USA, myths and realities, American Dream - an overview - Englisch Abitur, Oberstufe - Abiturthemen

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hi you're studying for the german abbey

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2 and you'd like to remember the most

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important points about the usa and the

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american dream then this is the right

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video for you let's jump right

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in i divided this video into several

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sections let me show them to you before

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i go into detail on each one of them so

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we have first the concept of the

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american dream what is it what do people

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mean when they say that what are some of

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the backgrounds of this concept

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then the culture wars what does that

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term mean what ideas does it stand for

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and immigration which of course for a

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country like the usa is very important

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the

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african-american experience and why that

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matters

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and where does the american dream stand

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today a topic that is often discussed in

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the habitual tasks so it's good to know

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a little bit about it let's go

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so the american dream this is actually a

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term that somebody really came up with

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and invented and james trusslo adams

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wrote a book and it's really not one

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dream one idea but it's a set of

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expectations and beliefs so ideas that

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made people want to come to the usa and

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that for the people

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there who were living there and sort of

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shape what they thought about their own

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country and it's not really again one

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idea but it's a set of different and

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pretty complex

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philosophical ideas religious ideas etc

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and the common references that we will

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hear in everyday speech when people talk

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about it are usually things like

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that america is the land of opportunity

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and you can get from rags to riches and

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if you work hard you'll make it and

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you'll be rich etc and what all of these

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common references focus on is the idea

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that you as an individual as a person

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can work hard and will make it but this

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is only a small aspect of the bigger

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idea of the american dream

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many people say that the usa is not a

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traditional country and if that's true

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if you compare it to let's say france

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france is a country that grew

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traditionally

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and organically and the usa is more an

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idea people argue because

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it was founded by people who came there

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in order to set up a new and better

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country

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the foundation are some documents an

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important one is of course the

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declaration of independence independence

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from the british

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all men are created equal is one of the

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important terms or slogans in there and

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the right to life liberty and the

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pursuit of happiness

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the constitution of course it's also

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important it starts where with the

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preamble and you see it up here it

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starts with the expression we the people

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of the united states so it clearly shows

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this is a government that is by the

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people for the people of the people it's

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not a king who comes there and says this

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is how i'm going to rule my country but

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everything depends on the people and

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they make up this government

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this concept of the american dream

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should lead to prosperity for people so

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it's sort of um

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some wealth so not necessarily riches

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but enough money and resources to live

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on nicely

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there should be freedom for everybody

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and equal rights

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there's a constant debate as i said

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before about is this american dream

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attainable is it still true does it work

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and i'll go into more detail on that at

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the end of this presentation

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the american dream as an idea as a

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concept really consists of different

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points and i'll show you some of them

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here and the first idea is progress so

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that

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there will be technological progress and

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things will get better

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then the idea of manifest destiny this

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is the sort of religious idea that god

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has chosen the usa as his country for

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people to go there and set up a better

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country the other idea is democracy so

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that really the only

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form of government that goes works with

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the american dream as a democratic

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government

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one other idea is the melting pot the

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idea represented in this cartoon up

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there that

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people come together from different

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backgrounds and they're sort of melted

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together into one identity

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also important is the concept of

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frontiers so having somewhere to go

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where the land is

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apparently uninhabited of course people

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lived there but they just pretended they

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didn't and this is expressed nicely in

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this painting up there progress it's

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called where you can see this sort of

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big angel moving west and people moving

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west and setting up railroads also has

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to do with the concept of progress

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because that's the name of the painting

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but it also shows the idea of how

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frontiers are approached and how people

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move beyond the frontiers to set up

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civilization and this is of course still

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true today you could argue where people

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of course are trying to explore space

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etc

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the idea of success also is important

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represented up there by that house so

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having a nice house with a picket fence

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having a car having two children and a

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dog etc

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and you could argue that all these

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points that sound pretty positive are

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also go along with negative aspects and

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i'll wrote them down here so progress

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they believe that things get better

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could be argued that

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it's a point of decadence now where

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things are really not getting better any

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longer manifest destiny could be argued

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is sort of arrogant why is america the

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chosen country and not any of the other

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many countries on earth

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democracy has many problems in the usa

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today which we'll go into more detail

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later

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for the melting point you could say this

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is not really true there are the races

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are separated and there's racism for the

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frontiers you could say well this is an

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imperialist idea that i'm going to other

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people's countries and claiming it as

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mine

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and the idea of success of course could

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be countered by materialism so you're

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just looking at kind of what materials

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you have not at least let's say

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spiritual well-being etc

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let's move on to a pretty different um

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aspect

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to the culture wars and the photos here

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represent

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the people arguing for different

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positions

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and um we have of course two important

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parties two main parties only in the usa

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and these are the democrats and the

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republicans in the existence of these

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two parties has sort of led to a culture

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where we have two very different

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positions that people have but they're

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not only political people also in their

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culture so what they they do in their

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lifestyle sort of

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also move into these camps and

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for example it matters whether you are

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religious or what kind of church you go

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to all that often has to do with a

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political position as well

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one of these positions is often called

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progressive and liberal

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it means these people support minorities

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and be it a minorities in terms of

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sexual orientation be it minorities in

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terms of race these people are for

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immigration they are against guns so

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think there should be gun laws to

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restrict access to guns they are for the

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environment they want to fight climate

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change

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so they need a strong state to do all of

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these things and that includes being

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willing to pay higher taxes as well

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often these people live in cities or

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bigger towns and often they vote

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democrat democrat the color for this

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party is blue and the donkey up there is

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the symbol for this party

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then the other group are the

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conservatives you could call them they

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are usually against immigration they are

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against active support for a minority so

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they're not

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racist as such but they're saying well

