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Model Final Exam answers 2018 Essay 1: Revise & Extend Minority Identification & Analysis (Add African America) Index to Sample Essay 1 Answers |
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Christa Van Allen
05/04/18
Minority Voices: Small but Strong
When I was coming into this class, my
knowledge of minority literature was lacking in historical context as well as
personal perspective. Short of interviewing a real person, the best option was
to read the works of someone who grew up living a life different from mine. An
exploration by mimesis and its precocious child, empathy. My initial image of
minority is in terms of ethnicity. I have heard it used in association with
things like gender, or social class before, but only sparingly. One such
advantage of the sources we read is the incorporation of all of these things and
how they interconnect. Since art imitates life, it behooves us see what it
mimicked.
Indian tribes are the perfect starting
point for a class like this as they are not immigrant minorities. They have the
unique position of being the displaced natives in a large land. They are the
group that has chosen to assimilate somewhat to the culture of the encroachers,
but never has this been portrayed as the desired path of their people. This is
reflected in their mythological origins and the imagined roots of their
invaders. Holy sources are a common tool in many cultures, meant to make people
feel as though they have a true purpose and claim to their home.
The story that ties the Iroquois tribes
together varies from territory to territory. Most agree to the creation story of
the Sky People and the Great Turtle. The turtle’s back became the continent the
Native Americans lived on after Sky Woman used small grains of dirt to grow his
shell and the soil. The natives themselves were descended from the first Sky
Woman to fall from above. Her daughter and grandchildren became the moon and the
moral struggle of humanity respectively. The men of Good and Evil Mind, and
humanity by extension, are tasked with protecting the natural world their mother
left for them.
When the first Europeans came to the new
world they were sent by their own holy power. However, if the deity you worship
is in conflict with that of a different culture, you become the subjects of a
demon in their eyes. Had it been feasible, it’s quite likely that the Native
Americans would have preferred the dominant white people to embrace the right
religion. The one that gave them reason. The belief that the Europeans were
being misled sowed the seeds of pity, but without the ability to correct them,
the future must have seemed hopeless.
Consequently, there is a sincere feeling
of resignation and loss when the Europeans begin to expand. History shows that
attempts at violent resistance on the Indians part were not effective enough and
eventually the best strategy became patience. In
“Impressions of an Indian Childhood”
by Zitkala-Sa, the reader sees the personal losses resultant of Native land
being stolen. Family members given inadequate time to rest while ill, pass away
before their people could reach the territory they were sent to. These things
did happen. The emotions are real and the text demands attention be given to the
true victims of this mass extradition.
While describing her mother’s sadness,
Zitkala-Sa also displays the revenge that manifests in her heart toward the
pale-faces. She has the impotent rage of a child. She and the reader want
something to change, but do not have the ability to effect it. The short stories
following it are reminiscent of a family moving forward with their lives because
that is all they can do. The words are written with a familiar grief,
recognizable in anyone that has lost someone, but with an unusual acidity.
Zitkala-Sa is different because she has a target for her rebellion, but it is a
faceless one. It was not a force of nature, but it was a human amalgamate too
large to be cut down. Worse of all is that it holds no empathy for her. At least
not yet.
In
The Schooldays of an Indian Girl,
Zitkala-Sa begins to understand just how different things are in the white race
school than at home. When she learns that her long heavy hair is going to be
cut, she panics and threatens to fight.
“No, I will not submit! I will struggle first!” [2.5]. Her culture saw
shingled hair as a sign of cowardice, in the east it was simply to make caring
for her locks easier. She cries and no one tries to console or explain their
reasoning to her. Though not a physical death, this served as a symbolic
breaking. It diminishes her in a way she never wanted, and awakens bitterness in
her mind. Her rebellion becomes one of silent slights against her oppressors
while simultaneously understanding that it will not impact her teachers for more
than a moment.
This attitude of frustration carries
onward into The Round House, though
the character has a different perspective. The narrator, Joe, displays his angst
through the relatable stage of adolescence in tandem with individual aspects of
his culture and how others choose to interact with it. In chapter four, he
remembers that his friend Mooshum once told him about a priest that practiced
the tribe’s religion with them. “The old
priest had learned the songs. No priest knew the songs now” (Erdrich, 75).
Time has changed things. Hostilities are not quite as open as they were in
Zitkala-Sa’s memoirs.
