would you live back in time?

[jamespowers]

I do have a question and i don't want to get in trouble for it but here goes.
Since when are Latino or Hispanic people not considered "white" people.. They are Caucasians just like European people.. Aren't they?
I believe that people from the Middle East fall into this catagory too?..
Inquiring minds need to know!!!

Since 1980 due to the new census "categories." Before that, you are quite right. They were all the same---white.

 

[pigeon toe]

During WWII, women bonded together more then ever, working together and doing all sorts of activities… They ran the home front wile the men were out to war. They set the standard for the years to come.

Definitely true! I think that is one of the best side effects of WWII. However, after the war when the men returned home, there was a sharp decrease of these female-bonding activities. Women returned to the private/home sphere and the emphasis on nuclear family was in full force. So although some of that sort of feminism carried on, the 1950's reeled it right back in again.

There were interracial couples back then, not as common as today, but there were! From those I spoke to who lived then, I have determined that racial intolerance was mostly on the eastern and southern side of the US. West coast areas weren’t as racist as the Bible belt or other parts of the states

I don't know about this. I mean, just take the Zoot Suit Riots for instance! That happened in Los Angeles and if that isn't an act of extreme racism, then what is? Also, take in mind what was happening to the Japanese and Japanese-Americans in the internment camps in California during that time period. Although it might have been easier to be part of an interracial couple in the West than in the South (and Lucy & Desi probably made it more acceptable), racism was still much more intense no matter where you were than today.

On the other hand, what’s the matter with practicing good manors? Just because it’s more expectable today to act like a brat doesn’t mean its right!

I 100% agree with you on this, and I didn't mean for the last part of what I said to sound like I didn't like good manners as much as the next person! I just don't think good manners is a thing of the past, I see it all the time in the present. I think things have become much more relaxed, of course, but I am polite and the majority of the people around me are as well.

Crooked political correctness didn’t exist… I don’t believe in racism however, I think people have become too uptight these days. There are things that shouldn’t be tolerated but, instead of them shrinking and running to have someone else fight their battles, they should just take care of their own problems and not make everyone else suffer.

Could you explain to me what you mean by this? I don't want to take it the wrong way...

 

[pigeon toe]

I do have a question and i don't want to get in trouble for it but here goes.
Since when are Latino or Hispanic people not considered "white" people.. They are Caucasians just like European people.. Aren't they?
I believe that people from the Middle East fall into this catagory too?..
Inquiring minds need to know!!!

I looked it up in the dictionary, but it wasn't very helpful! In my own personal definition, Latinos who have Spanish blood might in effect be considered part Caucasian or full, depending on how they identify. Same would go for those of European-descent living in Latin America, I guess. But I think most Latinos who identify more with their nationality (Honduran, for instance), or indigenous culture/history/phenotype/what have you, would probably ID as Latino or some other term separate from Caucasian. Caucasian usually seems to imply European without any indigenous influence.

 

[jamespowers]

I looked it up in the dictionary, but it wasn't very helpful! In my own personal definition, Latinos who have Spanish blood might in effect be considered part Caucasian or full, depending on how they identify. Same would go for those of European-descent living in Latin America, I guess. But I think most Latinos who identify more with their nationality (Honduran, for instance), or indigenous culture/history/phenotype/what have you, would probably ID as Latino or some other term separate from Caucasian. Caucasian usually seems to imply European without any indigenous influence.

I have an golden era book/encyclopedia around here somewhere but from memory, it has only three classifications Back then there were only "Mongoloid," "Caucasoid," and "Negroid." Using these are the primary races, it is easy to see why they were classified as such.
This is a chart that kind of gets to where things fell back then.

 

[AudreyH]

I would gladly go back to the 50's right now. I just don't fit in now. I wear dresses and I'm made fun of. I really want to be there and be myself and have other people dress the ways I do and not laugh. I would also very much love to meet Audrey Hepburn! I could become an actress around then and maybe we'd be friends.

 

[scotrace]

I like the now too much. This is the best time to be alive.

New Years Eve 1999: Many of us were holding our breath, having spent a couple of YEARS wasting time (and tons of $) preparing for the stupid $^^#$%@!!! "Y2K computer bug" that never existed!

 

[Barbigirl]

~

I am happy to be here and looking forward to the future far too much to want the past. I appreciate the past and history very much, but don't feel the need to be there.