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these people just need to work hard and

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accept that life is not fair always they

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don't say you should really actively do

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something to help these people often

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they are often for guns and they say

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there should be access to guns they are

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for businesses say that businesses

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should succeed and not pay many taxes

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in general these people think often that

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the state should not interfere much with

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people's life only as much as necessary

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and not more at all often they live in

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rural areas and often of course they

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vote republican

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i am simplifying here of course matters

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are much more complicated but to break

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it down to these two positions makes it

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easier and there's a lot of truth to it

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let's talk a little bit about

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immigration because it's so important

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for the usa as a country because the

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identity of the usa

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again in contrast to other countries is

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based on the idea that people came from

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somewhere to live there and not really

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many people can claim to have lived in

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the united states for forever and for

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many generations

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the idea of the melting pot is connected

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to that now the

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immigrants often came from europe or in

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the beginning of this time this period

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of immigration they came from europe and

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this has sort of served to

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sort of establish the country as a more

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or less european country at first to

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show this in numbers let's take a look

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at this graph here and you can see that

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for uh from 1820 to 1920 there was

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pretty much

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to a large large extent immigration only

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from europe and just from some other um

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continents and places

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and this changed after the second world

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war where we have more immigration from

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the other um americas so from um

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from south america etc we have more

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immigration from asia we have more

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immigration from africa so it gets much

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more diverse but these people of course

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arrived later and you can see this

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dynamic that this pattern has created

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today and you can see the effect it has

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on racial groups and how racial groups

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feel what position they have in society

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or should have in society

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there are of course arguments for and

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against additional immigration that i

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won't go into detail here for time

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reasons but it's good to look them up to

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remember that if this topic comes up you

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can write about it

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many people differentiate rightly

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between legal and illegal immigration

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and make a difference between the two of

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them so it should be something you can

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integrate in an argumentation as well

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let's talk about the

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african-american experience

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and sadly of course we have the history

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of slavery where slaves were brought

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from africa to america to work there

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they were only freed or the civil war

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only ended this practice of slavery the

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civil war was about slavery in fact to a

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large extent

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but after that they weren't simply free

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of course and everything was fine but we

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had segregation so that means people had

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different schools different seats on

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buses

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different

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restrooms washrooms etc and these laws

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are called jim crow laws

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and there was lynching that means people

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were killed when people thought they had

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committed a crime so white people

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usually would kill a black person simply

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because they thought this person had

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committed a serious crime so the person

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wasn't brought to the police or to a

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court there was no lawsuit it was simply

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killed and we have the ku klux klan who

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did some of these things and especially

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in the south this situation was bad like

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that

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then we had the civil rights movement in

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the 1950s and 60s but this is hundred

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years later only um where people

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protested against lots of these problems

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and tried to at least have voting rights

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for black people that there's no formal

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segregation anymore etc and this

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movement had lots of successes it didn't

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of course completely

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improve the situation of black people

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overnight but that made some significant

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advancements and of course martin luther

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king is very important in this context

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he gave the famous i have a dream speech

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where um he which was part of the civil

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rights movement

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then many people say when obama was

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elected in 2009 this was a significant

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step for african americans because he

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was of course the first african-american

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president

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today we have the black lives matter

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campaign which focuses on black people

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who were killed for minor offenses by

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police officers

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and so there's growing awareness around

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this topic

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what can we say then about the american

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dream today what shape is it in there

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are of course many many things to say on

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that let me limit it down to a couple of

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points that you could mention in an

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essay in an argumentation in a comment

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etc

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the material aspect of the americans

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dream so the idea that you should have

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or people can have a house in the

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suburbs and can have a nice car

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and can have two children etc this is

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increasingly difficult for many people

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to get simply because house prices have

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risen a lot in comparison to income over

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the last say 50 years

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and you need very good education to get

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a good job that will pay a lot which

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also wasn't always the case

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and then the ideals that the american

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dream includes equality equal chances

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and that the usa is an open country

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where immigrants can

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go to

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this is not really true

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or hasn't become better the situation of

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these ideals people are still not

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completely equal it depends a lot on how

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much money they grew up with what race

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they are etc the usa is not an extremely

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open country so there is immigration of

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course but it's not huge it's not like

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everybody has a chance to um immigrate

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to the usa

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we have the culture wars that i spoke

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about before and this idea of the two

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parties um means that people

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really assign their lives to one or

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other parties more or less and this

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partisanship the idea that your party

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and your group is very important to you

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of course sort of makes a working

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functioning democracy very difficult so

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this is under threat as well

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still however the american dream is a

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very important concept

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it's more like a reference for people

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it's an ideal that people strive towards

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it's not necessarily something that

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exists in reality but something that

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people want to work towards and this is

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still important if it's going on in

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people's heads and people consider this

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idea

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we should also not forget that the usa

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is still an extremely attractive place

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for many people many people if they had

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a choice would move to america and many

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countries around the world and of course

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this is because

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when compared with other countries the

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usa is still a very very uh

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well-functioning country we need to

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compare it to countries in south america

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we need to compare two countries in

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africa and asia and if we look at that

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then we can see yes there is a very high

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standard of living there are high wages

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there is a lot of

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justice is still working etc education

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system works to a large extent nothing

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is perfect here but of course many

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things still work very well so we

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shouldn't easily dismiss the usa and say

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nothing's working out nicely there we

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are criticizing the usa on a very high

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level we should keep that in mind when

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we talk about the american dream i hope

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i was able to help you a little bit

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with studying for your english abitua

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about the american dream or the usa in

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general and take a look on my channel

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there are a number of videos about the

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abi tula and about many many other

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things as well i hope i'll see you back

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again soon goodbye

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