"one dominant culture to which they must assimilate"

In this class our focus has been on immigrant literature.  Traditionally, this refers to European immigrants who left their homeland, came to America, and successfully lived out the American Dream.  However, I have learned that the above statement is a very narrow view of the Immigrant Experience.  In addition to traditional immigrants, America also consists of people such as African Americans and American Indians: groups who lived out the American Nightmare, and minority groups who may have a different experience than European immigrants.  Although everyone has different origins and experiences, we have become a fairly cohesive American culture.  While ethnic differences are often clear and usually respected, there is still a standard to which all Americans, for the most part, adhere.  So how, in spite of such a vast mixture of ethnicities, did all immigrants come to America and find one dominant culture to which they must assimilate?  The answer can be found by looking at the people who are usually considered to have started modern American ideals: the Pilgrims.  This essay will review what I have learned regarding the dominant culture of America by tracing its roots from the Jewish Exodus to the Pilgrims.  I will present evidence of the dominant culture as found in Bread Givers, and try to look at where the dominant culture is today as shown in “Hunting Mister Heartbreak.”

            There are many examples of Puritan ethics that can be seen as important values in today’s America.  It is interesting to note that many of those same values parallel the values emphasized in the book of Exodus.  Most obviously, both the Pilgrims and the Jews were people of God.  Both groups left lands of religious persecution in order to find a place suitable for free worship of their God.  In order to accomplish this, the groups each exhibited class Objective 4 concerning National Migration.  The entire groups immigrated and, to maintain their religious integrity, had no intention of assimilating.  Rather, they kept themselves completely separate and condemned intermarriage.  In the Bible, the command against intermarriage came from God in Deuteronomy 7:3.  For the Pilgrims, they decided before arrival in America that they would not marry the “savage and brutish [people]…little otherwise than the wild beasts” of America (Bradford, 26).  Because of this decision, both the Jews and the Pilgrims placed much importance on husbands, wives, and children.  The nuclear family, the basic social unit in America today, was the means by which each group protected their religious purity.

Their commitment to live as God’s people led the Pilgrims to develop certain ideas, many of which can again be traced to the Jews.  Leaders of both migrating groups placed great importance on writing and literacy.  According to the commands of God, there should be no graven images, no attempt to show the likeness of God.  As a result, the written word and people’s ability to read it became all important as the one device to record God’s will.  In keeping with the idea that the Word of God should not be embellished or changed by humans, Bradford was faithful to write in the “plain style” that is characteristic of his unmarked culture.  In Puritan views, nothing should stand out, or be seen as more beautiful or lavish than God.  The Pilgrims kept to this idea not only in their writing, but also in their dress and mannerisms. 

The Puritan work ethic is also an ideal which passed to them from Biblical origins.  In Exodus 23:12 God commanded the Jews: “Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work.”  The Pilgrims were very strict about this, as evidenced by the Christmas Day situation in Of Plymouth Plantation.  Pilgrims expected everyone to work on every day but the Sabbath Day, which was devoted to worship.  Perhaps this habit is where the American Dream stems from.  Everyone can work in America.  If you work hard enough, you will certainly be successful.

The final and perhaps most pervasive American characteristic that came from the Pilgrims is capitalism.  The Pilgrims attempted to develop a commune, but found that it didn’t work.  People simply resented the idea that they were working for the betterment of others, many of whom could not work nearly as hard due to illness or old age.  Once the families were given plots to work for their own benefit, people began to work harder and more consistently.  The Pilgrims found that their farms were more successful when people were more motivated.  Thus came the introduction of capitalism on New World soil.

Bread Givers, by Anzia Yezierska, is an interesting book to examine at this point in my essay.  It is a book that kind of hovers between both of the cultures I have been discussing.  A Jewish girl, living in America, must learn to assimilate into the dominant culture established long ago by the Pilgrims.  As she learns to assimilate, she describes the dominant culture and offers much evidence of the still existing ideals of Plymouth Plantation.  Aside from the most obvious factor, that Sara lives in a capitalist economy, we find evidence of a culture that still highly values literacy and learning.  Sara’s goal is to become a teacher.  She goes to school, buys books, and writes papers, all in an attempt to prove that she is literate and learned enough to teach children.  In her struggle to learn, we also see Sara’s struggle to assimilate her appearance. Sara speaks of the “plain beautifulness…  simple skirts…finished quietness” of the dominant culture’s clothing (Yezierska, 212).  She notes also that a simple suit has “more style in its plainness than the richest velvet” (239).  All of this plain style comes directly from the Puritan value of plainness.  One last important legacy of the Pilgrims is the Puritan work ethic.  Bread Givers illustrates this when Max tells Sara of his beginnings in America.  He speaks of the first day when he got off the ship, but went straight to work that very day.  “At the end of that day, when I was paid a dollar, I felt the riches of all America in my hand” (189).  By the end of that week, Max was already in business for himself.  Max was living the American Dream: hard work leads to prosperity. 

“Hunting for Mister Heartbreak” offers a different, more modern view of the dominant culture in America.  In Raban’s America, “American puritanism had been whitewashed over” (345).  People have exchanged traditional immigration for vertical immigration.  The importance, here, is to move skyward, away from the street people who live in dirt and poverty.  In “Hunting,” it initially seems that people have forsaken all of the Puritan ideals.  However, upon close examination it becomes apparent that, although the ideals have taken new forms, they are not forgotten all together.  Capitalism is still the game to be played.  Macy’s thrives on consumer demand and takes pains to attract buyers.  The American Dream is alive and well, though the prize may be different.  In Raban’s story, people work hard to achieve the wealth necessary to live in the air, out of the street people world.  In a sense, they immigrate from the old world of the streets to the new world of the air, but that can only be accomplished through economic success.  The air people in “Hunting” still strive to be unmarked.  Raban was at first excited to wear his “new American camouflage” so that he “melted into the city, a regular guy at last” (345).  The clothing that people were willing to pay a lot of money for was “disappointingly dull…plain cotton shirts and ties” (345).  In this story, it is the street people who are marked.  They are “anthropologically distinct, with their skin eruptions, their wasted figures, poor hair and bony faces” (349).  In fact, their markedness makes the unmarked air people uncomfortable.  They instruct Raban to focus on a point somewhere ahead so that he won’t have to look at the street people.  He shouldn’t even answer their questions.  This story is sad because it shows how we have distorted the values of the Puritans.  Instead of making ourselves unmarked in order to be humble, we have warped the ideals to make markedness a sign of superiority.  We have turned capitalism into a tool of exclusion.

There can be no doubt that there are certain societal norms that immigrants to America must succumb to in order to assimilate into the dominate culture.  Although it never occurred to me before, this class has made it clear that our dominant culture comes from the Puritan ethics of the Pilgrims who modeled themselves after the Jews in Exodus.  It is amazing that a group of people who settled in the New World almost 400 years ago could have such a deep effect on today’s America.  But literature such as Bread Givers and “Hunting for Mister Heartbreak” make it clear that evidence of our dominant culture in alive and well in America today.  [BF]