Proceedings of the 1st American Studies MA Conference at the University of Debrecen
Proceedings of the
at the University of Debrecen
on December 9, 2009
Edited by Zoltán Simon
Debrecen
2010
176
Proceedings of the 1st American Studies MA Conference at the University of Debrecen
Some preliminary notes
As part of their curriculum, first-year students in the North American Studies disciplinary MA (Master of Arts) program offered at the Institute of English and American Studies of the University of Debrecen are required to write and deliver “conference papers” on a freely selected topic within the broader thematic category of American studies.This requirement is part of the “Introduction to the Profession of American Studies" course, one that all first-year MA students in American studies must complete, which is designed to provide students with an introduction to the field of American Studies, and in particular the nuts and bolts of the practice of the profession.
The original idea laid down in the syllabus was that students would choose a topic for their paper, usually either related to their undergraduate thesis or already in preparation for a master’s thesis, create an abstract in response to a “call for papers,” research the primary and secondary sources available in print and electronically, and present their papers to their peers in the classroom. Halfway into the semester in the fall of 2009, when this course was first offered in the newly launched MA program, it was decided, in consultation with the students themselves, that making the conference into a semi-public event would be a win-win situation for all parties involved.
Such a mini-conference, it was thought, would provide an opportunity for students to present their papers to a larger audience than their immediate peers. It was believed that students, at this early state of their academic careers, would benefit from exposure to a wider audience, consisting of interested faculty from across the Institute, fellow students (undergraduate or graduate), as well as members of the general public, who could ask questions and engage the students in an academic dialogue. The conference was also designed to simulate the experience of not only participation in, but some aspects of the organization of a scholarly event. Thus, as part of their preparation for a professional career, students are given an opportunity to gain first-hand experience in both organizing and participating in a scholarly event. Further, we believe that the diverse topics chosen by the students would be of interest and appeal to a wider audience, both from within and even from outside the Department of North American Studies.
The procedure adopted in the course is the following. Students select a topic for a paper within the discipline of American Studies (usually on topics either related to their undergraduate thesis or already in preparation for a master’s thesis), which is subject to approval by the instructor. They create an abstract in response to a Call for Papers, research the available primary and secondary sources available in print and electronically, and present their papers to their peers, as well as to interested faculty and members of the general public. As a follow-up to the conference, the papers are finalized and submitted, and are subsequently also made available on the website of the conference (located at http://amstudconf.comoj.hu), in the virtual proceedings of the conference—this document.
As mentioned above, the North American Studies MA program at the University of Debrecen was launched in September 2009, and accordingly, the 1st American Studies MA Student Conference was held on December 9, 2009 in the Main Building of the University of Debrecen.In addition to writing the papers, students also participated in the organization of the conference in a variety of ways from brainstorming for ideas to helping set up the room and even contributing snacks. The Institute of English and American Studies contributed by way of providing the venue, along with the necessary equipment and a most indispensable part of all conferences—coffee.
It is hoped that the conference will become a regular, annually organized event, and will attract, provided that it is sufficient publicity, an increasingly large audience in subsequent years. The potential outreach of such a conference could include undergraduate students of English (majors and minors) or even beyond (from other degree programs, such as history, political science or elsewhere), graduate students in other programs interested in the work of fellow students in American Studies, faculty members from within and outside of the Institute, or interested members of the general public. As far as presenters are concerned, in the course of the next conference, scheduled to be held in early December 2010, our “by-then-veteran” American Studies students, for each of whom this conference was the first opportunity to present a paper, will be invited to return and join the new students (for whom it will be a requirement) and thus help them also in their own in(tro)duction to the profession of American Studies.
We are looking forward to welcoming you at the 2nd American Studies MA Conference. If you wish to find out more about this event, please check back to the conference website in the fall of 2010, or send an e–mail to . In the meantime, on the following pages we present the work of the participants of the first conference.
On behalf of the organizers,
Zoltán Simon
Assistant professor
IEAS, University of Debrecen
Table of Contents
In the online version of this document, please hold down the <Ctrl> key and then click on one of the titles below to jump directly to the paper.
Ábel Anita Native American Identity Crisis in the 20th-century United States / 5Anett Bácsi A Comparative Analysis of American and Hungarian Rap Music, Based On Rap Lyrics and Videos / 16
Czitai Balázs The Watergate Scandal and Deep Throat / 36
Duró Ágota Thomas Jefferson’s Antinomic Attitude toward Miscegenation
/ 45
Horváth Gábor Post-9/11 symbolismin The Dark Knight / 58
Kontér Erik The Economic Aspect of Mexican Illegal Immigration: Undocumented Foreign Workers in the United States / 69
Nánási Timea Meaning and Importance of Nature, Ceremony and AncestorsforNative-American People / 92
Pájer Alíz Effects of World War I on American Literature / 101
Rendes Ildikó The Limits of the Myth of the West: Native, Japanese andMexicanAmerican Experience in the United States / 114
Sáfrány Beáta Media Coverage of School Shootings / 127
Sipos Nóra Coca-Cola’s Spread Represents the Process of Globalization / 142
Szabó Emma Judgements and Opinions about the Kennedy Assassination in 2009 / 153
Uzonyi Anita Leo Szilard: His Contribution to the Atomic Bomb and His Crusade for Peace / 164
Anita Ábel
Native American Identity Crisis in the 20th-Century United States
When the first colonizers arrived at the North American continent, they came to the conclusion that the New World was empty. Yet, they had to realize very soon that they were not alone and that the new land had already been inhabited for a considerable amount of time. As the early colonizers did not know how to live side by side the Native Americans, the following generations had also no idea how to maintain good relationship with the Indians. Unfortunately, the inability to solve this problem has become the common heritage of American Indians and European Americans throughout the history of the United States. As a result, a series of historical events and governmental policies had contributed to the emergence of the present-day phenomenon of identity crisis among the Native Americans. Besides, there are other sources regarding this state of identity quest such as the cultural phenomena of stereotyping, discrimination and mimicry as it is perceptible in the relationship between the members of the dominant white society and Native Americans. In my research paper, I would like to examine the Indian identity crisis in the twentieth-century United States through taking into consideration the sources I have already mentioned and highlighting possible means of survival like Pan-Indianism and Indian literature.
