Sample Student Answers to Midterm Essay Two

(Immigrant / Minority Question)

Copied below are answers (complete or excerpted) by students in LITR 4333 2002. They are posted as submitted. Some editing and other errors may remain. In general, though, these answers are models of outstanding work for present and future students to review in order to gain a fresh approach to course materials and become acquainted with course standards.

[Assignment]

Essay 2: "Immigrant / Minority" Essay (1 hour +)

Assignment: Starting and ending with Literary Objective 1c, write a unified critical essay integrating and evaluating the following literary and cultural objectives:

·         Literary Objective 1c. To explore the immigrant narrative as an organizing principle for studying multicultural literature. (p. 3 of syllabus)

·         "The Immigrant Narrative" (Background to All Course Objectives) (p. 3 of syllabus)

·         Cultural Objective 1a. American Dream versus American Nightmare: To compare and contrast the immigrant narrative with the minority narrative. . . . (+ bullets under C. O. 1a)

In other words, answer the following question: Can the immigrant narrative be used as a yardstick or criterion for investigating American multicultural literature in terms of differentiating the immigrant and minority narratives? Use your texts to explore the successes or shortcomings of such an approach in terms of understanding American multicultural literature and society.

Text requirements: Your essay should refer to at least 6 texts from the assigned readings

·         Of these 6 texts, two should exemplify the immigrant narrative, two should exemplify the minority narrative, and two should involve features of both narratives.

·         Of the two texts exemplifying the minority narrative, one should be African American and one should be Native American Indian.

·         Of the two texts involving features of both narratives, one should be Afro-Caribbean and one should be Mexican American.

·         Of the 6 texts, at least four should be prose pieces from Imagining America or Visions of America; that is, two of the texts may be poems presented from Unsettling America. However, you may use all prose texts if you prefer.

·         (These are only minimal requirements. Of course you may refer briefly or allusively to more.)

You should refer to relevant stages of the immigrant narrative in relation to Cultural Objectives 1 & 1a concerning the USA’s immigrant and minority cultures, but you don’t have to “march through” all the stages of the Immigrant Narrative.

  Sample Student Answers to Midterm Essay Two

(Initials at end of  each section indicate student author.)

[Complete Essay from Email Exam]

Within the context of multicultural literature, studying the immigrant narrative and its many facets provides an adequate criterion for investigation, though additional input regarding minority culture adds greater understanding to viewing minority texts.  In purely immigrant texts, such as “Soap and Water” by Anzia Yezierska, the immigrant concept of the American Dream is displayed through the narrator’s longing to attend college and become one of the dominant culture.  The narrator is in the beginning of Stage 4 of the Immigrant Narrative, assimilation to dominant American culture, though her discriminatory treatment by Miss Whiteside includes elements of exploitation and discrimination, Stage 3.  Her extreme desire to become a teacher, part of the national social structure, also shows that the narrator has no resistance to becoming one of the dominant culture and does not care to retain part of her cultural origin by resisting total assimilation.  “The English Lesson” by Nicholasa Mohr, also encompasses the American Dream aspect of immigration to the United States with Lali’s husband owning his own business and working hard to become part of the dominant culture, beginning Stage 4 emotions.  The text states that “they had migrated here in search of a better future” (IA 24), and learning English helps everyone (except Diego Torres) assimilate a bit faster.  The only true contrast between these two works of immigrant narrative is the discrimination felt directly by the narrator in “Soap and Water” and the distance Lali and William feel from the discrimination witnessed through the Polish music professor, who is reduced to being a porter.  William even casually remarks that part of the American Dream of equality means that “everybody [gets] a chance to clean toilets!” (IA 29).  The lack of surprise and indignation from William to this injustice shows to what extent he is becoming a part of the dominant culture and shows the almost desensitization that many immigrants undergo in assimilating to the dominant culture.  The celebration of the American Dream, despite the hardships in “Soap and Water,” marks these two texts as purely immigrant narratives.

Moving out from these purely immigrant narratives, one may use the Immigrant Narrative background to gauge other texts as immigrant or minority and to what extent texts contain elements of both.  In reading from “No Name In The Street” by James Baldwin, the reader is struck with emotions almost as far from the celebration of the American Dream as can be seen.  Baldwin, an African-American, grew up in the United States, so experienced Stages 4 and 5 of the Immigrant Narrative through his assimilation into American society and his reassertion of his ethnic identity.  Baldwin, however, carries his reassertion beyond a partial reconnection with his past and moves outside the basic elements seen in the Immigrant Narrative’s discussion of the “American Nightmare.”  In this situation, additional information on the minority experience makes identifying Baldwin’s situation easier and allows the reader to recognize elements quite different than those seen in the immigrant stories.  Through the Minority Concept and Objectives, the reader can see that Baldwin is experiencing what C.O.1a calls the “American Nightmare” or Minority Objective 3’s contrast involving involuntary participation in the dominant society.  Baldwin also writes of a fierce personal opposition to national institutions, as listed in minority concept 2c, such as law enforcement and national wars, when he says “We? … what [expletive] we?” (VA 289).  Baldwin doesn’t feel that an institution, “the slave master” (289), should be aided by those that it oppressed in the past.  This is a vast difference from the immigrant narrative in which discrimination is fought in order to become the institution.  Baldwin proposes fighting the institution, a definite minority attribute of this story, to attempt to right past wrongs and not allow the dominant society to forget the injustices suffered by the unwilling inductees into the American way of life through the slave trade.  Forcefully, Baldwin shows the reader an opposition to the American Dream immigrant narrative.

