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The term “ghetto,” originating in the Jewish urban enclaves of Europe, was adapted to the urban ethnic communities in the US at the beginning of the twentieth century It found its most lasting association with the residentially segregated inner-city African American neighborhoods. Such neighborhoods first developed in northeastern cities, primarily in the 1920s, following the mass migration of blacks from the South. In the twentieth century the “ghetto” referred almost automatically in speech and media to the most depressed and dangerous elements of black urban life.
These areas have changed themselves over time. Initially new residents in these areas came full of expectations that they would secure industrial employment. Such jobs were not forthcoming, however, except in the period during and immediately after the Second World War. In the 1940s and 1950s, access to these jobs dried up as industries closed or moved out to the suburbs. In addition, whites moved out to these areas, leaving innercity communities economically blighted.
In the 1960s, with urban race riots, a strong sense of nostalgia developed in relation to the old ghetto. New neighborhoods were seen as onedimensional in their poverty having once been viable, vibrant communities—sites of black churches, fraternal orders and other associations. The growing literature on ghettos and ghettoization, therefore, tends to describe a point at which the areas began to develop supposedly dysfunctional characteristics, such as weak families, high levels of poverty violence, prostitution and drugs. The riots themselves damaged the remnants of community that had survived.
Ghettoization was also described as a form of internal colonialism. In conjunction with the Black Power movement, many assumed that these areas needed to be decolonized and that blacks had to gain some self-determination before improvements would occur.
Any potential for this to happen, tied to the War on Poverty, was lost with the economic downturn brought on by the Vietnam War and the OPEC crisis.
A recent tendency has been to accentuate the “culture of poverty” of people in these communities, suggesting, as Nicholas Lemann did in The Promised Land (1991), that such people brought a “sharecropping culture” with them from the rural South. This has tied in with the short-sharp-shock approach to welfare reform, which suggests that it is no longer advisable to give support to members of these ghettoized communities, especially single mothers vilified as “welfare queens.” They must be removed from these environments and the mindsets fostered by the culture there by being forced to work.
Such theories have been countered by scholars like Robin D.G. Kelley, Michael Katz and Adolph Reed.
Industry:Culture
The Young Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Associations started in the late nineteenth century linked to the urban-settlement house movement. Aiding in the process of assimilating immigrants and African Americans and teaching uplift, the Ys propagated a form of muscular Christianity. Hence, basketball was invented at the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts, to keep urban youth off the streets in winter.
Jewish communities followed suit creating Hebrew Associations, often nicknamed the Jewish Ys.
With rapid suburbanization following the Second World War, the YMCAs lost their settlementhouse character. Many relocated to the suburbs, downplayed their Christian emphasis and became swimming and exercise clubs for the middle class. Membership dwindled until the last two decades of the twentieth century, when the growing exercise fad and the growing demand for childcare from two-income families led to a resurgence in growth.
The YWCAs (a separate organization), however, kept their missionary impulse and remained in the cities, providing housing and support for urban women. Because of this they have suffered financially and in many cities are being forced to close down.
Industry:Culture
The more conservative of the two major political parties, the Republican Party is generally identi fied with small government and laissez-faire economics. Republicans usually support tax cuts, reduction or elimination of welfare for the poor and privatization of many government programs, such as Social Security. They also take positions on a variety of social, as well as fiscal, issues, usually opposing abortion, gun control, and extending to protection against prejudice for gays and lesbians and advocating the adoption of prayer in public schools.
The Republican Party has not always been considered the more conservative of the two parties. Formed in 1854 around a diverse group of opponents of slavery it elected Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in 1860. Its reputation as the more conservative party in America was cemented during the 1930s, when the party’s failure to deal with the severe economic depression led to the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, and consequently to the creation of the American welfare state.
