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Erica Smith

Professor Beadle

English 115

7 December 2017

Monsters in America

America is known as the the land of the free and the home of the brave, but is that true?

As a child who grew up in America, I was always taught to be weary of others because they were

dangerous and unpredictable. Americans have an ingrained belief that the people outside of our

usual social circle may intend to cause destruction to us one way or another. We view others as

monsters because we have preconceived notions about specific groups of people and can

sometimes expect the worst from them. Americans see communities that are different from their

own as a threat to their way of life and these assumptions stem from racism, classism, and what

the media and entertainment industries choose to portray to us. This shows us that Americans

fear the unknown, and value the constants in life.

People from the outside have always been seen as a threat to American society. Although

our country is known for being accepting of others, the United States has been greatly

discriminatory to people that are different from the usual American, especially immigrants. In the

late 19th and early 20th centuries, many immigrants moved to America in search for a better life.

At one point, there were so many Irish that had moved to the big cities on the East coast that

many jobs banned them by stating No Irish Need Apply (Bulik). After World War One, there

was a mass amount of people that wanted to move to America to escape Europe, but the

Americans did not want them. They went to the extent of banning groups of people from
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applying to certain jobs as they passed the Emergency Quota Act of 1921, which was designed

to regulate the immigration of aliens (US Immigration Legislation). Many Americans despised

the immigrants because the immigrants were strangers that they believed to have stolen their jobs

because the immigrants would work for cheaper pay. Americans saw them as a threat to

supporting their families by taking their jobs, however immigrants were also trying to support

their own families as well.

Even now there is a fear of the American immigrants, particularly of the Muslim

community. Ever since the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in 2001, there has been a racial

and religious bias against Muslims from the Middle East. Some Americans believe that the

radical Muslims in the Middle East are representative of all of their people, but that is not true.

These Americans that have these assumptions think that all Muslims should be removed from our

country in fear of a terrorist attack from within. However, the terrorist attacks committed within

the country are committed from white extremists twice as much as Muslims (Ruiz-Grossman).

There are Americans that think that Muslims are dangerous to our country, but in reality, there

are more crimes committed by whites than Muslims.The people that make this assumption

typically do not personally know anyone in the Muslim community. They just make the

assumption that all Muslims have the same ideologies and will commit crimes against Americans

because they are hateful, but in reality, they are not. My best friend is from Pakistan, and she is

definitely not like the person that the assumptions expect her to be. Her family moved here to

further her education, not to create attacks on Americans. The immigrants are just seeking to

have a better life like the rest of us. Americans that assume that people like her will commit a
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terrorist act have a monster inside them: the assumption itself. Many Americans just assume the

worst when it comes to strangers.

Why is it that Americans expect the worst from the people that they do not know? Many

fears of strangers have to do with horror movies. Americans love horror films, not because we

like to see things that are scary, but because we like thrill of the unknown if it does not

particularly apply to our own lives. Horror movies are typically about fictional characters that

encounter horrifying people. Because it is not reality, people have the security that this will not

happen to them, but they hold onto the fear as an irrational thought. We have always had this

sense that the fear of the unknown, of that future that lies just past the horizon, has been with us

always even if it is unlikely (Genoways 132). People are afraid of things that they do not know

or understand, but when it is portrayed in stories or movies, it can be appealing because we know

it will not effect our lives in any way. Watching horror movies will not cause our lifestyles to

change, leaving them constant, but our fear of the unknown is stimulated to become even worse

after the Often Americans still come up with scenarios where strangers will be evil and out to

get them based on the fictional stories that they consume. Horror movies are not the only cause

for people to make extreme assumptions about others, but he media is as well.

Americans are just afraid of those that they do not know. In my own experience, I have

been afraid of strangers. Since I was a child, I was told by my parents, teachers, and other

children to not associate myself with strangers. My community had this idea that all strangers

were dangerous. They aways told me what if situations where strangers were bad people.

Because they were referred to as dangerous, I assumed the worst. I thought that all strangers

were just like the people that they show on the news for committing crimes against civilians. If
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my community continues to think this way, we will retreat further from our fellow travelers

on this lonely planet and everywhere we look, we will see monsters (Genoways 133). My

community has taught us that all strangers are monsters. They are unpredictable and that causes

people to avoid strangers all together, however, most people do not match up to the preconceived

notion of criminals. Strangers are just people that we do not know personally and we should not

judge them based on their appearance or characteristics based on anothers.

In 1958, my Grandmother moved from El Salvador to the United States. She did not

know English and was not used to the American lifestyle. She started dating my Grandpa, who

was white, after learning the basics of English, but there were problems when she met his

mother. She had this fear of my grandma simply because of her difference in race. My great

grandmother created my grandma into a monster because of her inability to accept [her] own

limits and care for others (McCormick 270). This being said, my grandma was viewed as a

monster due to her lower class and racial background. My great grandma feared that someone

from a completely different background from hers would cause my grandpa to change his way

of life, forcing her to change and accept my grandma. My great grandma embodies the American

fear of the unknown and valuing the constants in life and she is proof that even someone who

holds on to the constants so tightly can change face of the unknown that may turn out to not be

monstrous at all.

American culture is monstrous because the impact of assumptions based on racism,

classism, and the media has on Americans decisions. These assumptions are fueled by previous

ideas about race, class, and the medias influence on these ideas. Assumptions about others are

dangerous and cause Americans to act impulsively based on their beliefs. In order to eradicate
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these thoughts, Americans need to lead lives where they can lose the judgement of others and

defeat the monsters within us.

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Works Cited

Bulik, Mark. 1854: No Irish Need Apply. The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 Sept.

2015, www.nytimes.com/2015/09/08/insider/1854-no-irish-need-apply.html?mcubz=0.

Genoways, Ted. Here Be Monsters. Monsters. Edited by Hoffman, Andrew J. Monsters: a

Bedford Spotlight Reader, Bedford/St. Martin's, a Macmillan Education Imprint, 2016,

pp. 130133.

Harris, Judith Rich. The Nurture Assumption. The New York Times, The New York Times,

1998, www.nytimes.com/books/first/h/harris-nurture.html.

McCormick, Patrick. Why Modern Monsters Have Become Alien to Us. Monsters, edited by

Andrew H. Hoffman, Bedford/St. Martins, 2016, pp. 51-59.

Ruiz-Grossman, Sarah. Most Of America's Terrorists Are White, And Not Muslim. The

Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 23 Aug. 2017, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/

domestic-terrorism-white-supremacists-islamist-

extremists_us_594c46e4e4b0da2c731a84df.

United States, Congress, Cong. U.S. Immigration Legislation: 1921 Emergency Quota Law,

67ADAD. 67th Congress, 1st session, resolution, library.uwb.edu/Static/USimmigration/

1921_emergency_quota_law.html.