Notion spaces and exchanges american dream

SPACES AND EXCHANGES

Mots liés :  Communication / multicultural society / travel / relationship

Definition of exchange : act of giving and receiving something else in return

Definiton of the notion : 

• New modes of exchanges are emerging → its redefining our conception of space.
• People and nations, thanks to this evolution, now keep on borrowing the lang ages and cultures of other peoples and nations at an even increasing rate, thus deeply transforming our world

Oral :

The notion I’m going to deal with is spaces and exchanges. To begin, I would like to give a definition: The concept deals with the geographical and symbolic areas that all societies occupy and the interactions between men and different societies. Our world is built on the exploration and conquest of new spaces.

 That is why I wanted to address the question: Is the American Dream still alive ? 

This year in class, we talked about space and exchanges and especially illustrated these ideas with the example of New Americans, that designates the immigrants coming to the USA. These immigrants have a common point: they want to try their luck in the USA. All chose this destination because they are attracted by the American Dream. This concept was invented by James Truslow Adams in 1931. It is the idea that everybody can succeed in the USA as long as this person is courageous, hard-working and determined. No matter where this person was born or what his social background is, as soon as he has these qualities, he can become rich and successful

To illustrate my notion I will focus on three documents we saw in class, the first is a text name « a hard path to hope » written by James A. Michener in 1985, it's the story of two mexicans Manuela and Candido GUZMAN  who want to cross the border to migrate illegaly to the US. It's focus on how it's dificult to migrate in US. The text illustrates that the US-Mexico border is very dangerous.There are drug dealing, more and more immigrants die for crossing the border.. There're too Much immigrant so they drop many of them in the desert. We understand that many Mexicans dream of crossing the border to find success and better prospects in the US but is it real when you cross the border ?

My second document is an extract of a book written by Jorge Ramos in 2002 name «  a day without a mexican ». In fact, thanks to the document ; "a day without a Mexican" we can say that Mexican are Essential in the Usa. Let me give some examples : The agriculture and the construction sector woud be affected, The service industry would collapse , American parents couldn’t go to work because nobody would take care of their children. In fact a majority of mexican work in these sectors.  America needs mexican.

And the last document I will deal with is the movie of Michael MOORE : «  where  to invade next », the movie talks about a man who went all around europe to see how people live compared to americans. For example he visited Norway where prison are totally different compared to the Us, prisonners can work, study and have their habitation in the prison or in america there's a lot of very dangerous prisons where guardians are very violent with the prisonners. It shows that america is maybe the greatest power of the world but she hasn't the perfect way to live. In his moovie Moore denounce that fact that america is juste a dream and, the idea of the american dream is false, he showed with his trip in europe that america is not perfect, and many others countries have a better way to live and are more open-minded than usa.

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