American Dream Essay Example for Free

American Dream Essay In the literatures we have read this semester all of the characters have a dream that consists of a plan and multiple goals that sum up to the American Dream, however, there have been obstacles that sometimes hinder these American dreams. These obstacles range from internal conflict to society itself. The question is if it is possible for these characters to struggle with obstacles and overcome them to reach their dream? In â€Å"Step Children of a Nation† Isabel Gonzalez explains how the probabilities for Mexican-Americans in America during the mid 20th century for achieving the American Dream were very slim due to the obstacles that were presented by society (Gonzalez 162). Pedro Pietri details in the â€Å"Puerto Rican Obituary† the personal struggles endured by five Puerto Ricans in New York while attempting to achieve the American Dream (Pietri 212). We have no choice but to accept the standard of the United States and act in accordance with the society expectations as we see Ysreal do in Junot Diaz’ â€Å"No Face† (Diaz 417). Each character in these texts has the opportunity of success and only those who are willing to make a persistent and consistent effort will be able to achieve their dream despite their own personal struggles and the obstacles presented by society. Even though there are many obstacles to achieving this dream, it isn’t impossible for it to become a reality. The Mexican-Americans in Step Children of a nation lacked the ambition needed to achieve the American Dream. The most difficult obstacles to overcome are those presented by society. Isabel Gonzalez states what life was like for Mexican Americans trying to achieve the American Dream in the mid 20th century under poor living conditions and economic exploitation. These characters acculturated to the American lifestyle and the non citizens had the desire to become citizens. In fact they supported World War II (Leal) and Gonzalez noted that: It is a well known fact that the number of war casualties among the Mexican-American soldiers was very high in proportion to the population (Gonzalez , 163). But even after this the Anglo-Saxon society continued to discriminate and pursue segregation from their society. The Mexicans were forced to live in slums. During this time the homes these people lived in were hardly fit for animals and had no repairs in years but yet brought in income from Mexicans far beyond the value of the homes (Gonzalez , 165). They arrived in the United States believing a promise of personal economic growth (Aguilar), but instead came to live in substandard conditions with the hope of a better future for their children. Gonzalez states that industries have succeeded in keeping the Mexican the most underpaid and most oppressed worker so that they will always have a surplus of cheap labor (Gonzalez , 167). This economic exploitation caused the children to also have substandard education and health. These situations forced some of the characters to keep quiet due to fear of deportation and the reality of achieving the American Dream nearly impossible. But if these characters wouldn’t have overlooked the possibility of change and set aside their fear they would have been so much closer to achieving the American Dream. Another obstacle the characters from the texts we reviewed in class had to overcome was their own personal oppressions. In â€Å"Puerto Rican Obituary†, Pietri talks about 5 characters: Juan/ Miguel/ Milagros/ Olga/ Manuel and their daily struggles as a Nuyorican (Monthly Review Foundation) who didn’t accept the standards of the United States. These Nuyoricans were motivated to immigrate to this country by the American dream which turned into a nightmare presented as death. They were divided between two cultures and two languages. Juan/ Miguel/ Milagros/ Olga/ Manuel are attempting to live as a â€Å"gringo†. Their unfortunate situation is that as they attempt to leave behind their language they are also leaving behind their identity (Brook). And as they realize this they are torn between the dream and the nightmare. They feel overworked and underpaid. All died/ dreaming about america/ waking them up in the middle of the night/ screaming: Mira Mira/ your name is on the winning lottery ticket/ for one hundred thousand dollars (Pietri 36-41) The characters in this text believed they can achieve the American Dream by something simpler like winning the lottery. But by believing this almost impossible wish their dream becomes a nightmare which is reflected as their death. They dream of belonging to a community of â€Å"clean-cut lily-white neighborhood/ Puerto Ricanless scenes† and being â€Å"the first spics on the block† where â€Å"gringos want them lynched† (215). By not being able to accomplish this dream the â€Å"puertorriquenos† find themselves shut out of America’s economic opportunities and lifestyle, and realize that they are unemployed, living on welfare, bitter, and degraded. This situation leads to the death of their American dream along with their dignity; therefore the characters in this text do not achieve the American dream. Ysrael is a child with a disfigured face who knows all too well the difference between the nightmare and dream. He is a child that has accepted the fact that he has to wear a mask in public to be accepted in his community. He compares himself to Kaliman. Ysrael’s superpower is the power of INVISBILITY (Diaz , 418). He dreams of escaping Dominican Republic and going â€Å"up north† and has hopes that the doctor will fix him. In the end of the story Ysrael has to make sure to wear his mask when his father comes out but doesn’t have to worry when he’s around his mother. All of this symbolizes the life of an immigrant attempting to achieve the American Dream (Alford). Ysreal’s disfigured face is the life the immigrants have in