Another minority text, Chrystos’ “I Have Not Signed a Treaty with the United States Government” contains the minority anger and outrage as seen in Baldwin’s writing.  Chrystos raised in California as a Native American in the city, experiences Stages 4 and 5 of the Immigrant Narrative, but with a reassertion and fierce anger, similar to Baldwin’s, at the past treatment of the Native American people in the Unites States.  Overrun by expansionist land-grabbing, Chrystos asserts that the Native American people would have been better left alone, much like Minority Objective 3b.  The nightmarish format of the poetry itself, without institutionally formal punctuation or sentence structure, aids the words in rejecting the dominant culture’s rules and regulations, Minority Concept 2c.  Chrystos repeats the Native American rejection of America, relating its values as bad food, bad dancing, diseases, and commercialism, like McDonald’s.  The anger present in this powerful poem displays the antithesis of the American Dream Immigrant Narrative and allows the reader to see the raw emotion felt in the American Nightmare of forced minority participation.

Other texts, such as Paule Marshall’s “The Making of a Writer: From the Poets in the Kitchen,” contain elements of both the immigrant and minority narratives.  The women discussing politics around the kitchen table believed wholly in the American Dream (C.O.1a), working hard to earn the money to buy a brownstone house, believing that FDR was the hero of the nation, and buying into most the dominant culture’s ideas.  War, however, sparked the emotions in the women, but almost in the same way as it would a poor white woman: the rich politicians send the poor boys to fight, not mentioning color or discrimination, but class differences.  The women around the table were in Stage 4 of the Immigrant Narrative, remembering home, but realizing that American offered them the opportunities they wanted.  The minority experience in this story can be seen through Paule’s, the narrator’s, visits to the library and connection to the African-American writers, which would be stage 5 of the Immigrant Narrative.  Even more than the initial connection, Paule’s subsequent revelation that the public schools were shortchanging African-American students by denying them the right to learn about their cultural heritage would relate to Minority Objective 3c: “the need to rise again and a quest for group dignity.”  Dual elements of immigrant and minority emotions can be seen in “Like Mexicans” by Gary Soto, in which Gary’s grandmother embodies the unsure immigrant by pressuring Gary to marry a Mexican girl, Gary’s mother is undecided, and Gary embodies the new world immigrant by deciding to marry outside his race.  The three generation shift shows elements of Stages 3 and 4 of the Immigrant Narrative, but also shows elements of Minority Objective 3c, with Gary’s mother undecided, or ambivalent about the extent to which her son should assimilate into the American culture.  The choice is further complicated by introducing another immigrant group, Japanese, instead of the traditional Anglo-American.  The reaction of both families shows their interesting dilemma in trying to decide whether Gary is an immigrant, a full-fledged American, or, as Gary describes himself, a Mexican, so a minority group.  The interesting questions raised by the elements of both immigrant and minority narrative seen in “The Making of a Writer…” and “Like Mexicans” gain understanding when compared to both the Immigrant Narrative Cultural Objectives and the Minority Concept Objectives.

Using the traditional Immigrant Narrative as a criterion with which to investigate American multicultural literature works well to a certain point, at which the introduction of minority-conscious objectives adds interesting ideas and viewpoints from which to judge additional facets of the literature.  The combination of immigrant and minority ideas allows readers to more fully investigate multicultural literature and resist the urge to compartmentalize literature as fully immigrant or minority, but to see the value of both backgrounds as they combine to form the integrated text. [CR]

[Excerpt: Introduction from Email Exam]

            The immigrant and minority narrative can be contrasted in various ways. Although the two contain similar stages, these stages are viewed very differently. The first stage is leaving the "Old World". For the immigrant, leaving the "Old World" is an aspiration. There is a since of running from the old to the new. The first example of this is in ”The English Lesson"(IA) when the author depicts a desire for the characters to learn the language of the "New World". There is also evidence of the immigrants' desire for a better future. Another example of how the immigrant depicts leaving the "Old World" and entering the "New World as a dream to be desired is in the handout of the "Bread Givers" when the narrator writes, "when I was paid a dollar, I felt the riches of all America in my hand."

