Racial and Ethnic Groups in the United States Essay

Racial and Ethnic Groups in the United States - Essay Example According to the 2000 U.S. census, almost 16 million Italian Americans live in the United States. They constitute about 6 percent of the U.S. population. Most are grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the 3.8 million Italian-born immigrants who entered the United States from 1899 to 1924. Some are descendants of Italian-speaking immigrants from Austria, Switzerland, and Latin America. Others are themselves immigrants, including the more than 1 million who came to the United States after World War II ended in 1945. Two-thirds of the Italian American population live in and around major cities in the northeastern part of the United States." (Italian American). Only America possesses the probability of encountering this problem because of countless causes - immigration, preservation of heritage of immigrants, racial and ethnic differences, and cultural differences to name a few. It is apparent that race is about a social construct rather than biological since society has a different set of rules for each racial group. "racism is based on your physical traits. so what you look like, and ethnicity is based on what you identify yourself as. so simplisticly, racial groups are what other people catagorise you in (based on your physical demenor and look, e.g - 'black' 'white' 'brown' 'yellow' 'red' etc...) and your ethnic group is who you identify being, like you might share commonalities with certain ethnic groups for example be very cultural or religious and identify being a 'pacific islander' just because you were not born in the pacific islands or have pacific island parents or any such blood in you, if you feel you identify strongly with that group (for example - bing taught or brought up in a pacific household or around other pacific island families, children, churches etc.)you can identify yourself in that ethnic group (Ethnical groups). Furthermore, there is no alternative conceptualization of race that I would advocate because it is a social construct. This is due to the fact that society has defined what is expected of each racial group, which has nothing to do with biological aspects of being Italian, Mexican or Irish. From there, it has been apparent that Italian Americans have been a dominant ethnical group because of their food and their place in politics within American culture. Therefore, it seems that the Italian mafia has an upper hand in American politics, which gives them a higher rank than the Russian mafia in America. With that, in America, it is apparent the Italian mafia has skills that fit the labor union, which gives them an inside to American politics. Few Italian Americans today identify closely with Italy. Even fewer read Italian literature, follow Italian politics, or belong to organizations that promote Italian culture in the United States. However, many remain in touch with family or friends in Italy, and many more socialize with other Italian Americans in the United States. Among themselves, Italian Americans still recognize cultural differences rooted in the distinctive regional cultures of northern, central, and southern Italy, and Sicily. The majority of Italian Americans belong to the Roman Catholic Church. However, almost half of recent generations have intermarried with Catholics of other ethnic backgrounds or with people from different denominations, such as

An Important Person in History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

An Important Person in History - Essay Example The South African federal government had always implemented the policy of racial separation, with keeping the black people of South Africa far way from attaining their rights, including the right to vote (Nye). However, in the year 1990, nelson Mandela was discharged from the prison and subsequently, was permitted to negotiate with the president of South Africa of that time, that is, Frederik Willem de Klerk, regarding the rights of the black people, especially the right to vote. And subsequently, the negotiation resulted in the elimination of Apartheid, with the influx of the multi-racial elections, in the year 1994 (Ebrahim) The true achievement for the black people of South Africa was that they managed to attain their rights without any such major riots by the people who were against the decision of the government to issue the black people of South Africa, their rights, which they deserved to attain, despite the fact that south Africa had a long history of racial aggression and vi cious police force. Nelsen Mandela in his entire life had to fight against his own countrymen, to regain the rights of the black people of his country. However, besides that, there are also some other ways as well, which nelson Mandela adapted, in order to assist his country to transform itself, for a better future (Benson) As the struggle started by Mandela for the purpose of helping the black people of South Africa to regain their rights was almost a peaceful effort, hence this made nelson Mandela earned him the  1993 Nobel Peace Prize. The revolutionary effort of nelson Mandela assisted South Africa to officially convert itself into a democratic state (Mandela) As besides introducing world’s one of the most progressive constitutions, South Africa also empowered the black people to contribute their skills and expertise in the growth and development of South Africa. And as a matter of

