How Culturally Literate Are You?

His name was Benjamin Banneker.

The revolutionary movements of Puerto Rico and the Philippines were betrayed by the United States when it forced both countries to become its protectorates and replaced Spanish rule with U.S. Colonial rule. This was the period of "Manifest Destiny" and the beginning of U.S. imperialism. The last decade of the nineteenth century could be considered the most aggressively racist and imperialist of U.S. History. Effects of that decade are still very real: the United States still occupies Puerto Rico. Puerto Ricans and Filipinos live and work on the U.S. mainland but experience highly disproportionate poverty rates: segregation was not legally undermined in the United States until 1954, and its effects are still felt; American Indian nations and Hawaiian people are still attempting to reclaim land, treaty rights, and legal recognition; and the economic status of European Americans is considerably higher than that of other groups partly because of their legalized access to jobs over several decades.

Songhay was one of a number of highly advanced empires in Africa, a fact rarely developed in textbooks. Some books still perpetuate the myth of Africa as the "dark continent," despite increasing archaeological evidence that it may have been the seat of civilization where the human species originated.

The victims of this action were Japanese American citizens; Italian Americans also experienced confiscation of property.

Many states protected this right, but some did not, and the federal government did not until 1970.

The acronym stands for League of United Latin American Citizens.

Mexican and Mexican American women traditionally have occupied an important place in the home but also have been involved in political and labor struggles. (A good source of inormation on this subject is Adelaida R. Del Castillo [Ed.], Between Borders: Essays on Mexicana/Chicana History [Encino, CA: Floricanto Press, 1990].)

The surgeon was Daniel H. Williams. Charles Drew pioneered research on blood plasma. Both were African Americans.

This is an example of how some European Americans have appropriated a song created by another racial group and passed it off as their own. This has happened over and over again, particularly with music created by African Americans.

As semisovereign nations, several Native American nations have their newspapers. Some, such as the Menominee, produce their own license plates. Many maps of the United States still do not recognize American Indian reservations, which perpetuates the invisibility of these governmental units among the non-American Indian population.

Mong people had migrated to Laos before the Vietnam war; they had no country of their own. They sided with the United States during the war and lost many people then. Because they were allied with the United States, thousands were driven out of Laos to refugee camps in Thailand, and they subsequently immigrated to the United States.

It is interesting that despite this attitude toward African Americans, Lincoln later became known as the "Great Emancipator." His position on slavery was probably dictated more by politics than by moral concerns.

A more plausible answer is, of course, that the surgeon was the boy's mother.

Paradoxically, although creativity flourished among European men during this time, women's status fell as women in large numbers were persecuted and burned as witches. Creative and independent women were especially vulnerable; women's power was suppressed and maligned to such an extent that today "witches" are laughed at and ridiculed, and the persecution of women is barely remembered.

It has been introduced every year since then.

It was the Cherokee who were moved, not the Sioux. This action was actually taken against a U.S. Supreme Court Ruling.

While there is evidence ranging from well established to speculative that all of the people mentioned (and more) arrived in the Americas on the dates indicated, the best answer is probably (E), inasmuch as millions of Native Americans were present long before any of these others arrived. In fact, the speak of the "discovery of America" is an insult to Native Americans, as it seems to imply that the Americas had no significance until someone who was not Native American arrived and "discovered" them.

A first-generation Japanese American is called issei, and a second generation Japenese American is called nisei. These are Japanese terms that Japanese Americans use to describe themselves in the United States.

There were also many other incidents of violence against Italians in the late 1800s.