The minority experience of leaving the Old World and entering the New World is very different. For the minority the Old World is the place that they want to be. Instead of willingly coming to the New World, they are forced. This brings about feelings of shock and resistance. They experience exploitation and discrimination. These feeling are most evident in The Classic Slave Narratives. The author talks about being "carried" on board and "handled and tossed up". The narrator continues to talk about being in a world of bad spirits where their appearance and language was different and frightening. Also in "The Lesson"(IA) the minority students showed resistance to the lesson they were being taught. These feelings of shock, resistance, exploitation and discrimination can also be shared in the immigrant narrative. . . . [AP]

[Complete Essay from Email Exam]

            One aspect that sets humans apart from other creatures is our need to tell stories.  These stories, or narratives, help us to make sense of our experiences, our history.  Narratives that have been written by American Immigrants, Native Americans, and other minority writers can thus provide a mechanism through which the life experiences of members of these groups can be studied. Although the authors of these narratives share at least one critical thing in common in that they all belong to non-dominant cultures, their stories often seem to have more differences than similarities.  Attitudes and assimilation patterns tend to differ according to the group’s reasons for coming to America, their experiences upon arrival, and the degree to which they are accepted by the dominant American culture.

            American immigrants historically come to America to escape economic or political difficulties.  America thus becomes a modern day promised land.  Unfortunately, however, like the Israelites of long ago, immigrants often find that the milk and honey of the American promised land comes with a heavy price tag.  Many of the issues faced by first generation immigrants are captured in Nicholasa Mohr’s “The English Lesson.”  

Many immigrants, like Mr. Fong who emigrates from China and immediately begins a delivery food business, come to America to “improve their position[s] better,” and like Mr. Fong, they soon learn that they must become proficient in English in order to be successful.  Educated, professional immigrants end up accepting menial jobs, finding that everyone has an equal “chance to clean toilets” (29).  Despite these hardships, however, most of the characters in “The English Lesson” continue to believe that the American Dream is possible for them, which seems typical of the first generation immigrant experience.

            In “The Making of a Writer: From the Poets in the Kitchen,” second-generation immigrant Paule Marshall highlights more of the difficulties encountered by American immigrants, especially those that affect women.  Marshall explains that the women of her neighborhood worked extra jobs as housekeepers in order to achieve the dream of buying a house.  In order to regain a measure of control over their lives, they would meet in the kitchen to discuss a wide range of complex issues.  As the women would manipulate and play with language, they provided for each other a therapeutic opportunity to work through some of the pressures of immigration and to restore personal dignity.  As a second-generation immigrant, however, Marshall moved out of the traditional Old World role for women, and her transformation is reflected in her essay through her tastes in reading material.  She begins reading the classics of the Western literary canon.  Although Marshall loves everything she reads, eventually she finds that she “loses herself” in these texts.  Stumbling across Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poetry, she is finally able to enjoy a work written by someone like herself.  Marshall’s essay thus covers the gambit of the stages of the assimilation process.  Her mother left the Old World in search of a better life only to experience exploitation.  Marshall successfully assimilates, but feels the need to rediscover part of her self, her ethnic identity. 

            Marshall’s and Mohr’s texts capture through anecdotal evidence and character development the five-step assimilation process identified by sociologists.  These narratives, which are perhaps much more interesting to read than social science theory, are useful in that they provide insight into the American immigrants experience for readers who might not ever find the opportunity to study sociology texts.  Narratives such as these, therefore, serve to educate readers on a broad scale.

Although minority Americans, such as American Indians and African Americans, encounter some of the same issues as American immigrants, they typically do not demonstrate the same hopeful attitudes in the wake of these difficulties.  Unlike immigrants who come to America by choice, African-Americans were brought here by force and were subsequently treated abominably.  American Indians were overtaken and forced out of their homelands by European Immigrants.  Texts written by members of these minorities, therefore, differ in tone and content from those written by American Immigrants.

In the poem, “I Have Not Signed a Treaty with the United States Government,” Chrystos articulates the frustration and anger felt by many American Indians.  Imbedded in the text of the poem is the reality that American Indian culture has been overrun with skyscrapers and McDonald’s and that these changes are not welcome. The speaker of the poem seems to scream, “We’re going to tear all this ugly mess down now   We revoke your immigration papers [. . .] Go so far away we won’t remember you ever came here / Take these words back with you” (305).   The poem throws the American bureaucracy back in the faces of those who presume to refuse people admission to a country that they themselves unjustly took from the American Indian people. 

