"the basis of our current day model of dominant culture success"

The dominant culture of the modernized United States was originally assembled by deep-rooted immigrant dreams of prosperity and individualism, and was modeled after native British Protestant colonists who, after toil and human sacrifice, invested in human development for economical gain in the New World.  Their written testimonies of life and labor in the early years of colonization of America attests to a culture that is still ascribed to, even after hundreds of years.  The aspiring identity of American culture is one that is constantly evolving and in constant semblance to the original model of dominant culture covenanted by Puritan immigrants, characteristic of conventional family ideals, and whose religious based roots can be traced back to the Exodus story of Hebrews who fled Egypt for Canaan.  Both groups were nomadic in their search for a life of freedom upheld by a self-imposed set of practices and covenants that formed their culture and their gender identity.  These models place an emphasis on core family values with a set of moral logistics that inevitably require adjustment during the transition to and survival of a progressive New World.  The models are an allegory for societal success, in that for a nation to work right, the family must work right.  The Pilgrim story, like the Exodus story also reveals the formation of the capitalistic competition, ever mindful of economic gain, apart from a solely community structure, and is the basis of our current day model of dominant culture success.

    In William Bradford's narrative, Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647,  early dominant culture America was formed out of settler's motivation for a preferred religious choice.  The Pilgrim settlers of America represent a strong-willed community whose covenant to God is similar to the Hebrews who fled Egypt where they were persecuted and enslaved. With God's blessing as their communion, the Pilgrims set sail and adapt to a new land occupied by "savages" whose culture they blanket with their own and form their own unique dominant assimilation.  In difference to the Hebrews, the Pilgrims were an educated lot who could read and write, and their recordings of early American life have endured much like the Exodus story of the Hebrews.  With the advantage of reading and writing, the Pilgrims developed rules and regulations for life in America.  Their ability to yield profitable crops of corn and procure fur for trading is a predictor of American individualism and the economic success of the nuclear family today.

In Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers (1925), the Pilgrim model is the "graceful quietness" (239) that represents the colorless foundation in the main protagonist's search for self-fulfillment.  She accepts the changes and progressive spirit of the New World by tearing herself "out of the dirt" of her Jewish immigrant-rooted sphere, and she is able to honorably take her "place with the pioneers...and survive" (231).  In the nomadic style of early settlers, she must also labor, toil and relocate to obtain status in "this New America of culture education" where progression is fast- paced and only those who invest in human development can reap the rewards of economical gain and embrace a hard-earned assimilation (210).  In comparison to Exodus and Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647, Yezierska's references are vividly similar, when she writes that "we must dry our heads worrying for bread, while they bathe themselves in milk and soak themselves in honey" (181).   America is viewed as the Promise land, but it is clear that certain tasks such as the completion of one's education or the tending of one's crops must take place in order for one to take their place among a society that was settled by the blessings and grace of God.  It is this pioneering spirit and will to survive against all obstacles that the dominant culture of America is modeled for.

In Jonathan Raban's Hunting Mister Heartbreak:  A Discovery of America, the modern breed of dominant culture is vividly revealed, recounted to the more communal culture of the Great Depression and the easy economy of the 1970's. "Macy's in 1988 smelled of serious money" and "only frumps were thrifty now" (345).  In modern dominant culture, professional Americans clothed in a "blazonry of expensive trade names" and "plain cotton shirts and ties" are untouched by the "street people" that occupy the lower status of American economic structure (345).  The dominant "air people" float high above the turmoil of the street, living in their high rise apartments and only mingling with other dominant culture breeds, "like sociable gulls swooping from cliff to cliff. For them, the old New York of streets, squares, neighborhoods, was rapidly turning into a vague and distant memory" (351).  Similar to the simple and colorless Protestant churches, void of images, relying simply on the scriptural text inherited by the written words transcribed in the Exodus story as recounted by Moses, dominant cultures aspire to blend seamlessly in to the cultural landscape of America.   Unlike minority immigrant narratives that feel prohibited from successful assimilation or in-between immigrant narratives that attempt to maintain some of their Old World cultures, the dominant culture of America is the powerful potent that is well-sought and flavored with detachment and aloofness.  The stoic faces of a dominant culture reveal the "settled look of those who belong to the world in which they were born" (211).  Their struggle and assimilation is no longer identifiable, yet their immigrant roots expose "the grind of poverty" and a steely resolve to maintain an individualism that was built on dreams and desires for something more.

It is in the investment of one's self that defines the dominant culture of America.  This investment in self-success is not consumed by the hardships of the minority experience, whose dilemma sometimes resists human development in society.  The investment in education and self-fulfillment of the dominant culture is also in contrast to those in-between cultures, which are marked by their attachment to Old World values.  The dominant culture blends into a society that is clearly free and unblemished by past immigrant experience.  In this sense, the dominant culture is neutral and has adapted to a way of life that places them in powerful and professional status in America.  Like the Hebrew and the Pilgrim narrative, their propensity towards literacy ensures  that their laws, customs and cultures will forever be ingrained in a society that aspires to blend in with this dominant model of success as it continues to adapt and progress in our shifting world, where the sky appears to be the limit. [PJ]