Importance of supervision in the workplace Research Paper

Importance of supervision in the workplace - Research Paper Example This small restaurant is among the favorite restaurants frequented by students from Fordham University. The menu comprises of snacks, entrees and drinks. This restaurant is unique as a buffet is located near the entrance whereby workers are line up with the main objective of providing quality service to the restaurant’s daily customers. A burrito bar is adjacent to the buffet. This burrito bar has all the items needed to make a burrito or a sandwich. The room adjacent the burrito bar towards the interior holds a machine packed with fountain beverages .This room also contains the soup and salad bar. The restaurant also contains a dining room with a table put near the register that acts as a resting place for the workers during breaks. The dining room holds three television sets with one connected near this table. It is also important to assert that the observations were performed in this area. Observation My observation for this report took four days to complete. The first thre e days of the observation were done with the absence of the head supervisor, Kimberly. Observation on the fourth day was done in the presence of Kimberly. This is attributed to the fact that Kimberly was on vacation on the first three days of the observation. Kimberly is an African American female aged twenty nine. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Food Science, Nutrition, and Dietetics. The observation included taking notes on the different jobs as well as the special tasks that the employees were expected to carry out. The observation elucidated many jobs including cooks (four), entree servers (two), floor cleaners, pizza servers (one), salad bar runner (one), burrito makers and servers (two), cashier (one), dish washers (four), food runner (one), and student managers (eight). The work of the food runner involved transporting food from downstairs to upstairs. Gender roles As may be expected the jobs are distributed differently among the sexes. Serving and distributing food i s for the females. For instance, only females serve entree and burritos. Their job involves cutting food in distinct ways that are catching to the eyes due to their improved appearance. Mary and Jane, both from African origins were the experts in serving entree and burritos. Mary is twenty seven years old and a Kenyan while Jane is a twenty nine lady from Ghana. Both Mary and Jane have finished three years courses in catering and have both worked in this restaurant for one year. It is therefore hard to find a man serving and distributing food. On the other hand, males are involved in jobs necessitating lifting. For instance beverage worker are males are they are capable of lifting bags of syrup that are used in fountain beverage machines. Other roles associated with men include food runners since the task calls for heavy lifting at times. The floor jobs are also usually for men as they involve a lot of sweeping, moping, and lifting heavy garbage bags. One of the most respected clean er was George, a Mexican. George is forty years old, married, and a father of three. He is heralded as being one of the most behaved workers in the restaurant and has worked there for eight years. Therefore, gender roles seem to play an important aspect in deciding the duties of each and every employee. As asserted by Jeffrey and Streicher, â€Å"

Two approaches to globalization Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Two approaches to globalization - Essay Example From the foregoing discussion, one might expect that their products should not have successful. What happened, however, was entirely unexpected. The performance of Starbucks has become legendary. In just 20 years, the Seattle company has grown from 18 coffee shops to thousands making it a leading global brand.2 Starbucks hardly advertises but has experienced 20% bump in global brand value. According to the company fact sheet, as of November 2006, Starbucks had 7,102 company-operated outlets worldwide: 5,668 of them in the United States and 1,434 in other countries and U.S. territories. In addition, the company has 5,338 joint-venture and licensed outlets, 3,168 of them in the United States and 2,170 in other countries and U.S. territories. This brings the total locations (as of November, 2006) to 12,440 worldwide. The number of weekly customers is 30 million.3 The Roddicks' first Body Shop opened on March 26, 1976 in Brighton, United Kingdom with only about 25 natural handmade products. The rights to the name of the firm was bought from a San Francisco beauty store which still remains today as The Body Time.

Evidence Law - Victoria (Australia) Legal Case Commentary Essay

Evidence Law - Victoria (Australia) Legal Case Commentary - Essay Example The rationale appears to be that a confession obtained involuntarily can not be relied upon for the truth of its contents. The court’s dilemma was succinctly stated by Gibbs J in Driscoll v The Queen, who said that, ‘it is very common for an accused person to deny that he made an oral confession which police witnesses swear that he made. The accused has an obvious motive to claim that police testimony of this kind is false. On the other hand it would be unreal to imagine that every police officer in every case is too scrupulous to succumb to the temptation to attempt to secure the conviction of a person whom he believes to be guilty by saying that he has confessed to the crime with which he is charged when in fact he has not done so.’ This aspect of the voluntary nature of confession statement becomes tricky in instances where police use unconventional means in the course of obtaining a confession statement. The court attempted to draw the line in balancing these conflicting motives for the admissibility of confession statements by restating the applicable test an applying it to a scenario where police used what amounted to entrapment in R v Tofilau