their country of origin. The surgery that the doctor and the priest promise is the American Dream. The mask is the sacrifices the immigrants make by acculturating to the American society. The superpower of invisibility represents how people are obligated to put themselves out of sight from society when they do not act according to society’s expectations. When Diaz mentions that Ysrael wants to go â€Å"up north† he is referring to the United States. Also the father is stands for the American culture (where Ysrael always has to wear his mask) and the mother represents his own culture or his identity. The boys who throw rocks at him and the cleaning lady represent the obstacles the immigrants must surpass to achieve their dream. In this text Ysrael does achieve the American Dream because he has accepted the fact that he has to wear his mask in front of his father and when he goes out in public. But at the same time he does not lose his identify because those who are around him remind him of how his face became disfigured over and over again (Diaz , 419). Pietri talks about all the obstacles the characters face while attempting to achieve the American dream but if Juan/ Miguel/ Milagros/ Olga/ Manuel would have accepted the standards of society in the United States or if the Mexicans in â€Å"Step Children of a Nation† would have been more ambitious like Ysrael in â€Å"No Face† their nightmare could have converted back to the dream they immigrated to the United States for. So to answer the question if is possible for these characters to struggle with obstacles and overcome them to reach their dream the answer is only if they were all as ambitious, persistent, and committed as Ysrael. The character Ysrael did not let his disfigured face or his father hold him back from achieving his dream. Ysrael had people yell out to him â€Å"No Face† but yet he continues his path to his set goal. He was determined to be persistent and consistent in pursuing his dream. Works Cited Aguilar, Mario E. From Immigrant Ousiders to Indigenous Tribal National Identities. Web. 09 June 2011. Alford, William. Junot Diazs Drown Sex, Race and Power. 10 Feb 2005. Web. 08 June 2011. Brook, Elizabeth. Nuyroican Newness. 2010 11 May. Web. 08 June 2011. Diaz, Junot. No Face. Herencia: The Anthology of Hispanic Literature of the United States. Ed. Nicolas Kanellos. New York: Oxford Press, 2002. 417-420. Print. Gonzalez, Isabel. Step Children of a Nation. Herencia: The Anthology of Hispanic Literature of the United States. Ed. Nicolas Kanellos. New York: Oxford Press, 2002. 162-170. Print. Leal, David A. American Public Opinion. October 2005. webspace. utexas. edu. Web. 08 June 2011. Monthly Review Foundation. Monthly Review: Puerto Rican Obituary. 01 June 2004. Web. 08 June 2011. Pietri, Pedro. Puerto Rican Obituary. Herencia: The Anthology of Hispanic Literature of the United States. Ed. Nicolas Kanellos. New York: Oxford Press, 2002. 212-220. Print.

The Benefits and Drawbacks of Globalization Essay -- Pros and Cons of

The notion of globalisation encompasses various different aspects of social, economic and political life. In order to answer the question of whether or not globalisation is a progressive or negative force, I must first define globalisation. Then I shall examine the impact of globalisation on the population and finally determine whether this is a positive or negative impact. There are five different aspects that I have chosen in order to define the phenomenon of globalisation. They are internationalisation, liberalisation, universilisation, westernisation, and deterritorialization. (Scholte, page 16) Internationalisation refers to the significant increase in relations between countries. Increases in economic trade and politcal relations between countries has led to increased interdependency between countries, especially on an economic level. There has also been increased movement of people, capital, and ideas between countries. International relations between countries have always existed, but in today's globalised world, these relations have become more important and more significant than ever before. Liberalisation refers to the loosening of government restrictions on movements between countries. It is easier for individuals to move between countries, and also for money and capital to move between countries. The main component of liberalisation has been economic. There have been increasing commitments on the part of nations to adopt free trade policies and allow the free movement of capital between states. There have been significant reductions in tarriffs and on foreign exchange restrictions. Capitalism has been adopted on a global level with companies competing against companies in other countries, and the in... ... has positive and negative effects as it does create for better awareness, understanding, and tolerance of other cultures, it has also eroded many tradional cultural values and this has caused resistance to globalisation. Lastly, globalisation has reduced the power of nation states and increased the power of international organisations and multinational corporations. Globalisation has positive and negative effects, but one certainty is that globalisation does exist and it remains to be seen how much further it will go. Bibliography Bamyeh, Mohammed A. The Ends of Globalisation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. Sandbrook, Richard. Civilizing Globalisation - A Survival Guide. Albany: State University of New York, 2003. Scholte, Jan Aart. Globalization - A critical introduction. International Politics Studypack for Term 2, 2006. The Benefits and Drawbacks of Globalization Essay -- Pros and Cons of The notion of globalisation encompasses various different aspects of social, economic and political life. In order to answer the question of whether or not globalisation is a progressive or negative