This is important because it shows the
stark contrast of an outside force that seeks to understand with one that seeks
to blame and hurt. Joe discovers that his mother’s rape took place in the Round
House and this violation of family and religious space implies knowledge of the
reservation. The attack was planned by someone who hated the Chippewa for some
imagined slight and wanted to kill a symbol of their history. Hate crimes such
as these did and still do happen. The perpetrators know now that their bigotry
has made them the outliers and so they cowardly hide. Hopefully one day they
will have the good sense to burn out quietly in the dark.
In comparison to the hostility shown the
Indians, a similar reaction frequently met Mexican Americans. Their culture has
the unique claim of straddling identities as Immigrants and displaced
minorities. Whilst many Mexican Americans actually crossed borders under the
impression of a better life, others were in Mexican territory that became
American. Where they lived did not change, but their designation did.
Assimilation of tradition, language and culture may have been easier because
much of the territory was still familiar. However, Mexican Americans were still
treated poorly for their place in the color code by the white majority. This is
frequently visible in traveler narratives.
Latin American cultures tended to cross
barriers somewhat easier than black minorities, but racial biases common to
North American white settlers relegated anyone of mixed ethnic origins to the
lower classes. In later history when mass migration into the states became
commonplace, assimilation became equal parts expansion on inequalities and a
resistance to maintain language and traditional Mexican American values.
Modernity has shown the progress of Latin American melding into the dominant
culture to be similar to the Native Americans, in that their differences are
recognized, but rarely acknowledged in terms of claim to the lands they inhabit.
Lots of Americans tread a razor’s edge
on their interpretation of national pride. They declare fervently the perks of
being born on American soil and the nation’s moniker as “The Land of
Opportunity” while also casually espousing that foreign influence results in a
decline in condition for the natural citizen. This cognitive dissonance can be
seen within the main character of Reyna Grande’s
The Distance Between Us not only as
her family makes their fateful journey across the border into the United States,
but also in the volatile relationships at work in the family circle.
In the tenth chapter of Book One, amidst
all the poverty and strife in Mexico Reyna had a brief moment of peace hugging
her mother. It is relatable in its sweet care and distressing in its realism.
“I hesitantly wrapped my arms around her
waist, feeling as if this were a dream and she would disappear any minute. I
looked at the hand she had around me and saw the silvery scars that ran the
length of her index, middle, and ring fingers” (71). Reyna is literally and
figuratively reminded of the risks that await her in the world. It fits the
pattern of early maturing within Mexican American families. Children must grow
up sooner and work much earlier than in the United States and oftentimes the
jobs are dangerous. At this moment hopping the border looks pretty appealing and
the reader cannot help but to empathize with her desire for escape.
This ambition for a better life extends
into Book Two when the Grande children are tossed from frying pan to fire. In
California they face discrimination, language barriers and the ever present
threat of deportation. Reyna’s father descends into violence easy when he drinks
and even then she tries to forgive him his actions. When she fears that without
papers there is no way for her to get a good career, he tells her:
“Just because we’re illegal doesn’t mean
we can’t dream” (228). She takes her father’s words to heart, embodying for
a time some inherent belief that patience and hard work will put her ahead of
where she might have been in Mexico. There is a far off hope that perfect
assimilation will save her future and give her life purpose.
Assimilation usually results in a kind
of transformation for the Mexican American into a minority to the dominant
culture. Viable for greatness yes, but also starting at a disadvantage. This can
be seen within The Story of the Virgin of
Guadalupe. The reader is introduced to the mestizo character Juan as he
comes to a higher calling by the holy mother Mary appearing before him. Juan’s
discovery of this version of the Holy Lady takes place at the top of a hill once
used as a place of worship for a long forgotten earth mother goddess where she
requests a temple be placed. This syncretism plays on the mixed heritage common
to multigenerational people and societies.
Essentially this ties a figure of
spiritual prominence to the idea of expanded origins and then allows someone
similar on earth to bear the responsibility given with utmost humility. In the
story Juan has difficulty in achieving the task given him because being biracial
sets him back and makes him appear to the Bishop of Mexico to be either foolish
or lying. Despite these restrictions and some conflict in deciding between his
duty to family or the Virgin Mary, Juan succeeds in proving her apparitions
real. The temple is built and Juan’s faith and perseverance are rewarded by all
of Mexico. He becomes himself a prominent symbol of mixed-blood heroism.