Lincoln’s opposition to slavery and his actions to keep the South from seceding from the nation have meant that until recently Republicans have not enjoyed much support in this region of the country, even though Southern voters are considered rather conservative. This has changed in the aftermath of the Civil Rights movement, with which the Democratic Party was identified. In addition, the emergence since the late 1980s of the Christian Right and the Christian Coalition as serious political forces has been a major factor in the party’s ability to attract Southern voters; the involvement of these groups has also moved the Republican Party to a more conservative position ideologically. The Christian Right has focused its energy on supporting socially conservative causes, such as opposition to abortion and support for school prayer.
The involvement of these new organizations and the party’s new attractiveness to Southern voters helped the Republicans gain control of the House and Senate in 1994, the first time in forty years they had controlled both branches of Congress. This election brought a number of new, more conservative Republicans to the House. The House Freshman of 1994 were known for their energy, inexperience and their strong attachment to Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, whom they felt was responsible for their collective victory This has created some tension within the party as older, less socially conservative Republicans have responded to the influx of new blood.
There has been a considerable debate about the Republicans’ ability to retain their newfound dominance. The Republicans’ new source of strength in the South looks as though it may endure, but outside this region and in presidential races the party has faced difficulties attracting less socially conservative voters.
Industry:Culture
The term “folklore” has somewhat different connotations in popular and professional usages. Most Americans generally understand folklore to refer to traditional narratives, beliefs or practices, often transmitted orally, which have no basis in truth, and “the folk” themselves are believed to be non or preliterate; yet this is not the case. This notion has its roots in the antiquarian scholarship of the eighteenth and nineteenth century influenced by theories of Romantic or cultural nationalism, where conceptions of “the folk” were equated with European peasant cultures, which scholars believed held the distinctive “folk souls” of each nation. Early American folklore research concentrated on marginalized groups within American society. Thus, “folklore” was the preserve of African Americans, recent immigrant groups and Southern Appalachians, who were at that time perceived as the earliest “white indigenous” American peoples. Early American folklorists collected tales, beliefs and songs, often looking for “survivals” from the parent African or European culture. Later, with the rise of trade-union activism in the 1920s and 1930s, “the folk” expanded to include the working classes. “Folk music” was then not confined to Euro-originated ballads and African American musics, but also became more widely applicable to workers’ music and, later, other protest music. Folk art was similarly a genre of preservation of memories (although it later became a hot commodity in more sophisticated urban galleries and auctions as well).
In the 1960s, the field of folklore in the United States shifted dramatically in terms of theory and subject matter. Richard Dorson was one of the first scholars to champion folklore as a modern academic discipline distinct from either literary studies or anthropology, with comparative ethnographic and archival methodologies at its heart.
Folklorists then began to lessen the emphasis on survivals and to explore wider aspects of behavior, communication and the relationship of folklore and tradition to society within a more pluralistic paradigm. The result of this was not only an expansion of the subject matter that folklorists researched, but also a new conceptualization of that “the folk” actually were. Rather than only representing the more marginalized groups within a society, the folk became essentially any subgroup who demonstrated stylized, distinctive cultural forms, ranging from the family to the workplace. Thus, everyone is actually a member of a variety of folk groups. American folklorists also began researching urban cultures and exploring the role of technology and mass media on traditions and tradition formation. As a result, categories such as “Xerox lore” and “urban legend” have become fruitful areas of study. In the twentieth century American folklorists engaged with a very wide range of material. Although “folklore” may imply to some an emphasis on narrative or belief, the field comprises a number of different artistic genres, including dance, food, speech narrative, festival, music, art, ritual, medicine and religion. Folklorists also research occupational and business culture, tourism and all aspects of popular culture.
A new emphasis on multiculturalism and the shift of the model of American cultures from “melting-pot” to “mosaic” has resulted in an increased public interest in folklore in the 1990s. Since the 1930s when the federally funded Workers Education Administration hired folklorists to collect traditions from various cultural groups in the United States, there has been a close association between folklore, folklorists and public bodies. Many states have folklore commissions that hire folklorists to identify distinctive communities and individual artists, and then help to educate the public about their work. Folklorists often work with museums, festival organizers and, increasingly with tourism officials to promote and raise awareness of various cultural traditions. Perhaps the most well-known example of public folklore display in the United States is the annual Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife, which each year showcases various traditions and practices of a particular state. In addition to publicsector and arts organizations, some folklorists also work in the private sector, assisting in inter-office communications and diversity training.
