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Cynthia Cleveland
Assimilation and Syncretism
Throughout our course of study concerning Minorities within the realm of
literature, we come to understand how profound the struggle has been—and still
is—for minorities and immigrants to assimilate into the dominant culture without
experiencing a loss of identity. To conform to the dominant culture unabashedly
asks those minorities to abandon their culture in favor of the dominant. First,
we must think about how we define the differences between minorities and
immigrants—and what’s at stake between those differences. We also must consider
the difficulties that immigrants face when assimilating into an entirely new
culture—the language and cultural barriers and how difficult it is to overcome
those barriers. The alternative to overcoming those barriers is to employ the
use of syncretism, blending one culture with another, to find some familiarity
with the unfamiliar. With all of these considerations in mind, it is much easier
to piece together how significant of a struggle it becomes when faced with
assimilating as a cultural minority into a dominant culture.
Peter Becnel’s essay “Mystic Mixtures” touches on the concept of
Mexican-Americans as the ambivalent minority. This is a true concept, as we
often have difficulties defining Mexican-Americans as minorities or immigrants.
According to Becnel, immigrants have a choice in the matter, which is true, but
it is hard to reconcile the loss of identity with the integration into a new
geographical location. History tells us that, for the most part, we can account
for them mostly as immigrants; however, it would certainly be inaccurate to
agree that this is entirely the case. The state of Texas experienced a conflict
of ownership for some time during the mid-1800s, and much of the Southwestern
areas of what is now Texas officially belonged to Mexico. The claiming of that
property from the Mexican government, naturally forced Mexicans to become part
of the state of Texas, since their lands and properties went with it. Very
quickly, these minorities became overshadowed by the onslaught of families that
migrated to Texas from other states under incentives to occupy the territory.
Thus, the spread of the dominant culture to formerly concentrated enclaves of
Mexican-Americans became an issue.
Zach Thomas’s essay “Literacy Amongst American Immigrants” touches on a
key issue that stems from assimilation into the dominant culture of the United
States: the communication barrier. The readings from this class echo the same
concern, particularly in Grande’s novel The Distance Between Us, when she
recalls the hardships and ill-treatments that she experiences upon her arrival
to the United States. Today, we have ESL programs, as Thomas notes, that are
designed to assist students who do not speak English. Assimilating to the
dominant culture demands that one must be capable of speaking the language;
however, these programs are fairly recent and that may account for the troubles
that various immigrants have experienced when living within that dominant
culture.
Another consideration we must include when considering immersion into the
dominant culture is the concept of syncretism, which Patricia Stacey covers in
her essay “Minority Cultures, Their Symbols, and Their Identities”.
Particularly, I want to focus on her reference to the Virgin of Guadalupe, in
which she hints at the syncretism that occurs, blending Euro-American culture
with Mexican-American culture. Christianity in the Mexican-American culture was
initially spread by the Spanish explorers and colonists, rather than the
Protestant Christian sect established by the other colonists of the Northeastern
United States. Mexican-Americans were particularly unique in their use of
syncretism to assimilate, while still maintaining a cultural identity. The
Native Americans stand in stark contrast, in which assimilation for them meant
relinquishing their cultural identity. There was no familiarity between the two
cultures as far as religion is concerned, outside of the creation stories, in
which we can draw loose parallels.
Overall, we can see that when it comes to the minority within the
dominant culture, there is a sincere struggle to maintain identity within the
dominant culture. For the early Mexican-Americans, they essentially had their
land transferred to an entirely different country while they still occupied it,
and with the influx of Euro-Americans, they were relegated to the minority, in
which they had previously been the dominant. This, in turn, creates a certain
type of conflict, in which the minorities or immigrants now have cultural and
language barriers. Though Mexican-Americans were able to assimilate through the
use of syncretism, there still remains a great deal of barriers between the
minority and dominant cultures with the United States. It is interesting to note
that one conflict begets another, begets another. Euro-Americans salvaged lands
that were not theirs, forced those who resided on those lands to assimilate and
those minorities did their best to find commonalities—syncretism—to better get
along.
