Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Bread and Chocolate/The Golden Door

 BREAD AND CHOCOLATE
     Not sure what to say about this one given that we only saw a portion of the movie. It is fairly interesting and I think that eventually I may watch the whole thing on my own time.
           What I would really like to talk about is the fact that Giovanni dyes his hair yellow in order to fit in with German society.  There is defiantly a prejudice against European Immigrants and his hair does give him a new sense of "respect". But looks don't change personality or origin. Though he may have dyed his hair and looks like a German, he still does not know their language and is still an Italian inside.

                                                                                       THE GOLDEN DOOR
         I had actually already seen part of this movie in my history class. My teacher also used it to demonstrate the process of immigration and life on Ellis Island. It's hard to imagine that America would force people to undergo such testing and live in such crowded conditions, but you also have to look at it from her point of view. The U.S. was considered the land of opportunity and they literally had thousands of people arriving each day. There had to be some type of sorting system. They wanted people who were generally smart and could work hard. The Americans believe that intelligence was inherited, and that any immigrant who entered into society stood the chance of reproducing and parenting "stupid" children. That is why they had a whole selection system, to separate the smart and dumb of society, in order to keep the US as "bright" as possible.