances to pursue their carriers and ambitions. There’s no available information about the cost of brain drain for Belarus, so we can only guess. But, e.g., brain drain has cost Africa over $4 billion in the employment of 150,000 expatriate professionals annually which harms the ability of African nations to get out of poverty. Ethiopia lost 75% of its skilled workforce between 1980 and 1991. There are more Ethiopian doctors in Chicago than in Ethiopia. India loses $2 billion a year because of the emigration of computer experts to the U.S. Over 80% of Jamaicans with higher education live abroad. E.g., thebrain drain from Europe to the U.S. means that some 400,000 European science and technology graduates now live in the U.S. On June 13, 1998, at Portland State University, President Bill Clinton said, "new immigrants are good for America. They are revitalizing our cities, building our new economy, strengthening our ties to the global economy, just as earlier waves of immigrants settled on the new frontier and powered the Industrial Revolution. They are energizing our culture and broadening our vision of the world. They are renewing our most basic values and reminding us all of what it truly means to be an American.” So, we may conclude that the U.S.A. was built by immigrants. And immigration is good and is vitally important for the U.S. economy. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the U.S. population will grow from 300 million in 2006 to 397 million in 2050 with expected immigration, but only to 328 million with zero immigration. “If we have zero immigration with today's low birthrates the American population would eventually begin to shrink” (B.Clinton). Description of most populous ethnic groups: Further on, contributions of some of most populous ethnic groups to the development of the American economy and culture will be discussed. I’ll start with Native Americans. They are the only indigenous peoples of America. By the time Columbus discovered the American continent in 1492, about 18 million people had inhabited North America north of present-day Mexico. As you know, for them American history began in disaster. The conquest and enslavement of Native Americans led to a terrible decrease or even annihilation of the whole tribes, peoples and cultures. By 1910, Native Americans had constituted only 0.3 % of the population of the U.S.A., their smallest proportions ever (about 1.15% in 2012). By the time of the European conquest, the Native American civilizations had reached a level of culture which included personal wealth, fine buildings, expert craftsmanship, and religions which structured the daily lives of the people. Traditional name “Indians” comprised many groups of people who spoke over 300 languages (Some 50 to 100 of these languages are still spoken today). They lived scattered across the continent in tribes. They were fine crafts workers, made pottery, baskets, and carvings and wove cotton and plant-fiber cloth. Different as they were, all tribes became affected by the white man, who changed their lives forever. Nowadays, nobody calls Native Americans Indians. The formal names applied to Native Americansare Original Americans, Aboriginal Peoples, Aboriginal Americans, American Indians, Amerindians, First Nations, First Peoples, Native Canadians, or Indigenous Peoples of America, all these names refer to those peoples indigenous (native) to the Americas, living there prior to the European colonization. The Indians worshipped the earth and believed that it was to be shared by all men. In 1620, their generosity saved the Massachusetts Bay Colony established at Plymouth from starvation. The principles embodied in the U.S. Constitution were modeled after the Five Iroquois Nations constitution drawn up by the Mohawk, Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida and Cayuga tribes around the year of 1500. Their agreement guaranteed freedom for all individuals and provided each tribe with equal representation at a grand council which decided on general policy for the Five Nations. Native Indian communities in both the U.S. and Canada survived disastrous assimilation efforts. And instead of disappearing, they revitalized tribal governments, created modern economies, attained legal rights, and revived cultural traditions and ceremonies that had nearly died out. They combined aspects of their traditional cultures with contemporary life without sacrificing the core of their identity. According to the U.S. Census Bureau estimates, a little over one third of the 2.8 millionof Native Americans live in three states: California - 413,382, Arizona - 294,137 and Oklahoma - 279,559. The largest tribes in the U.S. by population wereCherokee, Navajo, Choctaw, Sioux, Chippewa, Apache, Blackfeet, Iroquois, andPueblo. In 2003, 8 of 10 Americans with Native American ancestry were of mixed blood. It is estimated that by 2100 the figure will rise to 9 of 10. No doubt, military defeat, cultural pressure, confinement in reservations, forced cultural assimilation, outlawing of native languages and culture, forced sterilizations, termination policies of the 1950’s, and 1960’s, and slavery have had deleterious effects on Native Americans’ mental and physical health. Many U.S. indigenous peoples