Contract law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Contract law - Essay Example However, the restaurant is concerned about the underlying liabilities in the event that clients collide with the skating waiters and waitresses. Another point of concern regards loss of client property whilst at the restaurant’s premises. Following these two concerns, two exclusion clauses could be drafted for the purpose of limiting or excluding altogether the restaurant’s liability under the two aforementioned circumstances. It is fundamental to ensure that the restaurant’s business aspect is not adversely affected by the move. The Caddy Shack restaurant enters into business-client contracts with its clients. It is in the best interest of the restaurant to maintain functional relations with its clientele, even as it strives to reduce potential liabilities under the two circumstances of concern. The exclusion clauses that Caddy Shack restaurant needs will ultimately impose restrictions to its clients. It is also important to highlight that the move is likely to be seen as one that favours Caddy Shack’s business welfare, while reducing its potential liability obligations to the clients. In this respect, these two issues must be provided for and balanced in the drafted exclusion clauses. First exclusion clause: Caddy Shack will not be held liable for any losses or injuries that arise as a result of violation of the rules and regulations within the Caddy Shack restaurant’s premises. Clients are urged and reminded to strictly use the designated client sidewalks to avoid collision with the roller skating waiters and waitresses. The system is clearly marked to ensure that both clients and staff strictly remain in their respective right areas. Eventualities emerging from failure to abide to the set rules and regulations, and the skating system requirements shall not hold Caddy Shack responsible. Moreover, Caddy Shack shall not take responsibility for ignorance and/or negligence arising from

