For this work on USA, we chose a few topics that we wanted to talk about such as :
–Thanksgiving and explain this very famous tradition in American culture and also see how controversial It can be too.
–right to bear arms according to the second amendment of the constiution
–cultural influence over the rest of the world from the end of the Second World War to nowadays
- Thanskgiving is known as the most popular party of the year in the US. It is even more important than Christmas. At that time of the year, on the fourth Thursday of November, the families reunite and have a big meal together, usually eating turkey and spending lots of time together. This party that can be considered as a tradition in the whole country. Its origins come from the harvest fest the Pilgrims organized in 1621 after they had a successful growing season and after facing the first problems they had with food when they settled in America. It lasted 3 days and many Native Americans were invited. 90 of them were invited. Those harvest fests were repeated later first as a religious custom, a way to thanks God for their successful growing season and to pray. It later became a more a civil tradition.
However, this party which means to “say thank you” to the Indians and to what they showed to the settlers when they arrive to survive is quite controversial when we know what the settlers did to the Native Americans once they became more powerful and they did not need anymore. They starved the Native Americans until they died and killed all the buffalos, their only way to get food.
![](https://rosietheriveterhistoryandculture.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/unknown.jpeg)
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–Right to bear arms : this right has always been defended by lots of American people since it is in the Constitution but The Unites States are one of the rare country in the world allowing people to bear arms under no condition because there is no mental-health test done for someone who wants to buy a weapon. This issue is becoming more and more controversial nowadays and some associations and lots of people even American people want a strict regulation of the right to bear arms but nothing has been done yet since the majority of the population and also the politicians are in favor of this right to bear arms in a free way. Every day, there are mass shootings, in schools but also in the streets or it also increases domestic violence and the death rate is very high in the United States. The country is for sure a way more violent country than the European country for example. Some famous school shootings led to an amount of protestation and emotion and some people are trying to regulate this right.
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–Cultural influence over the rest of the world : Since the end of the Second World War and the win of the United States alongside Great Britain and France, the United States was the only country which did not know any fight on its territory. They had more than half of the gold stock in the whole world and helping European countries financially, it grew richer and richer. Little by little, they culture started to invade all of the European countries they were helping to finally being present almost in the entire world.
This culture is very large and diverse : it comes from food, with chocolate and then other American specialities such as burgers (and the famous McDonalds implanted in many countries all over the world) and then goes with cinema and music but also fashion. American movies and American music are still known as the most popular ones today and we even call this situation the “Americanization” of the world. No one can clearly escape from it even by choice.
Here are some examples of that process :
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![](https://rosietheriveterhistoryandculture.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/unknown-4.jpeg)
![](https://rosietheriveterhistoryandculture.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/mcdonalds-playa-del-carmen-eduardo-p.jpg)