The short story “The Man to Send Rain Clouds” also deals with the topic of the power of the dominant culture over the American Indian Culture, especially with regard to belief systems.  Leslie Marmon Silko uses imagery to demonstrate religious syncretism that has occurred in a New Mexico American Indian tribe.  Holy water is sprinkled on the dead Grandfather, but it is sprinkled on top of corn meal and pollen.  The Native Americans incorporate the Catholic ritual into their own burial traditions, yet they seem oblivious to the intended purpose for Holy water.  The survivors ask for Holy water because they hope it will bring much needed rain to the community. 

Although Silko’s story doesn’t seem to carry as angry of a tone as Chrystos’s poem, the topic of cultural absorption is apparent in that Christian rituals are mixed with Indian burial traditions. These two American Indian texts provide insight into Native Americans attitudes in response to the invasion of European immigrants, and they also demonstrate various ways in which the dominant European culture modified the Native American belief systems and religious rituals.  These texts, therefore, become a powerful tool for understanding the mindset of Native Americans and for understanding how their story differs from that of American Immigrants and other minorities in America. 

Patricia Smith’s poem, “Blonde White Women” captures the psychological trauma and subsequent anger felt by African Americans as they live in a world where beauty is defined by the dominant culture of white Europeans.  Clearly the speaker of this poem struggles with self-disdain before she learns to embrace her beauty as a black woman.  Her anger in the wake of this realization causes the “train car to grow tense” with her as she sneers at the blondes who are no longer her role models (78).  As an African American, she must learn to define beauty in a different way from the dominant culture, and this realization comes with anger and perhaps grief. 

James Baldwin’s essay is also angry in tone.  This anger is evident when the narrator sinks into profanity while eating in the home of his childhood friend.  He later wonders at his behavior, claiming that he “had never talked that way before” (289).   Baldwin resorts to profanity in response to the awareness that his friend was clinging to a dream that Baldwin felt had died with MLK.  Baldwin bristles with anger as his friend condones the idea of black folks joining an Army that didn’t really represent African Americans.  Finally in anger and frustration, Baldwin resorts to the lowest guttural vernacular he can find.  When confronted with extreme emotions, the brain searches for language that can accurately convey those feelings, hence Baldwin’s horror is reflected in profane word choice.  Ironically, Baldwin has the luxury of articulating these feelings because he has “made it.”  He travels all over the world and hires limousines to drive to Harlem.  Yet, even in having “made it,” Baldwin feels guilt rather than pleasure because he feels somehow, through success, he too has joined up with those who had oppressed his people. 

Baldwin’s essay and Smith’s poem capture the complexities of the African-American minority experience in that they demonstrate that justified feelings of guilt, anger, and resentment can overshadow any success and self-acceptance achieved.  Given that the experience of African-Americans differs widely from that of American Immigrants who choose to come to America and from that of American Indians whose presence preceded any immigration, it makes sense that narratives written by African- Americans would also differ greatly.  Based on these two examples, the narrative structure works well to characterize the African-American experience and successfully differentiates it from that of other non-dominant cultures.

            To further complicate the understanding of immigrant and minority issues, there are those groups who seem to fall into both camps.   Some Mexican Americans and Afro-Caribbean Americans choose to come to American for economic opportunity.  They face some of the same hardships as other immigrants do, and some of them seem to follow the same “American Dream” pattern.  Others, however, follow the immigration stages up to a point and then finally land in a minority status rather than fully assimilating into the dominant American culture. 

In Hunger of Memory, fully assimilated Richard Rodriquez describes the disparity between the intimacy found in the extended family of his youth and the isolation experienced in the impersonal business meetings of the dominant American culture.  As an adult he broods over the connection between language and intimacy (232).  He feels guilty when he loses the ability to speak fluent Spanish, feeling that he “had somehow committed a sin of betrayal by learning English,” a choice that subsequently cost him intimacy with his extended family members.  It’s as if assimilation cost him part of himself, at least until he could, as an adult, work through some of the complexities associated with language and intimacy and assimilation.  Clearly some Mexican Americans never reach the point where they can analyze the impact language has on intimacy.  Many refuse to sacrifice the language of their homeland and the familial intimacy associated with it.  These Mexican Americans eventually end up in the category of minority Americans because of language barriers. 

Judith Ortiz Cofer describes other issues prohibiting the full assimilation of

Afro-Caribbean Americans.   In “Silent Dancing” Cofer describes the harsh realities associated with skin color.  Her father joins the Navy, makes good money, buys Christmas trees, and dresses the children like “models from the Sears catalogue,” (183) but despite his efforts, he still encounters prejudice and resistance from landlords who panic at the influx of Latinos.  Cofer also discusses Puerto Rican resistance to assimilation due to contrasting cultural expectations for women.   In America, women do what they want, are more promiscuous, marry later, and leave their children with babysitters.  In the Old Country, women marry early, stay at home, and never leave their children with strangers.  These differences in behaviors reflect the connection between the value of extended families over individual independence.  Language barriers, skin color, resistance to leaving the intimacy of extended families, and core values regarding gender roles can, therefore, become stumbling blocks to complete assimilation for Mexican Americans and Afro-Caribbean Americans and can subsequently lead to their membership in minority groups.