Port of Rotterdam Essay Example for Free

Port of Rotterdam Essay Particularly, our intention is to focus in the way the Port Authority manages all the issues that come up and how they could improve the functionality of the port. We are greatly aware that the world of freight transport is growing rapidly and to grow with it, a port needs to be in continuous development. The Port of Rotterdam is one of the most important ports all over the world. It is situated on the Dutch coast and its main channel extends along 40 km offshore. Its a huge infrastructure that handles more than 400 million tons per year. Thus, every year more than 4 million containers go through this port, this means 400 per hour and more than 3000 daily. 1 The economic importance of the Port of Rotterdam becomes apparent from quantitative indicators such as the direct and indirect value added and employment. Its industrial character is reflected by the number and range of industries located in the Port of Rotterdam related to logistics (transport, storage and distribution), production (such as maritime and transport equipment, petroleum, chemicals and food) and (commercial) services. All these activities are taking place in a relatively limited area2: Despite of this figures, currently the PoR is losing a big market share, especially in the container market, on behalf mainly of the ports of Antwerp and Hamburg. Hamburg’s port has very good rail connections and also it is really well located to distribute Eastern Europe. Besides, the port of Antwerp enjoys a strategic central position with immediate access to Europes road, rail, and water transportation networks and direct connections to Europes major consumption and production centers. Therefore, our aim is to implement solutions to the problems that currently exist in the PoR. We want to make this port the most competitive, innovative and sustainable in the world and to do that we will focus in three main goals: 1CM55 – Port of Rotterdam Authority Handle the lack of capacity until Maasvlakte 2 is finished. If we want this port to grow, we should manage this issue correctly. Manage the congestion of the highway infrastructure. Solve the problem of the loss of market share due to the growth of ports like Hamburg or Antwerp. 3 First of all, we would like to analyze the current situation of the port. We think that the most important way to do so is with a SWOT analysis, so we are able to identify both the internal and the external factors which are favorable or unfavorable to achieve our goals. 2. SWOT Analysis Strengths ? Geographical Location ? Vast Knowledge of the market ? Great Experience ? Large Influence ? Intermodal Network ? Competitive pricing ? Width and large draft ? Cheap Transport possibilities Opportunities ? Growth expected with Maasvlakte 2 ? Automation of several processes ? Possibility of implement biofuels flow Weaknesses ? Capacity Shortage ? Saturation of the port ? Both rail and roadways connections are not enough ? Environmental problems ? Delays due to failures in the distribution management ? Susceptible to storm surges Threats ? Constant growth of the containers ? Administrative regulations due to pollution ? Competition in the Le Havre-Hamburg range Strengths: We could subdivide the strengths into two groups: Characteristics of the Port: Its privileged situation allows the best distribution through the hinterland. Reaching the major industrial and economic centre’s of Western Europe within 24 hours is feasible due to this fact. Besides, its great width and large draft allows the biggest ships to load and unload in it. 1CM55 – Port of Rotterdam Authority Experience: The Port Authority has a wide knowledge in ports management: handling of shipping in the port of Rotterdam and the offshore approaches to the port. Opportunities: The future expansion of the PoR is extremely needed in the future. It is known that the container market is growing exponentially and the current terminals of the port (Maasvlakte and Eem/Waalhaven) are about to saturate. With Maasvlakte 2 they will be able to handle a bigger amount of ships and therefore obtain a bigger profit. Weaknesses: The problem of being one of the most important ports worldwide is that you need to have the best distribution channels in order to be able to make the shipping as efficient as possible. The PoR needs new ways of shipping because railways and highways are already congested. Threats: To overcome the recent growth of its neighbors’ market share, the PoR should try to fortify its strengths and to take advantage of its opportunities. Otherwise they will keep losing benefits because of them. The port should also be aware of the regulations, because nowadays the â€Å"green mind† is getting more and more important. 3. Alternatives 3. 1 Rail Transport Rail transport consists of long merchandise train with a lot of wagons circulating on dedicated way or on common way with the civil transport trains. This mean of transport is the cheapest one for a relatively fast, reliable and frequent transport of huge quantity on long distance. That is why it is used to transport bulky product, container and raw materials on distances higher than 200km. The typical capacity of a train is actually about 120 TEU, equivalent to 60 trucks. The network of railroad is already well installed but this mode of transport meet some limits. Indeed, the passenger trains are priority on the railroad and when a section of the way is not reserved for the freight, the train has to make way for passenger trains. This problem is growing up 1CM55 – Port of Rotterdam Authority with the passenger traffic figures. The best solution is to create special railroad only for the freight transport in order to avoid sharing the passenger railroad. This solution has already started to be implemented in the Netherlands with the creation of the Betuweroute. This railway is design to allow freight train to go straight to Germany through the country. We think this route should be used more than it is nowadays. We are greatly aware of its importance due to the fact that it makes possible the just in time delivery between the PoR and any point connected with it. Results of using this route could be seen: One of the most important problems of the port, the capacity shortage, is reduced thanks to the reduction of freight stock due to this route. . 2 Intermodal Transport This way of transport aims to avoid the transfer of the merchandise from on transport mode to another. For example, if a container needs to be first charged on a truck, then continue on a train to finish on again on a truck, the intermodal transport gives solution to avoid the lost of time during the transfers. Thus, the container is lay once on a truck and then the truck itself goes on the train till the destination. At the end, still the same truck finishes the transport by road. This technique is called piggyback and reduces a lot the roblem of congestion due to the charging time. This also permits to reduce the road congestion by moving the trucks on the railroads when it’s possible. This method reduces cargo handling; therefore security is improved by reducing both damages and losses. Besides, with this way of transport the time of delivering is significantly decreased. A reduced cost versus over road trucking is the key benefit for intra-continental use. Actually, we are not going to focus that much on this part, because we think the other ones are more interesting than t his one and more benefit could be obtained. 3. 3 Barge Transport Barge transport was traditionally used for bulk cargo (this means ore, coal or oil products). Nowadays, however, barges carry a wide range of finished products including chemicals, palletised goods and bigbags. Barge transport is suitable for carrying all types of freight, in dry or liquid form. 1CM55 – Port of Rotterdam Authority Even containers are highly suitable for transport by inland waterway. The barge transport sector is well equipped to meet the trend for more and more goods to be sent by container: container barges have a capacity of 20 to 500 TEU, while pusher convoys can take even more. The importance of large, modern container barges cannot be over-emphasised. 5 Although it is a really cheap transport, the main problem it has is that it is slow and therefore the delivery times are higher than with other ways of transport. Currently, the concentration in barge operations is low due to this issue. However it is increasing not only because highways are getting congested, but also because people are looking forward to cleaner ways of transport and everybody knows that trucks and trains are note efficient ways of transport at all. Thus, we have come up with an idea that we think could be very profitable if implemented. Nowadays, the existing way in which the freight is delivered using barge transport is with small vessels. It would be better if instead of small vessels the PoR, through the barge companies, uses larger barges so they can carry more containers. Furthermore, this larger barges could be used to replace some trucks so the number of them is reduced and with it the congestion of the highways. Hence, using this enhancement, we reduce both the barge and road traffic. 4. Conclusion It is known that hinterland transport could improve its productivity if the number if terminal visits in the port is reduced. To do this that it could be useful to re-organize small containers which come from different terminals with some kind of specific distribution services. Cost improvement could be obtained depending always on the distances and other significant factors. The most promising solution for such a reduction can be found in the transhipment costs of containers. If transhipment between the trunk line section and the collection distribution section can be achieved by one move (i. . board-to-board transhipment) this would substantially improve the competitiveness of these split services. 6 From our point of view it would be very interesting if larger vessels are used, as we explained above, in order to make every single trip more efficient and therefore save some costs.