 

[Brad Bowers]

I'd like to go back in time for visits. There are just too many trains in Colorado alone that I would want to ride.

I wonder if I could get an interview with John Cavanagh?lol

Brad

 

[MsChantillyLace]

I could do it. I might even prefer it, less a few contempory notions and things that I might miss. But given that I can't, it's not really an essential issue for me. I do enjoy the concept of visiting the past.

If I could choose, I might say 1945 or there abouts. The same as I am presently, with all of my family and companions. I could do without all the TV and telphones and internet. I think it would also change the dynamic of my romantic endevors and I'd be quite likely to be wedded now-- or this "coming" summer. I wouldn't be college educated, I wouldn't have an auto-- but I'd also be living at home (much as I am presently) until married. I'd probably be dating a GI who had just returned home from war (much as I was this summer). My diet would be quite similar to how it was. I'd still be reading Anna Karinina and it would likely take me just as long to complete. I might even know how to knit and sew-- actually, I definately would know how to do these things. I wouldn't own my own business or work for myself, which is my present occupation, so that much would be different.

Some things would be very different, some things wouldn't change much.

 

[Kassia]

Sorry about the confusion about the word Causasian..
I find it very sad that in the 21 st century we are still reduced to dividing the world up by ethnic, racial and religious bias...
We are ALL Human Beings and bleed the same colour blood... The only difference really is gender..
To that end i am a 100% female Canadian... I have no connection at all to the lands of my ancestors... And i would put that on any census form i had to fill out..

 

[Kassia]

The greasy, gloppy food and the universal smoking would do me in.

Me too!!!
BTW i love your avatar..... I grew up watching Columbo cause it was one of my Dad's favorite shows.. His favorite movies were spaghetti westerns with Clint Eastwood.. I am sure he's memorized a few of them by now....

 

[Forgotten Man]

I don't know about this. I mean, just take the Zoot Suit Riots for instance! That happened in Los Angeles and if that isn't an act of extreme racism, then what is?

The Zoot Suit Riots of 1942 came about from rebellious, draft dodging, juvenile delinquents! Not all Hispanics were beaten by the Navy… it was a fight that started between the Navy and young Hispanic juveniles. You must read more into the story to understand WHY it happened… it’s easy to just say that all white males in the navy hated Mexican males in Zoot Suits… the thing is, the Zoot Suit stood as a symbol against patriotism, and fighting for right against an evil power that wanted to take our freedoms away. They were breaking the law, they were cowards to dodge the draft and not serve their country. And those who signed up didn’t appreciate being taunted by them Zoot Suiters. One can say it was all about race, well, I disagree on that score. There were Latinos and Blacks in the armed forces during WWII… in fact; there was an entire company of Asian Americans that fought! And how about the Tuskegee Airmen? First all Black fighter group… and they were respected and requested… why? Because they earned the respect by not losing any bombers they escorted to the enemy! They had a nearly perfect record!

The Japanese American’s that were driven to camps during WWII in Arizona and such will always be brought up… now, I feel that one HAS to consider the time in which it happened. PEARL HARBOR WAS BOMBED!!! They started to play dirty, they weren’t playin’ by the rules, so we cut off oil trade with them… then, they plan to bomb us… and they did… and I have spoken to many people who remember that day… what a cold, heartless military and government to attack a sleeping harbor on a Sunday morning! Of course the US people will treat any Japanese citizen like dirt! Especially if they had a loved one who was killed in Pearl Harbor… ya have to take a look at how they saw it! In fact, there are veterans who have met some of the very pilots that bombed them that day… some forgave each other and became friends… but, there were those who still held on to a grudge because of the friends they lost that morning. It’s not a hate towards a race so much, it’s a hate towards the people who bombed them that morning. The camps they lived in were not ideal living areas, but they were a 100 no, 1000 times better then the camps THEY put our POW’s in… man, they were EVIL! And the camps in Germany and other countries were just abominable!

Also, Jazz men would mix all the time… first time they mixed on stage was at Carnage Hall when Benny Goodman had Teddy Wilson with him… took some guts but, people loved it!

What I said in the last part, what I meant was that most people cry out when someone makes a racist comment… and then tries to sue them for all they got… making a big noise over a word they heard. I say they should settle their differences or not pay any attention to people who say nasty things... people say nasty things to me, they say I’m too white… well, I am, what of it? Why should I choose to take offence to a racial slur? I don’t see any point in it.

