Julie ZHU

In the 1920s, due to American’s dissatisfaction towards the
extremely crowded and chaotic public transportation system,
automobile soon rose to prominence as the preferred means of
transport in many American major cities. During this time
automobile company Ford advertised itself as the embodiment
of American dream, with an emphasis on low-cost mobility,
self-agency and identity labeling expression that came along
with the car which takes the driver anywhere. As the first mass
produced automobile Model T succeeded in earning hundreds of
thousands of Americans tickets to personal freedom. In the
1960s, after the Federal Highway Act enacted in 1956 which
consolidated automobiles as the preferred type of transportation and solidified the construction of highways on a national level,Ford in the meantime highlighted its automation features, comfort, and speed.
Advertisements are mirrors of automobile industries in that they reflect the ideal image the industrialists intended to convey to their customers. A shift in advertisement strategy reflected the elevation of automobiles from a nascent franchise to enable people to evade the chaos of the street, to a practical,
commonplace tool of transportation. A comparison of the advertisements from the two golden ages of the American automobile history can shed light on the major shift in terms of the national landscape for the American car industry.

Eurocentrism is defining European self-image through contacts with the other civilizations. It is the assertion of the superiority of European civilization over the other civilizations and of the universal diffusion of a norm based on European civilization. European civilization is a collective cultural identity of the Europeans, which has gone through different historical stages and spacial shifts, including accumulation of culture, and the awareness of the common identity under various dynamics including ideology and religion. Throughout history, European civilization lies at the core of Eurocentrism, while Eurocentrism provided the perspective, self-image, and stimulated the empowerment of European civilization.

Chinese immigrants in America during the latter half of the 19th century was one of the ethnic groups with the greatest cultural and racial difference compared to the native white Americans. Their naturalization process in the predominantly Anglo-Saxon mainstream society clashed with their cultural obstinacy, their Chinese roots (e.g. Confucianism) brought from their upbringing remained relatively stronger than any other immigrant groups, acted as both the cause and the outcome of the anti-Chinese discourse. This paper shall provide a close reading of the primary source: “Story of a Chinaman” excerpted from The Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans and shall examine how this story testifies the Chinese cultural obstinacy affecting the naturalization of the Chinese immigrants at the turn of the 20th century.