In The Enlightenment in Europe and the Americas we saw a period where we, the human race, were disconnecting from religion, and starting to progress towards a more secular view where “broad education for women, as well as intellectual and geographical exploration.” (P.3-4) Although this era can be seen as one of the most influential eras, where women started to deepen their feet in the pool of masochistic inequality, one must not forget that the equal right amendment was passed only on March 22nd 1972. (almost two centuries after the end of the Enlightenment Era). In addition, one must not forget the horrifying slavery that the Africans were under. Millions of Africans were ripped from their homes from west Africa and brought to the Americas in slave trading.

Nevertheless, today almost half a century after the civil right movement, and the equal right amendment. we have witnessed history occurring where both an African American president, Barack Obama, as well as a female candidate, Secretary Hillary Clinton, who was running as the for presidency against Donald J. Trump. These two historic events prove that there is a progress in the way our nation, as well as the world are moving towards.

Yet, sometimes our President’s, Mr. Donald J. Trump, acts like signing the refugee ban on Friday, Jan. 27th, which was initially issued to keep United States’ citizens and its borders safe.  Not only turned out to be discriminatory against Muslims, but also to prevented Green Card holders from coming back to their homes. Hurting their livelihood, and preventing them from reuniting with their families. Among the banned refugees were college professor, International students, and Muslim leaders, who came on R1 visas, and now forbidden from entering this country. The question we should be asking ourselves is, how did we end up in this place? Instead of living in a global society where everyone has equal opportunities, and one could reach the moon and stars if she only wanted to, we are banning people from war zones, people who cannot protect themselves.

According to the Washington Post by Elahe Izadi, “Anne Frank and her family were also denied entry as refugees to the U.S.” Frank’s family was refused by the U.S. for a visa. As a person who most of his grandparents’ families were wiped in the holocaust, we must not forget that in world war II Jews were also refused for a shelter.

To sum this all up, the enlightenment era made our minds think in a clearer manner and understand that there are other things besides religion that one must look into. One of which is equality, as well as advancement. Yet, it seems that after a long journey where the human race was heading in the right direction, by showing sympathy and empathy to one another, we going back to the dark ages of ignorance and unjust inequality.

Ilya Ratner

For a change, there must be a domino effect. Many events have greatly influenced our contemporary life in many aspects. In the reading The Englightment in Europe and the Americas we are given a glimpse of what our world use to be and what events impacted our modern world.  One aspect that has greatly been influenced is the social aspect. In today’s world just like the world of the Enlightenment period, social classes exist. There are the upper class, middle class, and the lower class. In today’s world, three social classes are able to coexist and share many luxuries, oppose to the start of the enlightenment era where only the two upper classes were able to have many privileges like literacy and an education (Joseph Wright 7). This quickly changed more people started to question what their social share should be, more people came in into social classes more questions arose (Joseph Wright 7).  Just like Social Class, Men and Women share equal rights. However, prior today they did not. Men were more privileged than women till women like Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz articulated her passion for thought and reading this demonstrated to the world that they were equally as gifted as any men (Joseph Wright 7). Her actions created a wave that set off women and men to pursue equality.

Cristian M. Solano

Based on the introduction of “The Enlightenment in Europe and the Americas”, the author has compared the Enlightenment period and modern period. In Enlightenment era, a time period when  the ideas formed physically and mentally. In physical, they started study the body structure of human, in another word the biology has began to develop, and the improvement of the science. That was the time period when people doubt about the existence of god, and mention that kings and queens were human beings instead of sons and daughters of god, or the ones blessed by god. Those royal families were just like them a regular human being but with a higher class position. The thoughts and highness toward royals has changed, that’s why two hundreds years later, they overtake the kings, for example French Revolution. If the royals continued the ideas of that’s they were sons of god, they might not overtake kings due to respect of god. However, by overtake the royals or leave royals away, people had gained a lot freedom; for instance, in America, the first amendment gave people in America the right to speak up. We as modern day people, are able to gossip about royals, governor, and so on. We don’t have any limit on communicating about any people. Especially, people behind the scene, they can say however they want without any worries. Since no one know who they are behind the scene. Modern society is a community allows people to speak up for themselves and others, but the Enlightenment the key that open up the door for freedom of the speech.