live in poverty. Contemporary health problems include alcoholism, heart disease, diabetes, and New World Syndrome. Unemployment and school dropout rates are high as well as rates of alcoholism and suicide of Native Americans are far above those for the general population. Gamblinghas become a leading industry for Native Americans. Casinos operated by many Native American governments in the U.S. are creating a stream of gambling revenue that some communities are beginning to use as a leverage to build diversified economies. But some tribes refuse to participate in the gaming industry. There is one more tendency: as a testament to their cultural and economic renewal taking place, many indigenous peoples are leaving cities and returning to their homelands. Cultural aspects: Though cultural features, including language, garb/dress/, and customs vary enormously from one tribe to another, there are certain elements which are encountered frequently and shared by many tribes. Native American art comprises a major category in the world art collection. Native American contributions include pottery, paintings, jewelry, weavings, sculptures, basketry, and carvings. Religion: The most widespread religion at the present time is known as the Native American Church. It is a syncretistic church incorporating elements of native spiritual practice from a number of different tribes as well as symbolic elements from Christianity. Its main rite is the peyote ceremony. The religious drums, chants, and dances of the Pueblo people are regularly part of Masses at Santa Fe's Saint Francis Cathedral. The church has had significant success in combating many of the ills brought by colonization, such as alcoholism and crime. Music and art: Native American music is almost entirely monophonic. Traditional Native American music often includes drummingbut little other instrumentation, although flutes are played by individuals. The most widely practiced public musical form among Native Americans is pow-wow. The aboriginal contribution to the American heritage is undeniable. The most meaningful gift was a partially humanized land and much valuable information about its contents. The territory entered by the American explorers was not covered by the primeval forest but had already been modified by aboriginal hunting, burning and planting. Much practical geographical knowledge was passed on to the new settlers; it is now reflected in the survival of many thousands of place names of Indian origin on the contemporary map. Many specifically American plants, animals and land forms retain their Indian names. There are several minor but striking aboriginal items in modern American culture, like the canoe, moccasins and forms of basketry. And finally, when it comes to art, there exists the image of an Indian with the mythic beauty in American literature and folklore. African Americans: To start with, Africans came to America unwillingly. Between 1619 and 1808 about 500,000 Africans were brought to the colonies as slaves. On the eve of the Civil war, in the U.S. there were 4 million black slaves. They could be found in all parts of the country, and put their hands to virtually every type of labor in the U.S. Now African Americans constitute 12.85% of the U.S. population. The African American contribution: Africans brought the skills and trades of their homeland to North America, and their expertise shaped the industry and agriculture of the continent. West Africans with experience in navigating the waterways of their homeland helped open the rivers and canals of the Northwest frontier to boat traffic, and seasoned African cattle drivers were able to apply their skills to ox teams and livestock. Many Africans were deeply familiar with large-scale rice and indigo cultivation, which were completely unknown to European Americans. Without the skills of Africans and their descendants, the rice, cotton and tobacco fields of Virginia, Carolinas, Georgia and Louisiana might never have existed. The early decades of the 20th century saw an explosion of artistic expression in the African American community. The move to the cities, as well as the greater confidence that came with leaving behind Jim Crow society (i.e., Southern racially segregated society), contributed to an unparalleled surge of creative enterprise, as artists, writers, composers, and musicians explored the nature of modern African American identity through their work. The poets Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, and Langston Hughes, the prose artists Jean Toomer and Jesse Fauset, the actor and singer Paul Robeson, and, later, the painters Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden all became known as members of the Harlem Renaissance. African American musicians were among the first artists to make commercial recordings. As the century began, blues and gospel musicians were already celebrities in the African American community. Jazz quickly became the popular music of the U.S. Such pioneers as Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton combined elements of gospel and the blues with rhythmic innovations and virtuoso instrumental performances to create an entirely new musical style. Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Mary Lou Williams created new works and performances that placed American music, and African American musicians, solidly in the forefront of the international avant-garde. Now I’m going to speak about other waves of immigrants that poured into the "land of promise"; some of them acquired dazzling riches, but many others suffered in a competitive and unregulated economic age. German Americans: The Germans were the largest 19th century immigrant group. The failed German revolution in 1848 stimulated emigration to America. They were the intellectual leaders of this rebellion, and impoverished Germans who had lost confidence in its government's ability to solve the country's economic problems. As a result, more than 5 million people left Germany for the U.S. during the 19th century. German Americans were employed in many urban craft trades, especially baking, carpentry, and the needle trades. Many German Americans worked in factories founded by the new generation of German American industrialists, such as John Bausch and Henry Lomb, who created the first American optical company; Rockefeller (petroleum); Studebaker and Chrysler (cars); H.J. Heinz (food); and Frederick Weyerhaeuser (lumber). Germans had a powerful influence over the development of American culture: institutions, traditions, and daily habits. E.g., the U.S. education system, from the lowest grades to the highest, would be unrecognizable without the ideas championed by German immigrants. With a strong commitment to education, Germans brought this dedication to their new home. In 1855, German immigrants in Wisconsin launched the first kindergarten in America, based on the kindergartens of Germany. Germans introduced physical education and vocational education into the public schools, and were responsible for the inclusion of gymnasiums in school buildings. More important, they were leaders in the call for universal education, a notion not common in the U.S. at the time. German immigrants also brought their reforming zeal to America’s recreational life - Germans invented the American weekend. After the arrival of German immigrants, new large-scale recreational facilities began to appear in U.S. towns - picnic grounds, bandstands, sports clubs, concert halls, bowling alleys, and playgrounds, all suitable for a week-end excursion with the family. Some German contributions to U.S. life are easy to pinpoint - sauerkraut, or the tuba (trumpet), or the national fondness for light beer. However, the German influence on life in the U.S. runs much deeper, influencing many of the institutions, traditions, and daily habits that many today think of as being quintessentially American. Several of the most familiar elements of the American Christmas celebration, from the Christmas tree to the gift-giving Santa Claus, were gifts from the Germans, as was the Easter bunny. Irish Americans: In colonial times, the number of the Irish population in America was also enormous. Between 1820 and 1860, the Irish constituted over one third of all immigrants to the U.S. Irish Americans have had a significant impact on American politics over the years. No less than twelve presidents have had the Irish blood coursing through their veins. The first Irish American President of the U.S. was Andrew Jackson, who was Presbyterian, and John F. Kennedy was the first Irish Catholic president. 8 of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence were Irish Americans. Two Irish Americans served as members on the first U.S. Senate and two served in the first U.S. House of Representatives. Many Irish immigrants supported and became leaders of labor union efforts, perhaps because they so well understood the power of organizing to meet needs. E.g., Mary Harris, later known as Mother Jones, committed more than fifty years of her life to unionizing workers in various occupations throughout the country. Irish Catholics played a significant role in building the private Catholic school system that exists in the U.S. today. In 1790, there were no Catholic schools in the nation, and by 1960, there were over 12,000 Catholic schools educating 5 million children. Irish Catholics have also made significant advancements at higher academic levels. Approximately 16% of faculty at top universities and colleges are Irish Americans. Irish Americans also helped to establish several prominent universities in the U.S., including Princeton University. Although many of the Irish immigrants of the 1800’s were Catholics, the Irish were also responsible for establishing the first American Presbyterian and the first Methodist Church in America. The Irish have also made their mark on American letters (Eugene O’Neill, F. Scott Fitzgerald), and in such diverse business ventures as international shipping lines, meat-curing plants and pizza parlor chains. From the other side, the Irish gave America Donegal tweeds, Waterford chrystal, shamrocks (трилистник), the Irish brogue (провинциальный акцент); they gave also the Irish Sweepstake- тотализатор, so that Americans could gamble before there were legal state lotteries , and they gave Irish linen, Irish whiskey, Irish stew, Irish wolfhounds and Irish terriers – but not the Irish potato (that tuber is sorely misnamed). Potato is an original American product. |