            Interestingly both Rodriguez and Cofer speak of silence.  Rodriquez finds that his Spanish tongue is silenced, and the dancing of Cofer’s Puerto Rican relatives is silenced.  This alienation from the culture of their origin and the subsequent alienation from part of “the self” that comes with denying one’s culture seem to be prevalent themes in American immigrant narratives.  These two narratives, therefore, also become useful tools for understanding psychological stress associated with assimilation. 

            In order for the immigrant and minority narratives to be successfully used as a yardstick for studying multicultural issues in American society, it seems crucial that the distinctions between American immigrants, American Indians, African-Americans, and other minority cultures be recognized.  As the texts analyzed herein demonstrate, the observation of these differences becomes easy enough for readers in that the narratives differ so widely with regard to the writers’ history, tone, attitudes, outlook for the future, and psychological issues associated with loss of ethnic identity and oppression.  The narratives themselves, therefore, become useful mechanisms through which readers can identify differences and similarities between American minority and immigrant experiences. [JS]

[Complete Essay from Email Exam]

The Immigrant Narrative encompasses stories from a variety of historical periods, cultures, and circumstances of immigration.  Common themes include the stages of immigration (including eventual assimilation) and complex connection to the past.  Often immigrants strive to forget the past, and are unable to rid themselves of it, while at other times, immigrants strive to stay connected, or to re-connect with the past.

In "The English Lesson" by Nicolas Mohr, an enthusiastic and well-meaning teacher, oblivious to the complexities of her students' lives, teaches a group of immigrants English.  The piece combines the immigrant and minority narrative.  While many of the immigrants voluntarily left their countries and are happy to be in America, some felt forced to come to America and are ill at ease in their role as immigrants.  Mrs. Hamma in her role as a representative of the dominant culture, glides through class, periodically uttering banal clichés about America.  After a Polish student, once a professor, but now a menial laborer, speaks, Mrs. Hamma applauds and brightly announces that "everybody here must be treated equally" (37). Though the irony of this statement escapes Mrs. Hamma, readers are all too aware of the inequities in the students' lives.  "The English Lesson" presents the ambiguities of immigration.  While several immigrants announce that they eagerly immigrated to take advantage of opportunities in the U.S., a man from Santo Domingo tells the class than he came to escape bleak economic conditions, created by the United States, in his homeland.  Diego Torres, though not an involuntary immigrant in the sense of African slaves, Mexican-Americans who inhabited land taken over the by the U.S. or Native Americans, has had some element of choice taken away from him, nonetheless. All the students, no matter how reluctant, share a desire to lean English. The English classes provide a means for them escape the unhappiness of their lives, in Lali's case, or to assimilate to their new culture.  Both willing and unwilling, the immigrants in this piece seem to feel that assimilation is, to some degree, an integral part of success in America.

In "Silent Dancing" by Judith Ortiz Cofer, the author explores similar themes of voluntary versus involuntary immigration and assimilation.  The narrator's family moves because of economic pressure, but some family members seem more eager to leave Puerto Rico than others.  The father is light-skinned and has a job with the military, a great equalizer and assimilator.  He seems more comfortable in America than the rest of his darker family.  Colors classify events and people in the story. The "light" versus "dark" members of the family are all the same, "brown," to the dominant culture.  The narrator tells of how the city was "being gradually colored brown" (181).  The movies showing the home life of the Puerto Rican community are depicted in vivid colors, unlike the subdued hues usually associated with dominant culture.  The narrator's light-skinned cousin seems to be the most successful at assimilating, going so far as to bleach her hair and shrink away from her Puerto Rican heritage.  Her story ends with her being sent to Puerto Rico after an affair with a married American man. Her lover wanted nothing to do with her after she became pregnant, as he had "a wife who was a natural blonde" (186).  The cousin's attempts at assimilation end it failure.  She did not strike the precise balance between becoming an American and retaining her heritage, instead she veered in self-loathing.  Both her American lover and her Puerto Rican family scorn her.  In a sense the cousin experiences stage 3 (the exploitation and discrimination common to the immigrant and minority narratives) at the same time as she is experiencing stage 4(assimilation and a loss of ethnic identity).  In the end, the cousin literally experiences stage 5 (rediscovery of ethnic identity) when she is sent to Puerto Rico.