If I wasn't a part of a family I love very much, I'd say send me back!

 

[Lillemor]

I always thought I'd love to live even further back in history - the 1800's, specifically the Regency period in England. But I would most definitely have to be a member of the genteel society because I don't think I could survive the back-breaking work the rest of the world did.

But I could easily be a lady of leisure.

I think I could live in the 1940s - quite easily. The only thing that I wouldn't like would be the lack of advancement in the medical world.

I think that's how I feel too, besides I'm aware that my husband wouldn't be alive at 40 pre- beta blockers and other medical advances. Fx. If I lived in the 1920s-40s I would've had to have the comforts and living standard of my American side of the family and not the standards of my Danish side of the family if I were still "born" into a working class family. To have the same comforts of my dad's side of the family in Denmark pre-1970, I would've had to be upper middle class at least!

I write "born" because I'm adopted from Thailand and it's not very likely I would've been adopted into my family if I'd been born pre 1970s. I don't like the 1970s at all though. Right up there with the 1990s, I can scarcely think of a worse decade in recent time.fftopic: That's personal stuff.....I know that developments happened in those two decades that I get to enjoy today.

Come to think of it; I wouldn't have lived past my 2nd month in the golden era. Don't know why I hadn't thought of that.

 

[Forgotten Man]

Seems half the members who'd consider their existence then compared to now would just toss in the towel... would figure that they'd never survive if they didn't land in the perfect environment. Now, there were many people who fought to live... not in a battle sense but, just working on a farm, and saving money and trying to make ends meet... hard lives to lead! However, there was always bright spots.

Easy to focus on the negative... but there was plenty of positive, that's what I try and look at.

I’d choose to go back to the Depression Era… Am I crazy? Maybe so but, I’d sure like to see the ’33-34 Chicago World’s Fair, take steam trains to travel around on, have a simple job, a simple car, a nice little bungalow with simple appliances and just save up money in an old fruit jar till things got better. Heck, maybe even farm citrus here in CA! Help my neighbors, and other people I may meet, no matter what their ethnic background is. Showing a shining example of what Americans should be… Leaving a mark on society, being the best guy I could be during those hard times.

 

[Minerva]

I'd at least think about it. Definitely for a visit, at least. I'd love to have seen New Orleans in the 1880s. I think this stems from a great desire to meet two of my great-great-aunts who would have been in their late-teens and early twenties in the 1880s.

I wouldn't be married due to racial issues, but then, most of my immediate family never married due to those same issues. Fortunately with the French cultural influences, extramarital relationships were common back in the day. My great-great-grandmother, for example, had eight children with a man she wasn't married to, and she pined for him until her dying day. He also had thirteen or so children with another woman he later married.

I'm not concerned about medical issues, having seen enough death certificates here to guess what I'll die of. With all the so-called medical advances, my family still dies around the same ages a century or so later. [huh]

 

[RitaHayworth]

August 11, 2001

A whole month to convince everyone I know to help foil the plot that lead to the tragedy that is 9-11.

:eusa_clap :cry:

Thats sweet. Im sure each and every one of us would go back and do that if we could.

But I think I'd have to go back because Im so obsessed with things back then! I'd definitely want to live in the 40s - it'd be harder, but I would like to try.

I think also, although a war was on, society was much better than now. Its sad how things have deteriorated.

Other than that, I'd like the 50s and 60s too though.

As one other poster mentioned - I'd even go back to the regency period too - but I would need to be of the upper classes - I couldnt handle being poor in that era!

 

[Mojito]

Seems half the members who'd consider their existence then compared to now would just toss in the towel... would figure that they'd never survive if they didn't land in the perfect environment. Now, there were many people who fought to live... not in a battle sense but, just working on a farm, and saving money and trying to make ends meet... hard lives to lead! However, there was always bright spots.

I don't think it's a question of "tossing in the towel". As I read the question, it focused on whether, if circumstances were equivalent in terms of occupation, income, social status etc inviduals would have a preference for living then or now.