Industry:Culture
These often walled residential areas, concentrated in suburban America but also found in urban centers, have restricted access and complex social meanings. The main intention of gated communities is to provide security to residents who dwell within them. An array of security devices segregate residents and non-residents, including armed guards, intercom systems, video surveillance cameras and gates controlled by codes or electronic identification cards. Gated communities are also symbols of class ascension and privilege, and usually contain amenities such as private golf courses, country clubs, lakes and parks closed to the public (work and shopping still lie outside the gates). It is estimated that 3 million or more American households have moved to gated communities in the last two decades (Blakely and Snyder 1997).
Gated communities supposedly represent ideal communities sold by real-estate and land developers as safe havens from the ills of urbanization. This duplicates the historical selling point of suburban development and represents a paradox for the creation of gated communities. If the suburbs are safer, why are gated communities necessary? In this sense, gated communities are symbolic of a “fortress” mentality that has seized many urban residents in recent years due to rising crime (Davis 1990). Ironically there are no proven trends to show that “gatehoods” are relatively safer than “neighborhoods.”
Industry:Culture
The decisions about whether and how to generalize about the study of minority literature are complex because of the history of minorities in the US and the academic study of their literatures and cultures. African American contributions to the literature and culture of the US are older than the Republic; however, academic institutionalization of their study came more recently emerging with the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s.
Interest in and study of the cultural production of other people of color followed, but whether and how they are analogous remains a topic of debate. Do we define minority cultures by country of origin, as in Chicano studies? By language, as in Hispanic literature? By broader area of origin, as in Asian American or Caribbean? Further, is it useful or true to focus on similarities among the experiences of ethnic minorities within and immigrants to the US—a shared history of diaspora, oppression, adaptation, contribution and resistance? Or is it more important to note the differences within these histories—slavery for African Americans, centuries of intertwined history for Chicanos/Latinos, no immigration tale to tell for American Indians? Further, how do we talk about and account for the influence of “home” cultures: the difference between, say Japanese and Filipino culture and history that makes the idea of “Asian American” so hard to generalize? What difference does it make that many immigrant groups now, in the age of cheaper global travel, have a transnational identity retaining personal and cultural ties to home countries rather than largely severing or transforming them upon immigration? Does a similarity of approach to minority cultures in any way repeat one of the errors of racism by defining these diverse literatures in terms of their difference from the presumed center, that is, mainstream white culture? Finally at what point, if ever, does the importance of minority contributions to literature and literary study lead us to redefine American culture so completely that to define minority literature separately stops making sense? While the movement to abolish slavery saw the publication of slave narratives and other important cultural documents that form the nineteenth-century canon of African Americans (the Harlem Renaissance and Black Arts movement are other crucial periods in an ongoing literary culture), it was the Civil Rights movement that established African Americans’ crucial academic presence and the “recovery” of many. The existence of programs and departments in Black Studies, Africana Studies and African American literature and culture attests to the historical emergence of a diversity of approaches since the 1960s. Fueled by the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s and Aztlán in California in the 1970s, Chicano/Latino culture also entered the academy—as did the study of Native American literature and cultures. Asian American Studies also largely began as a West Coast, indeed a Pacific, phenomenon. By now, minority literature has become increasingly important among both academic and mainstream readers, students and critics of American literature in general.
The study of minority literature and cultures has grown, stimulating and stimulated by broader political events and by the poststructuralist literary theories that refused to see literary artifacts as aesthetic objects separable from the historical and political context in which they emerged. Minority critics and theorists noted how putatively “pure” aesthetic standards had been used by a white-maledominated literary mainstream, consciously or unconsciously to enforce or explain the devaluation and exclusion of the work of nonwhite authors’ politically committed texts and non-traditional forms. Alternative literary theories emerged to account for the ways in which minority voices and the literary forms they used shaped, were shaped by and provided insight into the strains of exclusion and oppression by mainstream culture, demonstrating that literary differences were not defects but occasions of and for reflection.