Paule Marshal describes her influences in "The Making of a Writer: From the Poets in the Kitchen."  She credits both her American education and the informal education she received from the "poets in the kitchen."  An Afro-Caribbean immigrant, Marshall blurs the line between immigrant and minority.  Although, Marshall regrets not being exposed to Black writers earlier, she also paints a positive portrait of immigration.  The families in her community criticize the racism they encounter as minorities yet acknowledge that America allows them to strive to earn money and buy a house.  Marshall explores the solace that immigrants find in language. Though she writes of their "triple-invisibility," as women, minorities and immigrant foreigners in America, Marshall also identifies how language gave them, and her, comfort.  The language comes to represent culture. Immigrants combine English with their own idioms and cadences, much as later generations combine certain ancestral customs with the dominant culture. Marshall pays tribute to the marginalized group of who influenced her, classifying them as both minorities and immigrants.  Although the women voluntarily left the Caribbean, their ancestors did not voluntarily leave their homeland.  They strive towards the "American Dream" (for them, the goal is to buy a house), but they are marked as racially different and thus, they are treated as minorities. In "Report From the Bahamas" June Jordan further explores the complexities of immigration and the blending of immigrant and minority narratives.  The author, a Afro-Caribbean and the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, stays at a Caribbean resort and searches for her identity.  She notices the exploitation of the native Bahamians for the benefit of tourists, yet she is, herself, such a tourist.  She feels a camaraderie with Anzi Yezierska, a Jewish immigrant, and with the Afro-Caribbean maid at the resort. Jordan straddles the line between minority and immigrant, feeling that she is an American and that her parents were willing immigrants and yet aware of her peculiar place in American society.  She identifies her son as Black and supports federal aid to minority students, not a position usually held by immigrants.  Jordan's story also touches on literary objective 4 when she describes the similarities between translating Yiddish to English and her love of Black English.  The incorporation of an immigrant or minority language into the dominant language effects the English spoken by various groups as well as by the mainstream.

While Jordan pays cursory attention to the generational issues separating her from her son, Gary Soto focuses on such issues in "Like Mexicans."  The narrator's grandmother, intent on keeping her family's cultural identity alive, urges him to marry a Mexican girl.  Her experience as a minority who has probably experienced ill treatment, or at least isolation from the dominant culture, colors her experience as an immigrant.  The narrator, however, is fairly assimilated and falls in love with a Japanese-American girl.  In a beautifully illustrated celebration of assimilation and commonality, the narrator eats "sandwiches, potato chips and iced tea" along with sushi with his girlfriend's parents.  In this story, class serves as bridge between the two ethnic groups.  The grandmother is still in a traditional society, at least mentally, while the parents and grandchildren have assimilated to some degree.  Though he does not explicitly reference the American dream, Soto's story shows a sweet and touching side to the American immigrant experience.

In stark contrast to Soto's story is "American Horse" by Louise Erdrich. Erdrich writes of a Native American family, living in poverty, and harassed by the dominant culture's agents: police officers and a social worker. Buddy dreams of a spiked machine that relentlessly drives along its path. This dream represents the story of immigration for Buddy and other Native Americans, immigration as a nightmare, a horrifying machine rolling over their culture.  Instead of the sweet depictions of assimilation in Soto or Mohr's piece, Erdrich fills her writing with bleak descriptions and a sense of helplessness.  Little ambiguity exists about immigration in Erdrich's work.  Clearly, the minorities in this story do not outgrow the marginalization and discrimination experienced by first generation immigrants.  Even generations after the nightmare began, Buddy is still experiencing terrifying dreams and a terrifying reality.

Anzia Yezierska writes of the drudgery of an immigrant in "Soap and Water." Unlike Erdrich's story, Yezierska writes of voluntary immigration.  Yet as with the minority narratives, Yezierska's narrator is also marked by appearance.  In this case, she is unclean from her relentless hard work. She dreams of going to college, another means of assimilation, and works hard to educate herself in her pursuit of the American Dream. Her dreams of America are shattered as she toils in poverty and experiences discrimination.  However, by the end of the piece, the narrator finds a sympathetic teacher and begins to feel the freedom and joy of America. While she did not feel she was in America while she faced discrimination and exploitation, she eventually feels that she has "found America."  Indeed, she went followed the path of the immigrant, complete with mistreatment, as with the minority narrative, and then, feeling somewhat assimilated through her education and the kinship she feels with Miss Van Ness, she finds and achieves her American Dream.

Immigrant literature provides a useful template for identifying and studying the struggles and triumphs of immigrants and minorities.  The different groups in the stories and essays mentioned provide several angles from which to view the immigrant experience.  Most authors are the children of immigrants so few stories telling of the original journey exist, but the authors do provide a look into the frustrations and dreams of immigrants. These second-generation writers also attack the very nature of immigration, and how voluntary such journeys are, if they are voluntary at all.  In addition to delving into the complex blending of the minority and immigrant experiences, the writers also examine the positive as well as the bitter results of immigration and assimilation. [AS]

[Excerpt from Email Exam]