First of all, in order to understand how the historical events, or rather government policies, of the Indian removal, the launching of the federal boarding school system, and the Indian relocation helped the development of Native American identity crisis, it is essential to point out two cultural pillars of Indian life. The Indians’ affection to their land and the power of their oral tradition are vital components of tribal identity for them. First, I would like to emphasize the significance of a sense of place for the Native people. For the Indians the location where their tribes have come to the Earth is the center of the universe, that is, a sacred place. According to the Native American worldview, imagination creates the world. As a result, memory of the land is part of their culture. Tribal history is built upon the stories told about the land. In the light of these facts, it becomes more understandable how the Indian Removal in the 1830s have paved the way for the emergence of identity crisis in the twentieth century. In 1830, the Congress passed the Indian Removal Act under the administration of Andrew Jackson. The act “ authorized the removal of Indian tribes to a large, unorganized, ‘permanent’ Indian territory west of the Mississippi River” (Hirschfelder 34). The best-known phase of the removal is probably the Cherokees’ Trail of Tears during the winter of 1838-39 (34). While this forced westward movement of Native peoples meant a great territorial acquisition for the dominant white Americans, it has engraved upon the mind and soul of every Native American a sense of incomprehensible loss regarding their culture, traditions and spiritual power. The fact of the matter is that a tribe can only be in its full spiritual power where its members have come to the Earth. The farther they move from the center, the weaker they become spiritually, and their survival based on a strong attachment to their land is threatened.
Another important pillar of Native American culture and Indian identity formation is the oral tradition. In the Indian worldview, the Word and imagination have a great creative and healing power. For the members of a tribe their oral literature is the survival of their culture and spirituality. In the course of the storytelling event, tribal people preserve and remember the basis of their culture. The Word places them in the world that is why they believe that people define themselves with everything they say.
N. Scott Momaday in “The Man Made of Words” shows clearly that the oral tradition is a vital part of American Indian identity: “an Indian is an idea which a given man has of himself. […] And that idea, in order to be realized completely, has to be expressed” (Hobson 162). In other words, the individuals as Indians must live spiritually through the idea that they imagine of themselves. Nevertheless, it is not enough to have an idea within them, the individuals must realize that idea in words, in their tribal language. Then, and only then, they are alive both physically and spiritually.
I think, this brief summary about the importance of the word in the identity formation makes it very clear what an enormous harm has been done to Indian children at the off-reservation boarding schools. After the federal government realized that reservations isolated the Native Americans instead of solving the tense relationship between them and the government, Congress decided that the best resolution for the problem would be the total assimilation of Indians. As a result, federal boarding schools were established outside the reservations. They were established outside, and quite far from, the reservations. The motto of this federal policy was expressed by “the Father of the US Boarding School Movement,” Richard Henry Pratt, in 1890 as follows: “Kill the Indian and save the man” (Hirschfelder 129). That is, destroy the identity of the Native Americans and then build them into the dominant white society. To achieve this goal, federal boarding schools deprived children of “all outward and inward signs of […] identification with tribal life, at the same time instructing them in the values and behaviors of white culture” (128). “Children caught speaking their Native language or performing religious rituals” (129) were severely punished. In other words, they were denied to use their own mother tongue in which they could express the idea within themselves. Without the words of their tribal language, they became unable to create their own identity because not only the Words were missing but also the traditions and the spiritual power located in it. Consequently, the emergence of identity crisis was encouraged with the foundation of federal boarding schools.
At this point, it is worth evaluating the historical background of relocation, another source of identity crisis, which accompanied the federal government’s Termination policy as an attempt to assimilate the Native Americans in order to understand it. In the wake of the twentieth century the “products of the boarding-school system were among the first to formally organize a Pan-Indian group. The Society of American Indians” (Hafen 9) was founded in 1911 and, despite the fact that it collapsed during the 1920s, (9) “their work” led “to the American Indian Citizenship Act of 1924” (9). After that, in 1928, the Meriam report, “a shocking study […] exposed the poverty on reservations” (Hirschfelder 148) and “was particularly critical of the system of federal education for Indian children, especially of the boarding schools” (Handbook 4: 265). Owing to this survey, the Indian Reorganization Act was passed in 1934 as part of the Indian “New Deal”(Hirschfelder 148). The act meant that tribal governments, previously suppressed by federal power on reservations, were renewed. In addition, it granted religious freedom to the reservation Indians. What is more, it “introduced federal programs supporting Indian agriculture, vocational education, economic development, and Indian employment preference in the BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs]” (149). To tell the truth, this was the legislation that the Truman administration wanted to destroy with the Termination policy (Handbook 4: 270).