美国社会与文化 英语论文(原创手写)

学期论文

题目：THE POLITICAL CULTURE OF AMERICAN IMMIGRATION 学院：外国语学院

专业：英语系

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完成日期：2014.11.30

【Abstract】:As we all know, the United States is a nation of immigrants. Never before, and in no other country, have as many varied ethnic groups congregated and amalgamated as they have in the United States. There are three waves of immigrants to the United States in different times and the waves of immigrants have made greatly contributions to the features of American political culture-individualism, egalitarianism and liberalism. Different culture met in the United States like rivers fall into the sea. They made the United States full of vitality.

【Key words】:Immigration wave, American, political culture

The Unit ed States is called “an immigration country”. According to the statistics of America Census Bureau in 2001, new Americans number including the first generation immigrants or the children of these immigrants created the highest record in its history: one in every five Americans, namely, 56 million Americans, born in other countries. The number of a parent who born in other countries is about 12.7 million; both parents are immigrants from other countries is about 14.8 million. Most foreigners, especially to New York or Washington, are impressed by the features of USA immigration "Kaleidoscope". In America, you can see different people in different colors and backgrounds are talking with each other in a language which you never heard before.

1. The Development Process of America Immigrant Society

Immigration to the United States is a complex demographic phenomenon that has been a major source of cultural change throughout much of the history of the United States.Back to the United States, there are three waves of immigrants to the United States in different times.

1.1 The First Immigrant Wave to the United States (1680-1880)

The puritans who moved to the North American take it as a "Hope Place". They descript it as a paradise, which attracted a large number of immigrants in Europe. They are mainly from the United Kingdom and other people from Western and Northern European countries. English is a main language to immigrants and most of them have a belief in Protestantism. Besides Europeans, another main immigrant groups is the black people from Africa. They were sold to the Western Hemisphere and 400,000 people were sold to USA territory of the colonies.

1.2 The Second Immigrant Wave to the United States (1900-1920)

After the civil war ended, American needs a lot of labor with the development of city and industry. The second immigrant waves mainly came from southern, central and Eastern Europe with the main body of Italy, Hungary, Poland and Russian immigrants. Most of these migrants from the countryside and they are Catholics, Orthodox Christians or Jews, which created a undoubtedly shock.

1.3 The Third Immigrant Wave to the United States (1965-)

In 1965,the America carried out the immigration law and between 1961 and 1984 it has passed a series of refugee laws. The relaxation of immigration policy has brought third waves of immigration. During this period of time, the immigrants from many other fields and countries. According to statistics, 34% from Asia, 34% from Latin America, 16% from Canada. America is a country of immigrants. It has hundreds of thousands of immigrants per year. Immigrants from different countries constitute the main American population, and new immigrants still changing America racial and ethnic’s constitution of population.

2. Typical Features of American Immigration Political Culture

According to the political scientist Almond's point of view, the political culture is a political system (state or national) basic political tendency. As a nation of immigrants, American political culture originated from the Puritan tradition and learned from the European culture, especially much British political culture. The formation of American political culture has its historical contingency.

2.1 Individualism

Individualism is a theme and characteristic in America political culture, individualism has formed the main content of America culture mode. It is a most eloquent and direct expression of the America thought. Connotation and extension rooted in the Native American, which is not only different from the Hebrew and Greek tradition but also different from European thought in the eighteenth Century. Individualism occupies an important position in America political culture. The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America proposed "truth" which stands for individualism values at first.

Individualism has a profound social and historical root so that it can develop in the United States. Whether the earliest Puritan immigrants or the Americans explore the west later, all of them take individual struggle as their spiritual pillar. The process of pursuing Negroes legal rights and freedom reflects that individualism lies in every civ ilian’s minds. Fortunately, most American citizens gradually accepted the Black Culture . Individualism made the culture of the United States booming.

2.2 Liberalism

Liberalism stands for a political language about individualism. Factors determining the rooting of individualism in American also act on the liberalism. The aim of the earliest Puritan who immigrated to the North American continent is to pursue individual freedom. Therefore, they travelled across the sea and experienced all kinds of hardships. The Puritan doctrine itself contains liberal ideology, advocating freedom, democracy and republic. In the earlier period of founding the United States, American thinkers accepted and developed the European liberalism and traditional thinking. Then, the development of American capitalism has created a good condition for the transmission and development of liberalism. However, compared with the individualism, liberalism has a strong political color. During the American Revolutionary War, it was used as an ideology and a slogan for revolution; after the founding of the United States, it has become the mainstream of social ideology and American officials. The "truth" that The Declaration of Independence described, in fact is the theory of Liberalism: all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with a variety of rights; therefore, people have the right to choose the government. That is to say, most importantly, people are free. In order to guarantee freedom, people need democracy, need the Republic, constitutionalism and legality. Obviously, liberalism is the first value to Americans. Equality, democracy, constitutionalism, legality and the Republic are the generally meanings and basic principles of liberalism.

2.3 Equalitarianism

Unlike the culture of British aristocracy and gentleman, Americans prefer equal. Tocqueville, the writer of Democracy in America, said: “I have stated in the preceding chapter that great equality existed among the emigrants who settled on the shores of New England. The germ of a ristocracy was never planted in that part of the Union.” Then he analyzed the reasons for the existence of this kind of equality: Firstly, the inheritance system plays a decisive role. The regulation of inheritance law is that one shall give equal property to their children, in order to promote equality. Today, just over a little more than six decades, the face of the society in the United

States have been changed.Almost families that was a landowner now enter the rank of masses.The son of wealthy citizens are businessmen,lawyers or doctors.Most of them are common people today.

Secondly, the religion plays an important role. Catholic advocates equal status which contributes to the thought of equal in the minds of Americans.

3.Conclusion

Through three waves of immigrants to the United States in different times and the different waves of immigrants, we can see that immigrants from all parts of the world have greatly construct the culture of American- especially political culture . They hold the same “American d ream”of raising their social status and making unremitting efforts to realize their dreams. They bring the typical features of American immigration culture into being. From above-mentioned the development process of America immigrant society, it’s obvious that the political culture in the United States is not a coincidence but in the needs of the processing of the American history. The immigration culture is integrity of diversities. Political culture comes into being and strengthen this great country . Undoubtedly, all of these distinctive features of American political immigration culture have both affirmative and significant meanings through American civilization.