In “from Hunger of Memory” by Richard Rodriguez, the Mexican American as the “ambivalent minority” is obvious. The family is in America and encourages the children to speak and learn English and when they do, they learn all the rest of the things that come with English. When they show the signs that are a natural effect of becoming fluent in English, the family ridicules the children for losing who they really are. Stage 1 is shown very subtly in the second sentence when Rodriguez states he “grew fluent in English.” He was leaving the old and journeying toward the new. In this case, languages represent the old and the new but the subtle overtones include the traditions, and even culture of the Spanish and American people. Stage 2 is also represented in the same sentence. His growing fluent is his reaching the new world/language. Stage 3 is the shock and resistance when he has trouble speaking Spanish. It is an interesting twist that the discrimination he endures comes from his own people. His stage 4 comes with making friends outside of his home as shown on page 231 in the 2^nd paragraph, and again on page 232 in the paragraph under the break, in how he has come to expect the type of language and greetings he receives. The final stage—stage 5—is shown in the second to the last paragraph of the story. He realizes that in is not just the words, but also the actions, tone of voice, and body language that creates intimacy. It is as if he has reached the point, but there was no fruition shown, only intimated at.  [RS]

[Excerpt from introduction to in-class exam]

In considering the terms immigrant and minority, "The Immigrant Narrative" can be used as a measuring stick to explore and understand American multicultural literature and society, as well as considering the American Dream versus the American Nightmare.  In the minority narrative, one finds a minority to be in America on an involuntary basis such as the Native Americans who were here before the Anglos, yet they were forced to move as the white men expanded their territorial claims.  In a sense, the Native Americans were forced to leave the Old World or their Known World in search of a New World.  In doing so, over time, their beliefs were pushed down just as they were.  For example in "The Man to Send Rain Clouds", Leon and Ken wish to perform rituals of the Old World on Teofilo, but the priest, representing the New World, at first says the old man must have a Christian burial, although the priest does come and sprinkle the holy water.  But Leon and Ken show resistance in their refusal of the Christian burial.  Another group exemplifying the minority narrative is the African Americans who were brought as slaves to America against their own free will.  And here they must assimilate; yet they tend to show some resistance.  Their Old World, of course, was Africa as they were imprisoned, and their New World journey was a forced one, and then they find they are discriminated against.  In "The Lesson" the author stated, "Who are these people that spend that much for performing clowns and $1000 for toy sailboats?" (IA 144).  Bambara claimed it is an unjust society and equality should come about, an issue slaves dealt with and, the equality issues and discrimination have been brought into the light by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. 

Immigrants differ from minorities in the fact that they immigrate to America on a voluntary basis in search of something they desire such as economic opportunity only to have the door slammed in their face if they do not assimilate into the dominant culture.  "Soap and Water" demonstrates an excellent example with the author, Yezierska, unable to acquire her diploma for a time due to her unkempt appearance.  She has left the Old World for the New World in pursuit of a college education only to have her diploma withheld.  Her appearance is oily, fingernails filthy, and her hair very nappy.  The dean simply stated, "Soap and water are cheap.  Anyone can be clean."  Unfortunately this is not always the case.  This can be considered symbolic in America, everyone is supposed to have the chance to "make it big", but first someone has to give a person a chance, and appearance is a factor.  Discrimination occurs against people with awful appearances all the time such as when looking for a job.  Two people with the same knowledge, one pretty and the other not, the pretty person will be picked more often.  Sad, but true, I know, because I worked human resources for a company, and I could see people doing this.  So then immigrants must somehow use soap and water to wash away their "old" identity and claim a "new" identity and assimilate into the dominant culture; they must cleanse themselves. [JB]

[Complete in-class essay]

            I can appreciate, and do agree, that the “Immigrant Narrative” can be used as a “yardstick” in investigating multi-cultural literature and, more specifically, where the immigrant and minority experience and mindset diverge (C.O. 1).

            In examining the “Immigrant Narrative,” the pieces “Soap and Water” by Anzia Yezierska and “Silent Dancing” by Judith Ortiz Cofer each provide ample evidence that the stages posed in the “Immigrant Narrative” are quite valid.  The “American Dream” of economic betterment and personal freedom (C.O. 1a) are pursued by the narrator in “Soap and Water” through a college education that she believes will lead to “...self-expression...” and her “vague, pent-up feeling could live as thoughts and grow as ideas,” her American Dream (IA 107).  She experiences the discrimination of stage 3 because of her visible difference for the dominant society (IA 105) just as the father does in “Silent Dancing,” when looking for a place for his family to live, likely due to audible differences (VA 180) (C.O. 1a).  While the father in “Silent Dancing” easily assimilates because of his military status (VA 179), the narrator of “Soap and Water” struggles with assimilation on two fronts.  She is trying to assimilate through education (C.O. 8) but the cost is “slaving in a laundry form five to eight, ... six to eleven ...” with little or not time for the “... little niceties of the well-groomed lady” which is counter productive to her assimilation (IA 106) (C.O. 5 & 7).  Despite this, her “social contract and voluntary participation” in the “American Dream” continue to fuel “the deathless faith that America is, must be, somehow, somewhere” (IA 109) (C.O. 1a).

