Because America was, in a sense, built by immigrants, the stories of those immigrants provide a logical place to start when studying the literature of America.  But traditional immigrant status cannot be applied to all of the cultures that influence today’s America.  Some people already lived in America, or they were brought here by force rather than coming by choice.  To allow for broader, more comprehensive study, one must also consider those minority cultures that contribute to America.  This essay will compare and contrast immigrant experience and literature to that of minorities.  Additionally, I will consider literature that seems to fall somewhere in between the more absolute categories of “immigrant” or “minority.”

According to Objective 1, immigrants tend to be identified with the fundamental immigrant story.  Our common perception of that story is that immigrants come willingly and expectantly to the “Land of Opportunity.”  Here they will work hard to become “American” and will be rewarded with prosperity.  In other words, immigrants come to America to achieve the “American Dream.”  In actuality, it takes quite awhile to adjust and success is never guaranteed.  Nevertheless, immigrants come to America with high hopes for a promising future.  Because immigrants come to America voluntarily, their “Social Contract” involves assimilation to the dominant culture.  In return, immigrants are usually accepted into that dominant culture once they look and sound like Americans.  But assimilation can carry a hefty price.  In order to assimilate, immigrants usually break almost all ties with the Old World.  In fact, immigrant groups may lose much of their ethnic identity within 1 to 3 generations due to intermarriage with the dominant culture.  Fortunately, because immigrants come willingly to America, the sacrifice is considered worth the chance to achieve the American Dream. 

There are many texts that serve to illustrate the immigrant story.  The opening lines of Sui Sin Far’s “In the Land of the Free” epitomize our concept of the American Dream.  In those lines, a young mother introduces her little son to America: “See, Little One—the hills in the morning sun.  There is thy home for years to come.  It is very beautiful and thou will be very happy there.”  Later, she continues, “there is where thy father is making a fortune for thee.”  Who would not be excited by a beautiful land full of promise and fortune? 

Gish Jen’s “In the American Society” further illustrates the American Dream with a family that has gone beyond hoping and has actually achieved prosperity.  Callie pointedly declares that her family “got rich right away” due to her father’s financially successful “pancake house.”  In fact, “mother bought a station wagon with air conditioning” and her father got “an oversized red vinyl recliner for the back room.”  The family in Jen’s story not only exemplifies the American Dream, it also makes clear an immigrant family’s ability to assimilate into the dominant culture.  Callie and Mona are second generation immigrants and have become more American than Chinese.  Even their mother has much concern for the New World country club, but little for her Old World China.  Within only one generation, Jen’s family has agreed to America’s social contract, assimilated, and given up much of their cultural identity. 

In contrast to the Immigrant Experience, the Minority Experience is often much more threatening.  While immigrants come to America voluntarily, minorities were either conquered by America or brought here by force.  Rather than the American Dream, they live the “American Nightmare.”  Class Objective 3 explains the difference between the Immigrants’ and the Minorities’ Social Contracts.  Immigrants face a land of opportunity, but Minorities face a land of exploitation.  As a result, minority groups often resent America and resist assimilation.  They often maintain their own ethnicity by living in communities separate from the dominant culture.  In the case of Native Americans, America took over their land and almost completely squashed their culture.  African Americans were brought to America by force, to serve as slaves.  The two groups are better categorized as “minority” rather than as “immigrant.”

“I Have Not Signed a Treaty with the United States Government” by Chrystos is a good example of the resentment some Native Americans have toward America.  Chrystos declares that “everything the United States does to everybody is bad” and that “this US is not a good idea.”  She even says, “We revoke your immigration papers.”  At least to Chrystos, it is the Americans, not the Indians, who are the outsiders.  Unlike traditional immigrants, Chrystos has refused to bow to the dominant culture.  She wants the United States gone. 

In “The Lesson,” by Toni Cade Bambara, Miss Moore and the children are African Americans who serve to again model for us the resentment felt by a minority group toward the dominant American culture.  The division between the African American children and the “white folks” is evident when one of the characters says, “Imagine for a minute what kind of society it is in which some people can spend on a toy what it would cost to feed a family of six or seven.”  Sylvia angrily wonders, “What kinda work do they do and how they live and how come we ain’t in on it?”  The African Americans in this story have clearly been marginalized.  They live in a separate community with a totally different lifestyle and economic situation. 

Although “Immigrant” and “Minority” labels offer a tidy way to categorize literature, more astute readers will notice a third viable category that falls somewhere in between the previous two.  There are individuals and entire groups of people that exhibit both immigrant and minority characteristics.  Hispanic, Mexican American, and Afro-Caribbean groups fall into this category.  Because of their relative closeness to their homelands, these “in-between” groups may maintain some contact with the Old World after coming to America.  As a result, they neither give up nor strictly maintain their own culture, but often acculturate American ideas into their own pre-existing lifestyle.  Like immigrants, these people come to America voluntarily, usually for economic reasons, and are rather accepting of America.  Like minorities, they continue to practice much of their own cultural ideals and may experience discrimination until obvious ethnic differences are diminished.

“El Patron” by Nash Candelaria is an apt illustration of this “in-between” group.  Lola serves in a very traditional position in her family.  She is a home-maker who makes and serves dinner to the men.  However, she also exhibits defiance toward her father that can only have come from the New World.  When he frustrates her, Lola calls her father a “macho, chauvinist jumping bean!”  In addition, the father had come to the United States, apparently for economic reasons, but has kept his respect for the traditional Mexican authorities “Dios, El Papa, y el patron.”  Both of these people exhibit ties to both the Old and the New World. 

Junot Diaz’s “How to Date a Browngirl…” also shows the adaptations that people of the in-between group make in order to live simultaneously in the Old and New worlds.  The narrator is speaking to someone who lives in America, but continues to exhibit many Dominican cultural traits.  In order to please an American date, however, he must do away with some of the more unacceptable aspects of his culture in order to properly impress her.  He must remember to “clear the government cheese from the refrigerator” and “take down any embarrassing photos of [his] family in the campo.”  It is interesting that all of this evidence must be removed because, if he is lucky, he’ll get to bring her home to the Terrace, a place that seems to be an obvious ethnic enclave.  Walking the line between the Old World and the New can evidently be a difficult, if not precarious position.

This essay has shown that, since America is a nation of immigrants, immigrant narratives offer valuable insight into American literature.  However, the study would not be complete without consideration of minority narratives as well as texts from groups of people that fall somewhere in between “immigrant” and “minority.”  All of these groups come together to form the overall fabric of America and none can be omitted if one is to get as complete a picture as possible.

Personally, I have learned to respect some of the differences of the many ethnic groups in America through my experience thus far in this course.  I am not certain that any literature course can be all encompassing and I doubt that it is possible to study every group that is represented in America.  Especially with individual sensitivities to certain racial “buzzwords” and labels, it can be difficult to respectfully study cultural differences.  Perhaps, the Immigrant Narrative provides a way to for us to focus on culture rather than on race, thus allowing for more open and comfortable discussion and learning.  [BF]