As fascinated as I am by the past (and not only by comparatively recent history), I would have no hesitation in choosing to live now. It's not a question of whether I could survive then - I imagine I could. But there isn't really a common equivalent for someone of my social position and career in, say, the 1920s. If you read studies (conducted in that time period, not retrospectively) of young career women in that era, you'd find not only rather large gaps between pay for men and women in the same occupations, you find the majority of women workers struggling on subsistance wages. Working after marriage was comparatively uncommon. Women in the fields I've worked in, while not entirely unheard of, were rare and faced obstacles I just wouldn't want to have to face up to on a daily basis - not when I live in an age when I don't have to constantly face them. I love my life. I love my independence, I love my lifestyle, I love my career. And that's just considering it from my perspective - not from, say, that of an Indigenous Australian. There were certainly mixed couples in Australia at the time - many of my friends have blended Aboriginal and European Australian backgrounds - but I know that in many of these families there was such a stigma attached to such liaisions that it was a hidden part of their heritage until very recently.

The two women I've loved most in my life, my mother and my grandmother, would not have chosen to anytime prior to the 60s. The happiest period of my grandmother's life was the 1970s, 80s and early 90s before her final illness - she told me vividly what it was like being an intelligent young woman in the 1920s in a small country town and a young woman with a large family in the 1930s. She wouldn't have relived those years.

I don't like everything about now, but - as has been discussed in this thread - the human condition is such that there will always be problems.

When man gets rid of a great trouble he is easier for a little while, but not for long; Nature instantly sets to work to weaken his power of sustaining trouble, and very soon seven pounds is as heavy as fourteen pounds used to be. Last Easter Monday a young woman threw herself into the Lea because her dress looked so shabby amongst the holiday crowd: in other times and countries women have been ravished by half-a-dozen dragoons and taken it less to heart. It looks to me as if the state of mankind always had been and always would be a state of just tolerable discomfort.
-AE Housman 23 April 1900

 

[Flivver]

Hey, it's not so bad!

Good exercise!

My grandmother refused to use anything *but* a wringer washer throughout her lifetime. Around 1960, my Mom and my aunt pitched in and bought my grandmother the latest Maytag automatic washer. They wanted to "ease" her household chores. Grandma made them take it back...in no uncertain terms!

Last week at a flea market, I saw what must have been a 1960s version of a wringer washer. It was an Easy, in pastel pink, encrusted with chrome. It looked like it had been made-over by an automotive design studio of the time. My grandmother would have hated it!

 

[LizzieMaine]

My grandmother refused to use anything *but* a wringer washer throughout her lifetime. Around 1960, my Mom and my aunt pitched in and bought my grandmother the latest Maytag automatic washer. They wanted to "ease" her household chores. Grandma made them take it back...in no uncertain terms!

It's certainly a more hands-on experience than using an automatic, but I like that -- the only part that's really labor is draining and dumping the water, and as I said, it's good exercise. As my own grandmother used to say when I complained about having to help with the household chores, "oh boo hoo -- you ain't such a delicate flower that a little work will kill ya!"

A wringer is also far more efficient than an automatic -- you use much less water, and much less electricity per load. Since I dragged it out of the garage and started using it again, my light bill has gone down $20 a month from what it was a year before.

Now, I *would* draw the line at using a washboard regularly. Sure route to arthritis, that.

 

[Edward]

Are you kidding. If you wre a young man back in the late 30s you could look forward to the possibility of travelling all over the world all on the government's dime. Of course, the pacifist thing might mess that up.

Probably, yeah. I'd also rather not be being shot at while I was trying to play tourist... lol

They did know how to remove appendixest back then.

Well, yes... but bearing in mind it was thanks to contemporary medical knowledge in the 90s that they were able to rush me in late at night, knowing that if they left it til morning it would have burst.... I wouldn'tg want to take that risk. On the flipside, back then I would have had a much bigger (and therfore much cooler) scar.

And heck, maybe you wuoldn't be o depressed back then. I am not abig believer, but some blame it on modern life.

I'm sure there are folks who find the pace of modern life grinds them down.... So far as we can tell, though, so far I think I'm just one of those folks whose wiring would be prone to that sort of thing no matter where, when or what I lived. [huh]

I would love to experience the years between my birth and now (1987) as an adult. Maybe even go so far back as the seventies. And party on new year's eve '99.

99? Meh. As I recall, I went to bed an hour before midnight, grumbling bitterly about all the eedjits who thought the century / millennium was turning a year early.... lol I'm not much of a New Year person in any case.... quite possibly the reason it's meaningless to me is I never broek away from thinking in academic years.

I won't even ponder how I would wash sheets while wearing them....

TOGA! TOGA! TOGA!