I must admit, when I signed up for this course, I was not at all thrilled.  I thought to myself, Here I am, about to embark on another multicultural class in which the students are ignorant of all things multicultural while voicing their ignorance, and in which the teacher teaches me nothing except for what I already know, and in which the course content does not do the ethnic groups represented justice.  I have had too many bad experiences with multiculturalism taught in the classroom.  Usually, also, the professor and the students either have a narrow viewpoint of multiculturalism or too much of an ideal viewpoint.  However, these experiences have enabled me to become more tolerant and understanding of other people’s viewpoints, something that not all immigrants have found in the face of dominant culture.  I think that the importance of courses like this one is that, because there is a lack of understanding in terms of minorities, there is this need for dominant culture to stick to that which is comfortable and familiar in the regular classroom.  Classes like Immigrant Lit ensures that the dominant culture is able to embrace and sort of witness the ideals, values, and struggles of minorities in a way (in the classroom setting) in which they can understand it and take that knowledge with them as they go about their lives in the real world.

            One group that is often underrepresented in multiculturalism is the immigrant.  We often think in think in black and white, never thinking about the struggles of the shades that are “in between.”  The immigrant struggle is fairly similar to the minority struggle in that there is a underlying desire to assimilate into dominate culture, maybe due to prestige and acknowledge from the dominant culture, while still maintaining the values and beliefs from their own culture, instilled by the home country. 

In Anzia Yezierska’s “Soap and Water,” she discusses the desire of the immigrant to assimilate into the dominant culture through hard work.  The protagonist desires to become and teacher and blend into a society in which she is constantly told she looks and is different.  The protagonist saw the dean as “the representative of the clean…educated world…[that was] to [her] like that big, brutal policeman, with the club in his hand, that drove [her] off the grass.”  Her American dream is real, yet she sees dominant culture as one who seeks to keep her in her place, off of the grass.

            Because their underlying desire for assimilation is often met with hostility from dominant culture, the immigrant seeks refuge from family and friends that are a representation of their old traditions and values, the same traditions and values that they are trying to assimilate from.  In Nicholasa Mohr’s “The English Lesson,” the protagonist finds comfort in her English classes when she goes with a friend that is going through the immigrant experience along with her.  After finishing the course, the two characters are able to, in the middle of the street, “[break] into uncontrollable laughter,…oblivious to the scene they created for the people who stared and pointed at them…”  Alone, her differences would have caused an inner conflict.  However, sharing the immigrant experience with someone made it easier for her, unlike the protagonist in “Soap and Water” to assimilate.

            While the immigrant experience is often underrepresented, I feel that the minority experience is often overlooked as well.  From the objectives, the minority is defined in contrast with the immigrant.  Objective 3 states that “minorities may have been denied the opportunity for the American Dream, and minorities may speak of exploitation instead of opportunity.”  This is evident in the minority works that we discussed this semester. 

In Toni Cade Bambara’s “The Lesson,” we are introduced to a different type of world from what we experienced in the immigrant narrative.  In the immigrant narrative, the protagonist usually is trying to assimilate into the dominant culture and there is an air of sadness mixed with false hope when this is not accomplished.  However, as seen in “The Lesson,” the minority narrative seems to be more hostile towards the dominant culture.  The protagonist and the rest of the gang are led by Miss Moore, which is seen as a representation of the dominant culture.  While they accept that they must sit though these lessons, in no way are they going to enjoy it.  In a way, they see the desire for dominant culture to impose their viewpoints and customs on them as exploitation of their own viewpoints and customs.

            The minority belief that dominant culture seeks to exploit comes from their belief that dominant culture denies them certain opportunities as well. . . . [ML]