Emerging in the 1970s, Ethnic Studies marks an alliance and shared approach among minority scholars. The idea of Ethnic Studies is a commitment to seeing minority literature in cultural, historical and political context, and maintaining a sense of the cultural specificity of different traditions such as Native American or Asian Pacific Islander, while having a common ground for critiquing mainstream culture from the point of view of the excluded or forgotten margin.
While an awareness of the richness of minority discourse has reshaped the study of American literature and culture, many scholars affirm the continuing need for their separate study. This reflects both an affirmation of the literary and theoretical contributions they will make, and an insistence that social justice for minorities is far from having been achieved, either inside or outside the academy Writers of all ethnicities have enjoyed increased success and recognition, in genre fiction as well as in serious fiction and poetry. The emerging canons of especially wellknown, popular and widely taught authors grow and change constantly. Dominating the last years of the twentieth century have been African American novelists Toni Morrison (a Nobel laureate), Alice Walker and Gloria Naylor. Among Latino writers and Chicano novelists and poets are the likes of Sandra Cisneros, Rudolfo Anaya and Cherrie Moraga, while such writers as Cristina García (from Cuba) and Julia Alvarez (from the Dominican Republic) also enjoy a high readership. Asian American writers abound: among them are Chinese American novelist Maxine Hong Kingston, and her antagonist Frank Chin, as well as the popular Amy Tan and Fae Ng. The late Korean American Theresa Kak Kyung Cha, writer and performance artist, is revered by poststructuralist critics, while, more recently novelist Chang-Rae Lee has had wide critical success.
Among Filipino American writers, Jessica Hagedorn is probably best known. There are also many Native American writers, though Louise Erdrich, Michael Dorris, MacArthur prize-winner Leslie Marmon Silko and Sherman Alexie probably stand out.
Organizations exist to foster the study of each tradition. Further, there are important umbrella organizations, for example the MELUS (multiethnic literatures of the United States) journal, established 1974, and annual conference established in 1986. As indicated earlier, no consensus exists about approaches to minority experience and literature. If, for example, Werner Sollors is associated with a traditional liberal view of immigration and assimilation, Ron Takaki’s popular approach emphasizes, in contrast, the maintaining of cultural difference. Within each group are many well-established scholars. A constellation of high-profile African American scholars representing different points of view and emphases includes, for example, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., bell hooks, Barbara Christian and Houston Baker. Well-known Asian American scholars include Elaine Kim, Sau-ling Wong and Lisa Lowe; Chicano/Latino critics include Norma Alarcón, Alfred Arteaga and Gloria Anzaldúa.
Industry:Culture
Since the 1950s, many cultural commentators have noted that society’s heroes have been replaced by media celebrities. Jib Fowles (1992) believes celebrities fill a void in a contemporary urban society where people feel anonymous or overwhelmed with options.
Americans, shorn of the supports of family tradition, cultural heritage, community and church, turn to the appealing images of confident celebrities to build their personal identities. Indeed, by the 1920s, celebrities were also called “personalities.” In place of a real community, the media offer a mechanism for the creation and maintenance of a “Star Village: a mythic community composed of the different types of people whom the American public wants to observe” (Fowles 1992:67).
According to Fowles, this community usually comprises 100 people, or is about the size of the typical pre-twentieth century village in which most people used to live.
Hollywood and non-actor celebrities constitute various social types—the athletic star, the femme fatale, the ingénue, the antihero, the mother, the captain-of-industry the exotic lover. New types occasionally arise to fill new roles in the celebrity village. “The principle behind the creation of new types is that whatever is unresolved deep in the culture will eventually be projected upon the ranks of Star Village. New slots appear, displacing old ones, in response to something profoundly troubling to the spirit of the times” (ibid.: 71). Besides giving Americans a vicarious sense of belonging or a safe outlet for vicarious love and aggression, celebrities may also influence Americans to buy products or, for example, support the nation’s war efforts by purchasing government bonds. Political candidates seek the endorsement of established celebrities whose consistent popularity with the public can reflect positively on the candidate.