force, I must first define globalisation. Then I shall examine the impact of globalisation on the population and finally determine whether this is a positive or negative impact. There are five different aspects that I have chosen in order to define the phenomenon of globalisation. They are internationalisation, liberalisation, universilisation, westernisation, and deterritorialization. (Scholte, page 16) Internationalisation refers to the significant increase in relations between countries. Increases in economic trade and politcal relations between countries has led to increased interdependency between countries, especially on an economic level. There has also been increased movement of people, capital, and ideas between countries. International relations between countries have always existed, but in today's globalised world, these relations have become more important and more significant than ever before. Liberalisation refers to the loosening of government restrictions on movements between countries. It is easier for individuals to move between countries, and also for money and capital to move between countries. The main component of liberalisation has been economic. There have been increasing commitments on the part of nations to adopt free trade policies and allow the free movement of capital between states. There have been significant reductions in tarriffs and on foreign exchange restrictions. Capitalism has been adopted on a global level with companies competing against companies in other countries, and the in... ... has positive and negative effects as it does create for better awareness, understanding, and tolerance of other cultures, it has also eroded many tradional cultural values and this has caused resistance to globalisation. Lastly, globalisation has reduced the power of nation states and increased the power of international organisations and multinational corporations. Globalisation has positive and negative effects, but one certainty is that globalisation does exist and it remains to be seen how much further it will go. Bibliography Bamyeh, Mohammed A. The Ends of Globalisation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. Sandbrook, Richard. Civilizing Globalisation - A Survival Guide. Albany: State University of New York, 2003. Scholte, Jan Aart. Globalization - A critical introduction. International Politics Studypack for Term 2, 2006.

5 Step Value-Chain Analysis for Customers’ Strategic Needs

Value-chain analysis is used for many purposes, but the process of examining customers’ value chains is relatively new. In our five-step process, Step 1 explains how internal and external value chains can be used separately and in related ways. Step 2 shows how to construct a customer’s value chain. Step 3 shows how to identify the customer’s business strategy by examining this value chain and using other kinds of information. Step 4 explains how to use additional information and intelligence to leverage that understanding into strategic needs and priorities. Finally, Step 5 explains how a firm’s marketing function can best use this method of value-chain analysis as a new strategic capability. Step 1: An overview of value-chain analysis Value chains may be defined in two ways: (1) within a company they describe the various value-added stages from purchasing materials to distributing, selling, and servicing the final product (Porter’s 1985 concept),[3] and (2) they also delineate the value-added stages from raw material to end-user as a product is manufactured and distributed, with each stage representing an industry. 4] For convenience, we will refer to these two definitions as ‘‘internal’’ and ‘‘external’’ value chains, respectively. The internal value chain is a key concept in the field of strategic management that has been thoroughly explored. In contrast, the external value chain has not been studied as extensively. The external value chain consists of the important ups tream/supply and downstream/distribution processes. However, even though these processes occur outside the corporation, the strategic opportunities they reveal and areas of risk they highlight warrant careful study. Consider: Outsourcing – involves transferring certain primary or support functions in the internal value chain to the external value chain. B Vertical integration – involves taking control of one or more additional stages of the external value chain and making them internal. B Horizontal expansion – involves new product lines or expanded channels of distribution, including geographic expansion. B Strategic alliances with suppliers – involves more closely managing external suppliers as if they were part of the company’s internal value chain, but without actually owning them (for example, Toyota’s Kaizen ystem, wherein key suppliers are located very near a factory and receive all kinds of help and training from Toyota to ensure smooth and efficient production). One of the most complex value chains today can be found in the oil industry. This chain has nearly 30 significant elements, starting with the search for oil (at the upstream end) and including fie ld production, transportation (pipelines and supertankers), refining and processing and, lastly, consumer gas stations (at the ‘‘downstream’’ end). Internally, the oil-industry value chain processes a broad range of products, including such major categories as oil/lubricants, gasoline, petrochemicals (plastics), fertilizers/pesticides, natural gas, power generation/electricity, and convenience stores. The firms that are considered major integrated oil companies participate in a significant number – sometimes all – of these external (upstream and downstream) and internal value-chain elements. In a 2006 issue of Strategy & Leadership, authors Wayne McPhee and David Wheeler suggested that strategists should use Porter’s concept to consider value-chain