American Research Journal of History and Culture

Anthony Julian Wu

In a broad survey of the American founding, the author argues that Virginia was the indispensable state necessary to accomplish pivotal events like the American independence movement, successfully prosecuting the Revolutionary War, creating a government for the new republican nation, and maintaining her independence in the War of 1812. In order to make this argument, “Virginia: The Key to America” focuses on Virginia’s unmatched contributions to articulating the principles and aspirations of American independence, it’s crucial location and participation in the revolutionary war effort, and finally, its cohort of talented political leadership ready to steer America’s journey through the founding period.

Leo Yizhou Lin

Classical Athens is strongly associated with two phenomena: democracy, and slavery. The interaction between these two institutions, seemingly at odds when evaluated by modern standards, reveals a complex web of philosophical, social, and economic relationships. The question of whether or not Athenian democracy was predicated on slavery as an institution has been the subject of scholarly debate for centuries, and no strict answer has been reached. However, the inherent economic requirements of Athenian democracy allow for a more focused study of how slavery functioned in relation to political and social governance. This paper explores a variety of ancient sources and modern scholarship to demonstrate that slavery played a number of vital roles to the functioning of the Athenian economy, directly and indirectly supporting ‘democratic’ systems. In doing so, this paper highlights the complexities in interpreting ancient sources alongside population and economic projections, as well as navigating the symbiosis of fiscal and chattel policies. 

Xinyi (Angela) Li

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the United States enacted a series of Asian exclusion laws, from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act that disproportionately limited Japanese immigration. When comparing the two nationalities’ path to elimination from American society, supposedly distinct due to the successive nature of their arrival, a notable pattern emerges. The geopolitical, economic, and moral arguments that led to Chinese exclusion initially presented first-generation Japanese immigrants (Issei), arriving in 1885, in a positive light. Yet, as this article argues, the Issei, eventually receiving criticism in the same three realms as the Chinese did, fell from favor following the very trajectory of their Asian predecessors, regardless of former goodwill. These comparably changing sentiments underscorethe heavy influence that U.S. geopolitics and economy held over the nation’s foreign policy with politicians racializing the “immoral” Asian immigrants as a tool to garner support for legislations much more utilitarian than, in the public’s eye, discriminatory.

Jin Wang

Since political press exploited ordinary civilians, artists who were ordinary civilians criticized politics in their artworks. In 19th century, artists created Romanticism as a way to explore freedom and nature. This article explains the meaning of Romanticism through three artists and their artworks.

Xuan Zhang

The environmental justice movement was a movement in the late 20th century fighting against environmental racism/ discrimination. This paper examines the stages of environmentalism preceding the environmental justice movement for contextualization. The catalyst of the movement at the protest in Warren County, NC, is examined in detail. The focus of this paper is the most significant legal battle during the environmental justice movement, Citizens Against Nuclear Trash (CANT) against the Louisiana Energy Services’ results and its impacts. Many notable leaders in fighting for environmental justice, such as Dr. Robert D. Bullard and Dorceta E. Taylor, are referenced. The central argument of this paper is that the CANT vs. LES’ legal battle played a pivotal role in altering the trajectory of the movement. CANT, a local grassroots organization without much funding, defeating the federal-backed NRC in a lawsuit demonstrates that the justice system has finally realized the issue of environmental discrimination. 

Ziyang Ge

George Orwell declared that sport is “mimic warfare” — “ war minus the fighting”; others call it a “continuation of warby other means” (Orwell 1945). A comparison of the 1942 Death Match in Nazi- occupied Ukraine and the 1943 Real Madrid versus FC Barcelona (Barça) game in Francoist Spain reflects that political divisions carried into the stadium, and that soccer became a proxy for actual rebellion. For both Ukrainians and Catalonians, soccer served as a potent symbol of national dignity and a vehicle for asserting cultural identity. Under fascism, soccer was the “opiate of the people” (Brohm 1978) — a distraction created by the oppressors to deprive the oppressed of political consciousness — but for Ukrainians and Catalans, it also functioned as a form of cultural resistance and identity. Long after WWII ended,successive generations used these matches to inform historical memory and created myths around them.