            For the narrator in “Silent Dancing,” the change in social structure of her surroundings began stage 4 of the “Immigrant Narrative” (VA 180).  This story goes through stage 1 (VA 179), stage 2 (VA 180), and stage 3 (VA 180) briefly, but stage 4 -assimilation- took much longer for this family than it did for the father alone; and the author uses this to draw out the story.  It makes reference to the father’s assimilation (through military), the children’s assimilation (largely due to TV), and the mothers assimilation (largely by force of family).  The story also exemplifies the recursive nature of the “Immigrant Narrative” in that they come to America for socio-economic reasons, settle in the ghetto, assimilate, then the father struggles to get them out of the ghetto and into a nice neighborhood where they will have to assimilate once again.  Overall, however, the narrator of the story is clearly at stage 5 because she is able to reflect on these events and ask questions like “Who is she? Who is that old lady I don’t recognize?”  (VA 184) and make observations about “...‘typical’ immigrant Puerto Rican decor...” (VA 181) as she attempts to reconnect with her past. 

            Minority narratives, on the other hand, tend to diverge from the “Immigrant Narrative” at stage 1 in that their participation with the dominant culture is not voluntary, and stage 4 in that they do not necessarily want to assimilate.  The poem by Chrystos, “I Have Not Signed a Treaty with the United States Government” is a good example.  The author points out that her people, Native Americans, are not voluntary participants in this United States while “...is theory...” and has no foundations.  They want nothing to do with “...immigration papers...” or “...assimilation soap suds...” (VA 304-5).  This is a prime example of the “American Nightmare” (C.O. 1a) (Minority Concepts {M.C.] O. 3b).

            Minorities tend to maintain extended families, as in “The Man to Send Rain” or revised extended families as in “The Lesson” (M.C. O. 3).  In “The Man to Send Rain,” the extended family, in this case the “clans people,” are called upon to help dig a grave for grand-pa (IA 192).  In “The Lesson,” the narrator tells us that “...we all moved north the same time and to the same apartment then spread out gradual to breathe” (IA 139); they revised the idea of extended family rather than entirely assimilating to the individual or nuclear family (M.C. O. 3) (C.O. 2).

            In each of these examples, the minority group has taken from the dominant culture what benefits them, but never cuts ties with their past.  The obvious example in “The Man to Send Rain” is the topic of the story - the burial preparations and ceremony, of the traditional Native Americans, for grandpa.  Leon rejects the notion of “Last Rites” as necessary but wants the Holy Water because of how his culture interprets its value, not because of what it means to the dominant culture (IA 194).

            In “The Lesson” Miss Moore has used the dominant culture for her education and is now trying to bring these fully assimilated children into an awareness of stage 3 problems, thereby leading to the rediscovery of culture in stage 5.  However, this does not occur through assimilation as it would for an immigrant.  Miss Moore encourages the children to acknowledge the economic inequalities in this country (IA 145) (C.O. 7).  The resulting affect on the narrator, Sylvia, is not a desire to assimilate, but rather the mindset “...ain’t nobody gonna beat me at nuthin” (IA 145).  While on the surface this child is referring to Sugar, she is also commenting on the fact that she does not have to assimilate in order to attain what she wants.  She will change, but this does not mean she will assimilate.

            The issues of the Immigrant/Minority experience are further complicated when both qualifications are present, as in the case for Afro-Caribbean and Mexican Americans.  The author of “The Making of a Writer,” an Afro-Caribbean descendent, is in stage 5, but shows how assimilation is often never attempted in the first generation.  She describes the work of her mother and aunts as they accept the image of what a black woman should be as a means of promoting “The Dream” for their children (M.C. O. 3c & 6).  Because of this work, the author was able to achieve “The Dream” through education as well as reconnect with her past through the beauty of black American language.

            “Like Mexicans” displays how the minority experience differs from the immigrant experience most markedly in relation to inter-marriage (C.O. 1b).  Soto, the author, is under the pressure of his grandmother to marry only a Mexican girl.  In contrast, his fiance’s family, who fit the immigrant narrative, seems to have no problem with her marrying outside her race.

            Language as a cultural context is the focus of “Hunger of Memory.”  Many Mexican Americans are able to get by with never learning English because of large groups of Spanish speakers or they feel they have betrayed their culture when they do learn English.  The author of this text realizes that his cultural identity is important because no extent of outward assimilation could fill the hole the loss of cultural identity would leave inside (VA 231).  However, he also exemplifies the immigrant narrative in his identification as an individual, alone in a crowd of people.  He is in a constant struggle to balance his minority identity with his immigrant identity. [NCo]