Celebrities typically hire public-relations firms to handle the pressures of the media, whom the celebrities also court to promote their latest film or achievement. Because over 1,000 journalists cover entertainment, and with many more covering other celebrity fields, journalists feel the pressure to capture the star in a newsworthy comment or exploit. The cycle of celebrity creation and demise has quickened as media competition over celebrities has grown, with network television sponsoring several scandal and celebrity shows, including Entertainment Tonight, Hard Copy and Access Hollywood.
The cable network “E!” is devoted to celebrity news, while magazines, like People, US and Vanity Fair, as well as talk shows, feed the public’s desire to consume information about their favorite stars. Without satisfactory opportunities to know people, Americans rely upon the media to supply important information about human frailties and strengths, as told through coverage of celebrities. The media’s urge to tear down the celebrity usually over drug, monetary or sexual misdeeds, even before he or she has achieved star status enacts what Fowles calls Americans’ “latent destructive urge” to find “gratification when an idol is rocked” (ibid.: 144). Nevertheless, the public also loves the “comeback story” where a celebrity re-invigorates a faltering career with new achievement. Not surprisingly Hollywood has made many films about the joys and perils of celebrity including The Rose (1979), A Hard Day’s Nïght (1964), A Star is Born (1937, 1954, 1976) and Woody Allen’s Celebrity (1999).
Industry:Culture
There has been and continues to be a considerable amount of disagreement as to the precise nature of “femininity” in contemporary America. While there is a general consensus as to the stereotypical meaning of “femininity” (passive, emotional, delicate, irrational, mysterious, nurturing, maternal, submissive, heterosexual and strongly linked to nature—qualities that have been largely devalued in favor of their stereotypical masculine counterparts), the origin of this “femininity” is not as clear.
In general, the contemporary American mainstream believes that “femininity” is biologically determined. This ideology which has dominated for centuries, conceives of “femininity” as a biological imperative inherently embedded in being “female.” In other words, “femininity” is not socially constructed; it is hard-wired into female bodies.
Certain feminists support this position, seeing traditionally feminine qualities as indicative of the power women may wield over men. This largely heterosexual model posits that women, with their mysterious sexuality and deep ties to the Earth mother, inherently control men, who crave the elusive emotionality and feminine eroticism that is missing from their own biologically determined masculinity.
On the other hand, most feminists agree that “femininity” and other gender categories are socially constructed. According to this position, “femininity” is a gender category that society has assigned to female individuals. In other words, gender corresponds to the social constructs “woman,” “womanliness” and “femininity;” and to “man,” “manliness” and “masculinity” Biology is reserved for sex, which is defined in terms of the biological categories “male” and “female.” Social constructivists counter the claims of biological determinists by stating that “femininity” cannot be biological because not all women are feminine. Indeed, some feminist theorists state that there is no such thing as a “woman,” since there is no single, unified experience which brings all females together. “Women” are just people, these theorists assert, and gender categories have been imposed upon individuals as a means of social control. Feminists also point to the mutability of “femininity” in order to argue in favor of social constructivism.
In its current practical application, “femininity” has become increasingly difficult to pinpoint. With the gradual relaxation of dress codes for women since the beginning of the twentieth century, women’s entrance en masse into the paid workforce in the 1960s, and the second mobilization of the feminist movement, traditional “femininity” has lost hold as a meaningful descriptor of modern womanhood. Today, an American woman may deviate from the conventional definition of femininity and still be considered a “feminine” woman. Unlike in the past, a “feminine” woman of the 1990s may wear pants and other traditionally “masculine” attire, have her own career and embrace an active sexuality.
However, the stereotypes of the past still persist. Across the United States, certain parts of traditional “femininity” are still upheld as the ideal standard for women. Mainstream America also continues to believe that females are inherently “feminine” due to their biology. The idea of a unified feminine essence still pervades our culture.
