An American Progresses?

This is a now abandoned steel factory in our “valley of ashes”: Gary, Indiana. Gary is not our typical “nice neighborhood”, but a place where “passengers on waiting trains can stare at a dismal scene”(Fitzgerald 24). I actually have ridden a train through Gary, and when I read this exerpt from Gatsbty, I remembered this depressing train ride, (and it was depressing for the senses at least)For my family as a whole, Gary is a place to drive through to get to “nicer” places, like my summer camp in michigan, or colleges in Michigan to visit. One experience I would like to mention, involving my family, is to make an example of this desolate town, my parents purposefully took a "detour" on our way to South Haven (a "nice" town) to look at Gary. They said something to me, similar to what Nick Carrway's dad said to him in the opening chapter: "Just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages you've had"(Fitgerald 1). They were delivering this speech as we drove through Gary's neighborhoods, containing abandoned houses with broken windows, fire damage that no one has done anything about, and disgusting furniture piled on lawns.
This place was once a booming industry town. Now it's a desolate wasteland in a constant depression since factories left to go overseas. I looked at a graph of its population since 1950, and the curve only gets lower and lower. Its caucasian population has decreased more drastically than its minority inhabitants. The quote, "Middle class whites had been moving out and they were being replaced by poor blacks squeezed out of the south side"(American Pharoah) reminds me of our discussion of Garfield Park, where Mr. O'Connor mentioned that his family was one of the last white people to live Garfield Park, and today, Garfield Park is a place where poor, mostly African-American people live.
Gary, similar to Garfield Park, “badly needed economic uplift that a major university would bring”(American Pharoah). Even something that wasn't a major university, maybe a company, a working factory, some tourist attraction, would bring so much to this depressed town. History is repeating itself in this instance, because we, as a country, continue to neglet these areas and make them worse by doing nothing to help them. Literally, nothing. Progress? I don't think so.

New use for those plasmas at New Trier!

As I was strolling the halls by the administration buildings, I noticed that the plasma screen tvs that everyone complains about were displaying pictures of New Trier Seniors and the colleges they were about to attend. The caption below the continuous slide show of portraits described these people as trevians, but I only saw athletic pictures. Plus, the colleges that these students were about to attend were top-tier colleges (according to Newsweek, at least). But,Literally, the only pictures that were scrolling were head shots of players on our varsity teams. And I wondered: 'why only athletes?' I know that athletics are a huge part of new trier, but there's also a portion of the school that isn't involved in any sport, whatsoever (me). So does this public display mean that we, and the administration, consider the athletes of New Trier the elite? The ideal of our school? What we want to identify ourselves with to visitors and everyone else? I just thought it was an interesting use for the many tvs in our school.

Freedom on the Freeway

As I was driving along the edens, I saw a house sporting two flags along the highway. One is American and one is Mexican. Each were at equal heights on two sides of an apartment. They look very tattered, as the ends are a dull brown color and the ends are split. They were flapping ferociously in the breeze, only supported by flimsy plastic poles.
I was stuck in traffic and couldn't help but notice these flags. It wasn't remarkable to me that both of these flags were flying side by side, but for some reason, I really liked the fact they were. The inhabitants in the house are most likely immigrants, and it seemed to me that since they were flying at the same heights and were tattered equally, these inhabitants are proud of being a member of both countries. It really spoke to me because of issues that some people in the US have with immigrants, within a country created by immigrants. In this case, I think that someone who is from Mexico can be an equally patriotic American (or a real American in that case), in comparison to someone who has had an American "history" here, and whose family has lived here for decades/centuries.

How Should I Protect It?