In contrast to both Native and Mexican
Americans, the African American minority has little reason to either bend to the
assimilation ideas of the white majority nor to subscribe to the average
American dream. The bedrock of their culture’s presence on the continent was
slavery. They were the minority that had no desire to travel from their original
home and they were never given any opportunities in America without an upheaving
amount of effort. Unlike the shades of brown mentality that has begun to grow
between the white majority and the Native and Mexican Americans, African
Americans and Caucasian Americans still have an underpinning black and white
color code in everyday interactions.
It can be seen in a fair amount of black
literature. Many of the words were protesting stereotypes that were created and
then policed with the intent to make someone feel lesser. Protesting against
actions born of majority paranoia. For a time those scare tactics were
frighteningly effective. However, in a home grown collective, acts of rebellion
have forced positive change to develop. The result of a new dream, one based in
reality. The African American ideal of a dream reaches back to the past for the
strength to keep pushing rather than to simply forget as the usual American
dream would have us do. The most optimistic dream to exist that says:
“We’re not there yet, but we will be”
(Terms and Themes, the Dream).
The reader should take note of a short
poem by Countee Cullen. Written in 1925,
Incident recalls the author’s confrontation with racism in Baltimore when it
was still socially acceptable. “Now I was
eight and very small, and he was no whit bigger, and so I smiled, but he poked
out his tongue, and called me, “Nigger.”” (Cullen, lines 5-8). The narrator
goes on to say that for the six months he stayed there, no matter what beauty
and happiness he was privy to, the words of this white boy his age haunted and
soured it all. There is a pain that is so recognizable to anyone that has been
bullied. But there is also a shame, a disgust, that the boy who called him this
hurtful word was likely taught that it was acceptable to hurt a person of color
by any means necessary.
Any attempt to make an equal opportunity
home for themselves was met with opposition. Assimilation was actually actively
discouraged with a wave of fanaticism. Speaking up is made to sound like a bad
thing, encouraging silence so that you are easier to ignore. However, in all
their attempts to crush happiness, still the African American citizenry rose up.
Maya Angelou says as much in her poem,
Still I Rise. She calls out the fears of the ignorant eloquently. She asks,
“Does my haughtiness offend you? Don’t
you take it awful hard ‘cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines diggin’ in my own
backyard” (Angelou, lines 16-20). It’s almost funny were it not so
saddening, that with all the dominant culture have, they are still concerned
with what the minority might earn by their own merits.
To deprive someone of happiness, just to
say that you are the only one that knows of it. What might you call someone that
cannot enjoy what they have knowing it is no longer exclusive to them? Today as
in the words of yesteryear an invisible force weighs on us. A division brought
on by a long history of trying to forget what our ancestors did or the pain of
knowing who our ancestors survived. The past never stays just that. As clearly
indicated by the book Kindred, these
things ripple too deeply for it to be disregarded.
Despite its fanciful way of saying so,
Octavia Butler’s novel pulls no punches with its message of unforgettably
tangled history. Main character, Dana is thrown back in time frequently to
ensure her own family line will come to be. It is a dangerous journey set in the
slavery driven south of the United States. As a black woman in an era where both
of those things were frowned upon she tries and fails to make something morally
modern out of her white ancestor, Rufus. As the only minority voice in a sea
white foam her impact is frustratingly negligible on him. And the worst part
about the whole history has to play out whether or not it goes against Dana’s
beliefs if she wants to live in the future.
Everything done in the past, but
especially the violent actions, have drastic consequences. Dana’s final trip
results in murder. Justified and unwished for, but regardless she cuts down her
link to time travel and returns to her home. She does not come back unscathed
from it. Her left arm, once clenched in Rufus’ grip, fuses horrifically into her
living room wall and must be amputated. Being placed into the mindset of a slave
has changed her and the choices she had to make have scarred her. The reader,
like Dana, has learned exactly what that kind of hopelessness does to a person
and how it could only have motivated enough survivor’s pride to push for the
equality you deserve. Never mind how long it might take.
In final analysis, these works speak
volumes for mostly voiceless minorities. There is a unique mixture of resentment
and patience between the European races and the Native Americans. In the Mexican
American stories there is an air of longing for opportunity, but cultural pride.
African American literature carries a harsh realism and the obtainable dream of
collective racial identity at long last.
Exploring the context and emotion left in the wake of the past while
developing relatable, unique characters and narratives is no easy feat. That it
was accomplished so eloquently without budging from its roots speaks well of the
Americans, original or immigrant or interwoven, and implores understanding from
anyone that seeks to know them.
