Second Quarter Reflection

What is the American Experience?
For the duration of first quarter, both AP Lang and AP US History centralized around the first century or two of American history, during which colonists and patriots were searching for a secured sense of independence.  Conflicts with the British and other nations were fresh in my mind as I believed that the American Experience was the inseparable pair of independence and identity formation.  However, as my knowledge of US History and the great rhetoricians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has expanded, I have come to identify the American Experience as a concept that can be applied to both quarters.  The American Experience is the relationship between inferiority and superiority in America, from  1607 to present-day.  Whether it be Indians forced onto reservation by their white "superiors" or the political machines of the Gilded Age taking advantage of European immigrants, almost all events in American history have been driven by the sense of superiority from an individual or group of people.  For as long as class divisions exist and individuals are motivated by the desire to succeed and climb up the social ladder, the battle of those considered inferior or superior will remain a the prominent backbone of the American Experience.