The 1950s

In the essay, Looking for Work, Gary Sato uses a narrative style along with creative writing skills to contrast his life as a young Mexican American in the 1950s to that of the families on television in that period. Gary keeps his readers interest with stories from his younger life while continuing with on his "quest" to improve his family life to the standards of those television shows.

I think that Soto was trying to show the influence the media had on his life at that time. He saw how the white families were on television and wanted to be like them and accepted more in his community. He shows that in the "perfect" 1950's society that racism, violence, and other activities supposed to be gone from that culture still existed at the time.

In the essay, What We Really Miss About the 1950's, Stephanie Coontz chose a more analytical research style of writing. She uses many facts and figures to support the idea that while on the surface 1950's family life was great, below the surface family life was not so kosher. She writes about how many things such as racism seemed to have disappeared they were really just depressed into different forms.

I think Coontz was also indicating the media as a very powerful form of influence in that time period. Her use of research was very effective in getting her point across. She creates a very effective contrast between the good and the bad things occurring during the 1950s. While her viewpoint's mentioned in her essay differ from those in essay by Gary Soto, both authors display the key characteristic that this era, while being prosperous in ways, was not all it was cracked up to be.