After our discussion in class pertaining to the treatment of the American Flag, I decided to research the "Flag Code" instilled by the US Government. Here are some particular articles/regulations that stood out to me: (All obtained from Ushistory.org)

- Section 8D: "The flag should never be used as wearing apparel"
Every fourth of July, I see hundreds of people wearing shirts with the American Flag on it. Old Navy, especially, sells t-shirts with the flag like hotcakes every year, so I'm confused. I see a person with a flag shirt almost every day. It's so common, I don't even think twice about it, but to see it banned puzzled me because no one really does anything about it. I've never heard of an instance on the news or anywhere where someone wore a flag shirt and received a hard time. I mean, I've seen it all: flag shirts, flag pants, flag capes, flag headbands, flag accessories; you name it. My cousin told me that he wears flag boxers! Imagine that. I really don't understand how that is legal, especially because it allows someone to cover and protect their genitals with the flag. If I practiced the flag code, the last thing I would want to hear about is old glory touching a taboo. I think that even might be worse, in the scheme of things, than dropping a flag on the ground; but that's just me.

-According to the flag code, a flag is a flag or anything "by which the average person seeing the same without deliberation may believe the same to represent the flag"

This, according to the website, means that literally ANYTHING with the American Flag on it, or anything representing the flag is an American Flag. Yes, folks, that includes drawings of flags by children, the Bank of America Logo, flag postage stamps, a Jasper Johns flag, my American Flag beach towel, and many more! On the website I visited, it even had a picture of a dog's chew toy where the American Flag was the design on the bone. This really puzzles me because the flag code applies to all of these items. Meaning, the usual regulations: you can't drop it, burn it, or display it in the wrong way. I'm not sure if that is at all possible considering the items I found bearing the flag.
But once again, I can't drop the flag, but a wet body could wipe itself all over the American Flag and my dog can gnaw on it for hours. I'm perplexed.

An Introduction (finally!)

I had trouble writing my intro, so I decided to write and plan my body paragraphs first. Here it is. Any problems I had with it, I wrote in brackets. Help please?



According to Building Suburbia, between 1994 and 2002, real estate developers created about 1.5 million housing units in planned communities per year (Hayden 3). These suburbs, however, are hardly a recent phenomenon. For almost two hundred years, Americans have sprawled into the outskirts of cities, idealizing the suburbs and planned communities with their spacious houses and generous yards. Although some criticize the homogeneity and poor land use of these communities, the majority of America does not heed this particular criticism because more people live in the suburbs than rural and urban areas combined (Hayden xi). [Trans into thesis] Planned communities have become the American Ideal because of safety and because they embody [different adjective?] the American Dream. [too much repetition?]

Tentative Thesis

Planned Communities have become the American Ideal because of Predictability, Safety, and ensure the pursuit of the American Dream.


What do you think?
With these issues, I will address isolation within communities (I'll possibly address gated communities), as well as safety. Even with this isolation, I can make references to the social issues behind these communities, as most did not allow Minorities at the time of construction. In terms of the American dream, I'll address the created myth of how every citizen wants a house of their own with a yard to bring up children. I can also bring up gender roles, and how some communities were built and specifically designed to have men work and have women domesticated.
Are there any problems with this that I should address? Thanks for your help.

Steroids for my Thesis?

Mentioned in the previous post, I could not decide on a tentative thesis for my junior theme. I'm doing my paper on planned communities, and after reading up on what is considered to be the first planned community, Levittown, I finally found some articles describing the social issues behind these Utopias. After reading a page on the University of Chicago's website, I noticed that Levittown's initial contract and signing agreement ensured that no "races other than Caucasian" were allowed to live there. Mentioned in the earlier post, I'm one step closer to bringing these social issues out in my junior theme, but I still can't prove that all people in these communities believe in this contract or are racists. Hmmm (I'm terrible, I know, but I still think the silent issues and "secret messages" of race and race barriers today are really interesting.) Maybe I should limit my thesis to the people who created these super-towns?
I'm not sure, but I received my main book in the mail today: "Building Suburbia" by Dolores Hayden, and it follows suburbia and planned communities from the 1800s to today, and it is mainly about the social issues surrounding this movement of "new urbanism". I hope this will provide a basis for my paper and my thesis so I can make up my mind! Until then, I'll be struggling to uncover info.