Aspen Haught
History
Through out this whole semester of my junior year, I have learned and developed
my attitude and thoughts towards U.S History. From the very beginning of the first quarter I was pleasantly surprised when, as a class, we all watched Steve McQueens Oscar winning film, 12 Years a Slave. As we began to watch the film we had to keep in mind and remember two simple words. Sympathy and empathy. Even taking English since the start of my education career, I never understood how sympathy and empathy could be used in such powerful terms. As the true story of a slave during the harsh 1800’s burned into my innocent mind, those two powerful words surprised me on how the british film maker, could turn the words empathy and sympathy into a beautiful art piece. Even though the film surprised me the most through out the whole semester, this wasn't the only time I was surprised during my time spent in the desk three rows back.
As we began to get further and further away from films, our next task in American history, at first, seemed to ring bells of joy in my ears. That expectation was soon shot down when having only little time to write a well written and descriptive essay on Native American Music, lets just say I was unpleasantly surprised. From listening to various flutes and trying to understand the meaning behind modern day and past Native American songs, I couldn't help but feel very reluctant when researching my topic.
One of the topics we spent a little time on as a class and mainly by ourselves was the Emerging Industrial Supremacy. When learning about new industrial developments, one of the sections that stuck in my mind was on how women back in the day, didn’t have shopping. Learning this not only fascinated me, but made me appreciate and think about how lucky I am to not have to make my own clothes, or worse my mother having to make my own clothes. If I had to rename this tiny section that is called the “Emerging Industrial Supremacy” I would change the name to The Evolution of Women’s Shopping. Picking this name, in my opinion, draws the attention of the students and clears up what the topic is actually on.
Ten years from now if I had to remember and discuss one of the topics we have learned over this semester, I would defiantly remember and gladly talk about the store Zara. Learning about how and why the well known European store isn't so well known in the United States, really stuck in my mind because it showed me how Americans are living an unhealthy and food dominating life. Learning this topic also made me remember the huge debate over the owner of Abercrombie and Fitch and how he said “A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong.” This controversial topic will probably still be a problem in the future and will be conversation in many different groups.
Another big controversial topics that happened in the past and still rarely occurring in the present is racial discrimination. Even though racial discrimination has made a huge step in the right direction and has changed from the 1950’s that doesn't mean it still doesn't happen today. From the beginning of the well known topic of slavery, the color of a humans skin has always been a tricky and silent subject to tackle. I have enjoyed and learned a lot of interesting facts in my time spent in the history room, and I cant wait to learn more next semester.
