Your essay response will be evaluated on the use of specific detail and success in answering the selected question in its entirety.

1. Describe the emergence of a consumer economy, its impact on American culture and identity, and the ways in which it was embraced and critiqued in the period spanning from the Gilded Age through the 1920s.

2. Describe the period of demographic change in the United States since 1965 and its varying cultural meanings. How has a more diverse and heterogeneous American population emerged in this period? How has this change sparked debate and backlashes? And how does the experience of the Zeitoun family before and during Hurricane Katrina demonstrate both the expansion and limits of the American community in the contemporary period?