California Dreamin'

My paternal grandfather immigrated from Mexico to California and met my grandmother who was already in the states, had my father and raised him here. My mother, born and raised in Mexico met my father while he visited Mexico and they both came to live in San Jose. There's a discernible amount of dichotomy between the Trasks and Hamiltons, the Trasks (Adam, Charles, Cal, Aron) seem to have grown up in a rougher environment and seem more estranged from each other, as opposed to the Hamiltons who to me seem to exemplify the typical knit together family that overcome hardship together. Those who come to California seek opportunity and an environment of diversity with little to no discriminatory worry.

Gangster Genre

Throughout cinematic history, the Gangster film has always been characterized by having crime, violence and a character with a certain dilemma and develops throughout the course of the film dynamically, like Scarface and GoodFellas. The way it's changed is that in the early days, the filming of gangster life seemed more held back and less violence and grittiness, whereas today's gangster films display this violence and grit since the Hayes' Code is now defunct.

Angels With Dirty Faces

Given the principles of the Hayes Code, the film breaks it by having the criminals prevail in their actions without getting caught and by showing the police in a way that's not in full respect of them.

MLA

1) Facts that one is knowledgeable of before reading an outside source. EX: The DOI was signed in 1776.

2) The title and page number(s) are cited.

3) The page number is not cited, but the title of the source is.

Gangster Movies

They usually involve a central character who comes up in the underground world of crime, or go around extracting info from people in order to meet their ends. These films also usually have a discernible amount of violence, cursing and depictions of crime.

American Exceptionalism

I think Americans are unique, in sense of our culture that has inspired many other country to adopt a lot of our customs and ways of living. If I lined people up, I'm not sure I could pick out an American based on how a person looks ethnically, since the U.S. has many different ethnicities and American itself is only a nationality. The only way I could distinguish would be the way a person was dressed or how they spoke. I think that 'East of Eden' tells us that the American experience is one filled with hardships and successes, achieving what you've wanted and having lived a life that you are content with.

John Steinbeck

1. His hometown of Salinas was his inspiration and the foundation of his writings, enjoying the place where he spent his childhood.

2. He spoke his mind on taboo subjects like religion by having readers have new perspectives on how to view those things, which in his time was something not many would do. He was also accused of being a communist due to the anti-consumerist views in Grapes of Wrath.

3. It was very much like Thoreau's Walden, spending two years in Tahoe where he was with nature and drew much inspiration from here and developed more of his love for nature.

4. He wrote about the lower classes, the people from his hometown, the people involved in the realities of the underworld of his city (crime, prostitution, etc.)

5. They became foundations around which he'd write his stories, such as the Depression in "Of Mice and Men" and the Dust Bowl in "East of Eden".