From the Promised Land to the Land of Name Brands:

The Immigrant Narrative and the Creation of the Dominant Culture

            America is assuredly a nation of immigrants. This country, founded by immigrants, was built on the backs of immigrants—both voluntarily and otherwise. So it seems counterintuitive that immigrants must assimilate into a nation that was created for, and by, people just like them. For the average immigrant, becoming American requires one to suppress any identifiable ethnic characteristic and adopt the plain, unmarked style of the dominant culture. The characteristics of the dominant culture into which immigrants more or less assimilate are quite plain. From the crisp accent of the reporter in Bread Givers to the plain style of the Pilgrim clan and Protestantism, the dominant culture is defined by its ability to go largely unadorned. Hunting Mr. Heartbreak describes an infinitely more ornate version of the dominant culture as well as a new dichotomy between the dominant culture and immigrants—yet the underpinnings of Puritanism remain.

            A close look at the group migration of the ancient Hebrews and the Pilgrims exposes salient characteristics of immigrants and the immigrant narrative. Additionally, these accounts of group exodus also serve as a window to the characteristics of the dominant culture into which the immigrant groups assimilate—albeit with varying degrees of success and resistance. The Jewish Exodus and the Pilgrim migration revolve around group identity whereas the story of the dominant culture is typically defined by the individualistic pursuits of its members (Sara Smolinsky is stuck in between as she seeks liberation from the burden of the old ways in her new promised land of America). One essential element of group migration is resistance to assimilation, which is seen as a tool to preserve group identity and viability. The Jews and the Pilgrims both experienced successful resistance to outsiders (the Canaanites and the American Indians, respectively). The Pilgrim’s 17th century rendition of the Exodus story became a new model for immigration to America: Bradford led the Pilgrims as Moses led the Jews. The Pilgrims crossed the Atlantic as the Jews crossed the Red Sea—albeit somewhat less dramatically. As Bradford notes, it was God who had brought the Pilgrims “over the vast and furious ocean” (69). But the Pilgrim’s success, which helped ensure that they became the dominant culture, is unlikely to be duplicated since it is into this mold that all subsequent immigrant groups have assimilated.

            Becoming American essentially means adapting some of the same style—or lack thereof—that the Pilgrims brought with them to Massachusetts. Since the dominant culture is so entrenched, resistance to assimilation and intermarriage has become significantly less beneficial to the immigrants that followed the Pilgrims. The Old Testament has clear prohibitions against race mixing and intermarriage: “And ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land” (Judges 2:2). “Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son” (Deut. 7:3). The reverberations of these divine directives can still be felt, although on a smaller scale: Now, a “group” of immigrants is no longer an entire village or community or ethnic group; it is usually no larger than a single family who desires to retain as much of their identity as possible (i.e. no intermarriage) while simultaneously trying to blend in. Successful completion of this difficult task, however, breeds contempt. Specific pogroms and general anti-Semitism have been partially rooted in (and a backlash to) the success the Jews have experienced in garnering power while remaining a distinct community.

            In Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers, the New York natives have faces that “were not worn with the hunger for things they never could have in their lives” (211). The immigrants struggled to fit in, while, through the eyes of Sara Smolinsky, everyone else had the comfortable and “settled look of those who belong to the world in which they were born” (ibid). Although Jewish immigrants (especially those who arrived in New York) are generally able to quickly fit in to the existing support system established by previous immigrants, Bread Givers shows that the transition from exiled to integrated is not as easy as it might seem. This “new golden country” of milk and honey may seem like the Promised Land in comparison with the old country, but the Smolinsky’s learned that it is not “always summer in America” (9). Nevertheless, the immigrant story often measures success one dollar at a time. Familial conflict is created when these secular pursuits run contrary to father’s zealous religious beliefs. Although Sara’s father believes that religion is what would hold the family (and the Jews, at-large) together, “fanatical adherence” (296) to the old ways can quickly become an encumbrance for immigrants such as the Smolinsky’s, who must find a way to fit in to the dominant culture—a culture in which tradition is, at the least, negotiable.

            The plain style of the dominant culture is discussed with lucidity in Raban’s Hunting Mister Heartbreak: A Discovery of America. The narrator begins with an expedition to Macy’s to buy some clothes that would allow him to fit in to the look of the dominant culture. He succeeds, and melts into the city as a regular guy in his “new American Camouflage” (345). But Raban’s story raises an interesting point: did the American materialism replace the simplistic and homely Puritanism that had been the status quo since the Pilgrims arrived? The narrator in Heartbreak believes that it has—and that it happened “sometime between the age of Richard Nixon and the last days of Ronald Reagan” (345). In Heartbreak, the new style, which reeked of excess and materialism, was “constructed for creatures with infantile attention spans…” (346). Since national barriers have largely fallen and nationalities are quickly absorbed into the complex racial and ethnic framework of America, the new national dichotomy in Heartbreak differentiates people based on those who belong and those who do not.

            Luckily for new immigrants and other outsiders, the world of department stores and name-brand everything shames immigrants and non-immigrants equally for not fitting in. This new America, noticeably more complex and marked than the Puritan world that formed the foundations of dominant culture, is simply the new version of the dominant culture to which immigrants assimilate—if they so chose. Although the topic of immigration is currently quite contentious, there are many characteristics of the debate that have not changed from the days of the ancient Hebrews. Tracing immigration from Exodus through Bread Givers and on to Hunting Mister Heartbreak is an effective means to show that the dominant culture will persist and pervade despite the statistical dilution it will inevitably experience through immigration.

New immigrants may arrive, but the old culture of the chosen people will remain—hidden somewhere behind the boutiques that sell belonging and the platinum cards with which it is bought. [JC]