Week 5: The Fresh America!

Extract from De Crevecoeur - Letters from an American Farmer

• Chapter 5, What is an American?

"Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world. Americans are the western pilgrims, who are carrying along with them that great mass of arts, sciences, vigour and industry, which began long since in the east. They will finish the great circle." 

 J. Hector St John De Crevecoeur,  Letters from an American Farmer. (New York: Oxford University Press. 1998), p44.



Modern day interpretation

• Obama: "A New Vision Of An America In Which Prosperity Is Shared"

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/08/13/obama_a_new_vision_of_an_america_which_prosperity_is_shared.html

"Too many folks still don't have a sense that tomorrow will be better than today. And so, the question in this election is which way do we go?" President Obama asked at a fundraiser in Chicago on Sunday.
"Do we go forward towards a new vision of an America in which prosperity is shared?" Obama asked. "Or do we go backward to the same policies that got us in the mess in the first place?"
"I believe we have to go forward," Obama said. "I believe we have to keep working to create an America where no matter who you are, no matter what you look like, no matter where you come from, no matter what your last name is, no matter who you love, you can make it here if you try. That's what's at stake in November. That's what is why I am running for a second term as president of the United States of America."

In relation to the upcoming Presidential election President Barrack Obama spoke at his campaign fundraiser in Chicago about the way in which he wants and see's America to be, in that he believes that with his help America will be an ever progressive country that doesn't discriminate its inhabitants.

In comparison to De Crevecoeur's there are similarities in that they both talk about how everyone is equal and in essence stand as one. It is interesting that the way Barrack Obama talks about unity and in which America must move forward thus preventing from repeating it's past, which can relate to early historical periods in America where unity and equality was very much non-existent. For example between the Native Americans and the Settlers.