The 50s used to mean go grab a Coke and take a drive on I-15

In Soto's story "Looking for Work" he focuses on the differences between his family and the family he sees on TV. He sees the relative prosperity of those families and thinks that if his family adopts their practices then they will have the same life. He focuses on being "just like them". Near the end of the essay he talks to his brother about how if they did things like wear shoes to the table, than the "white people" will like them and invite them over. His sister disagrees with him and says that "They'll never like us." To look back and think that is what they thought back then, that there would always be a barrier and one side would always be copying the other.
That really caught me. In elementary through high school (and still today) two of my best friends are Latino, one from Mexico, the other other from Nicaragua. It never occurred to me as we ran around the streets of Provo that the two white boys and the two darker, in one case almost black, boys could ever be a problem. To think that even fifty years ago it would have been socially unacceptable and possibly discouraged by adults in my life blows me away. I pity the kids who grew up in those times. For the white kids who never got to go over to their friends house and be greeted by "Joshito, come in! I just pulled out some tamales for you and Mateo." (sorry, I don't know how to do the accents) or for Latino friends to have real fried chicken with mashed potatoes on Sunday. I'm not going by stereotypes, that is really how it was.
Coontz's essay "What We Really Miss About the 1950's" was really interesting to me, because to me the 1950s has always seemed to be the "Golden Age of America". Other than the Cold War, the Korean War and the racial differences, it seems to be the perfect time. Victorious in World War II, prosperity compared to the 1930s and 40s, general stability and progress. I had never stopped to think about any of the problems that were under the surface.
It brought up valid points that were backed up with numbers. When an article has a lot of facts, figures and outside information backing it up, shows to me that the author has done their research. Showing how so much of the economic prosperity and stability of the 50s was due to the heavy government influence of new programs like the GI Bill and the Minimum Wage laws. What was puzzled me was how the author didn't mention more about the impact of the Cold and Korean Wars. Maybe they didn't effect the family as much I thought, but that still made me wonder if that was true or if that was the author's choice.
I liked both articles, escpecially Soto's. I had to read a short story by him in my last English class, called "Black Hair" and it was interesting to read "Looking for Work" because it acted almost like a prequel. It was also good to read that the 50s were more complex than people eating burgers and drinking Coke in nuclear bomb shelters.