operations beyond the boundaries of the firm. Since its introduction, value-chain analysis has proven immensely valuable in three principal ways – cost analysis and reduction, differentiation, and product development – but the standard practice was for firms to analyze only their own value chain. Step 2: How to construct a customer’s value chain First, recognize that you need to construct both internal and external value chains for a particular customer. The internal value chain follows Porter’s original concept, which includes value-added steps from purchasing to distribution as well as support functions such as R&D and human resources. It’s tempting to let this generic diagram serve as the customer’s value chain, but it must be tailored to the particular customer. To produce a useful value-chain analysis, members of your engineering or sales team should ask the customer how its business processes add value and whether any have unique best-practice features. To perform the external value-chain analysis, team members should ask the customer a set of getting-to-know-you questions. What does your supply chain (the upstream value chain) look like? What role does your company play in it? How do your products reach their customers (the downstream value chain)? Your final diagram models only this single customer’s value chain and it represents virtually everything the customer does to add significant value. If your relationship with the customer permits a candid exchange of information, have the customer validate the value chain you have created. As an example of how the diagnostic process works, consider how a supplier to Wal-Mart might learn to enhance its value. [6] The objective of creating both internal and external value chains is to understand Wal-Mart well enough to be able to discern its implicit and explicit strategic concerns. Exhibits 3 and 4 depict preliminary pictures of Wal-Mart’s internal and external value chains. Getting to this initial stage is relatively easy – adding more detail, nuance, and understanding takes more time, involves interviewingWal-Mart executives, and more closely observing how the firm operates. Step 3: Inferring the customer’s business strategy Even long-time suppliers have trouble distinguishing critical customer activities from sometimes urgent but ultimately nonstrategic ones. Understanding your customer’s business strategy is therefore crucial. Value-chain analysis helps a supplier distinguish between the activities of the customer’s firm that directly support its competitive strategies – for its products and for enhancing key capabilities – and ordinary operations. For example, routine operations like billing customers or servicing the fleet of company vehicles must be done, and done well. But there is little if any competitive advantage to be gained from the superior execution of such activities. Nor are they likely to provide an opportunity for gaining new sources of revenue and profit. It is the customers’ strategic activities and projects that offer the potential for future profits and command the attention of your customers’ senior management. So by supporting strategic activities, B2B service providers stand to gain the high-margin work they hunger after, the work that produces the highest returns, and the work that should be their constant priority. The Fluor case Fluor Corporation is a global engineering and construction company providing major capital facilities for a vast range of industrial clients in many vertical markets. With as many as 2,000 projects under construction employing 40,000 workers in more than 50 countries at any time, Fluor operates in all geographic regions of the globe and in all parts of its customers’ supply chains, delivering engineering and construction management services – in sum, a full range of B2B services. The questions of where Fluor should concentrate its resources to meet its customers’ most urgent needs can become enormously complex. To rationalize this process, Fluor must determine which customer projects – the ones that address its customers’ greatest strategic needs and, hence, have potentially the greatest margins – have the highest value. For many years, Fluor has known the critical importance of understanding every one of its B2B customers’ businesses. But that was not enough. The questions for Fluor’s marketing team became, ‘‘How can we learn each customer’s business strategy and strategic needs? ’ Some of the many different sources of information about a customer’s strategy are: B Marketing communications including printed materials (brochures and advertisements), media communications (press releases) and marketing websites reveal new product directions and customer targeting; these provide insights into market positioning and marketing strategy. B Financial-community reports (annual reports, SEC filings, as well as meetings with financial analysts) shed light on internal strategic initiatives in addition to market-positioning moves. Annual reports form the basis of this Fluor case study, but 10Ks and analysts’ reports could prove equally useful. B The academic literature is replete with surgical dissections of strategically successful companies and industries. Business-school cases abound featuring companies like Apple and industries like automobiles. Wal-Mart, for one, has been the focus of many Harvard Business School cases. [8] B Many companies make their published strategic plans available to interested parties. For example, British Petroleum has published its strategy on its corporate website since 2000. B Consultants that specialize in competitive intelligence. B Face-to-face conversations with your customers. Step 4: Discovering the customer’s strategic needs Strategic activities are the activities a firm must implement in order to realize its strategy or strategies. Every strategy has such a set of