Industry:Culture
The Southern Baptist Convention represents a general organization of the 15.8 million members of 40,887 churches. Southern Baptist beliefs include freedom of religion, the priesthood of all believers and the individual soul’s competency before God, and belief in Jesus Christ whose will is revealed in the Bible as the sole authority for faith and practice, as noted in the 1925 Statement of Baptist Faith and Message, adopted in 1963 by the Southern Baptist Convention. The 1998 convention adopted an amendment to the 1963 statement, regarding the structure of the family, marriage and the role of women, defining marriage as the monogamous relationship between a man and a woman, and asserting that the husband is head of the family and the woman should “graciously submit” to him.
Southern Baptists have played an increasing and often controversial role in American political life, allying themselves most closely with the Republican Party and conservative issues. In 1997 they voted to boycott all Disney products because they said that Disney policies did not promote a profamily image and supported gay and lesbian lifestyles and agendas.
Southern Baptists enjoy independence congregationally They do not adhere to one confession of faith or creed, noting that “any group of Baptists, large or small, have the inherent right to draw up for themselves and publish to the world a confession of their faith whenever they think it advisable to do so” (1925 statement). The 1925 confession, adopted in 1963, is not binding on congregations, but rather constitutes a guide for interpretation with no authority over conscience.
The Southern Baptist Convention traces its roots to 1845 in Augusta, Georgia during increasing tensions among people in the North and South. Debates concerned slavery the denominational authority to discipline church members, the rights of Southerners to receive missionary appointments and the neglect of the South in missionary appointments. Prompted by decisions to decline to appoint several slaveholders as missionaries, 293 Baptist leaders from the South representing 356,000 Baptists convened to determine the best means of promoting the foreignmission cause and other interests of the Baptist denomination in the South.
On May 10, 1845, the Southern Baptist Convention was organized, a constitution adopted, a structure developed, the mission and purpose written, the Foreign Mission Board and the Home Mission Board established and very soon after this the first missionaries were appointed.
Southern Baptists have emphasized mission and evangelism since their beginnings.
Currently 4,000 foreign missionaries serve in 133 foreign countries; 4,857 home missionaries serve in the United States. The Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention assists its churches and agencies in a variety of ways. It serves as the fiscal agent for the Convention, represents the Convention in legal matters, provides promotion and publicity for the Cooperative Program through the Baptist Press, presents a budget for the Convention and its agencies, authorizes the work of the Southern Baptist Foundation and provides advice.
Industry:Culture
The music industry and television have had a long relationship. Along with variety shows and MTV, network shows aimed at teenagers such as Shindig, Hullabaloo, American Bandstand and the stillrunning Soul Train have showcased performers singing their latest hits as well as dancers interpreting the latest discs. For both record companies and artists, appearing on these shows insured sales and exposure. The hosts—the upbeat and ever-young white Dick Clark epitomized American Bandstand and the black Don Cornelius’ suave and deep-voiced persona symbolized Soul Train—also reflected the racial divide in American youth and music (see John Water’s Hairspray, 1988).
By the late 1960s, The Monkees and The Partridge Family also combined sitcoms and bands. Both shows followed the adventures of studio-created groups, and the singles that were released became the centerpiece of the show. Saturday morning cartoons geared to children, such as The Archies and Josie and the Pussycats, also became names for bands that record companies created, using studio musicians in a genre nicknamed bubblegum music.
Meanwhile, popular music was used on the soundtracks of many shows from The Mod Squad to The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Moreover, the theme song of television shows in the 1960s and 1970s became a crucial way to lend definition to the program. Themes from Peter Gunn, Perry Mason, Hill Street Blues, Mission Impossible and Hawaii Five-O became audible icons of popular culture. These instrumental pieces brought viewers back to the screen with their recognizable and infinitely catchy music (interspersed with the jingles and anthems of advertisements).
With Dawson’s Creek and other 1990s teenoriented shows, the music industry and television have found new overlaps. Soundtracks that feature pop tunes heard on the shows are available in record stores and advertised on the show. These compilation albums market both shows and artists. The role of the soundtrack—and particularly montaged scenes without dialog with the latest “hit” playing—has become key as music videos and teen dramas converge.
Industry:Culture