activities. Insofar as a company finds doing any of these activities difficult, potential suppliers have been trained to see these as ‘‘needs. ’’ But, suppliers need to differentiate between operations that are difficult and ones that are strategic. For example, an innovation strategy requires a system for generating ideas and picking the best ones, cost estimating, engineering, R&D, prototype construction and testing, and market-acceptance testing. The pharmaceutical industry relies on a great many B2B service providers to support its new-drug-development programs in the drug-formulation (R&D) stage and also B2B service providers that develop new systems to expedite regulatory approval. Value-chain analysis identifies both as key strategic functions. Step 5: Making value-chain analysis a strategic capability of the marketing department Engineering/construction companies have developed at least two approaches to break the forces of commoditization in their industry: 1. Project screening and selectivity. Not all projects are created equal or represent equal opportunity. Service providers should select projects on the basis of projected margin, not projected revenue. They must pursue projects that build on their strengths and core competences, projects where they can apply their best talents to serve their customers. This is done by first serving customers’ commodity work to position them to then pursue customers’ strategic opportunities. This is the approach used in the Fluor example. 2. Become selected customers’ strategic business partner. Such practice puts the business-services provider right in the customers’ lap, a decidedly advantageous position to be in when strategic opportunities are brewing. It also leads to many sole-source or noncompetitive-bid opportunities and, potentially, to higher margins. 1. The method described in the article is based on actual experience of one author when he worked for Fluor Corp. . A recent example is Ram Charan, What the CustomerWants You to Know: How Everybody Needs to Think Differently about Sales, Portfolio (Penguin Group), 2007. The application of value-chain analysis to B2B clients of engineering and construction management services was originally suggested by Don F. Coleman of Fluor Corporation in May, 2000. 3. Michael E. Porter, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance, Free Press, 1985. 4. Stanley C. Abraham, Strategic Planning: A Practical Guide for Competitive Success, Thomson South-Western, 2006, 214. . Wayne McPhee and David Wheeler, ‘‘Making the case for the added-value chain,’’ Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 34 No. 4, 2006, Exhibit 1, p. 41; exhibit used with permission. 6. The supplier could have many other customers, and could replicate this process with those other customers. Typically, doing such an analysis would be reserved for the supplier’s top 3-5 customers. 7. The authors found little in the literature about B2B marketing practices based on knowledge of the customer’s value chain and business strategy. 8. See, for, example Harvard Business School Case #9-794-024, ‘‘Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. ,’’ August 6, 1996, which provides a thorough review of Wal-Mart’s business practices up to its international (horizontal) expansion. 9. Michael E. Porter, ‘‘What is strategy? ’’ Harvard Business Review, November-December 1996. 10. HBS Case #9-794-024, op. cit. 11. Harvard Business School Case #9-302-102, ‘‘Robert Mondavi and the Wine Industry,’’ May 3, 2002. Mondavi’s flagship brand ‘‘Woodbridge’’ is a rare example of a brand name pointing, not to product benefits, but up the value chain to process benefits.

Children Who Are Abused And Neglected At Home - 1756 Words

The research shows children who are abused and neglected at home who are reported as such are more likely to receive immediate help. Further, young mothers who had children early in life and who grew up in an abusive family tend to exert the same abusive behavior learned from their parents. Within the same context, when household is comprised of multiple children, especially from low-income if the parents are not equipped with the proper child rearing techniques and under extreme pressure, abusive behaviors are distant on to the children. Other factors contributing to parental abuse and neglect can be attributed to mental and medical conditions and external factors such as media, causing a young mother to be abusive or neglect to her†¦show more content†¦This has plays a part in curbing the generational cycle and provide a record for any future incidences. â€Å"People shouldn’t assume that all parents with histories of abuse and neglect will abuse their kids† (Widom C. , 2015), alcohol and drugs can have an effect on abuse. Gender Specific Alcohol/ Drugs The men gender has 55 emotional abuse was associated with a younger age of first alcohol use and a greater severity of substance abuse (Scott M. Hyman, 2006) (Garcia, 2006) (Sinha, 2006). In women 32 sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and overall maltreatment was associated with a younger age of first alcohol use, and emotional abuse, emotion neglect, and overall maltreatment was associated with a greater severity of substance abuse (Garcia, 2006) (Sinha, 2006) (Scott M. Hyman, 2006). The prediction is that both gender when been abusing alcohol they both become using cocaine user. Reason that both gender get addicted to drugs because alcohol is not doing much now because there body is use to it. Both of the genders once they are addicted to alcohol and drugs they will be more abuse to their children reason why is that once they don’t have any money for their addiction they will take on their children frustration until they have some drugs in there system. That is why when their children grows up they pretty much will be addict to alcohol and drugs too