1/24/2006

“American Dream: First Report”    by Joseph Papaleo

Presenter: Beth Fenner

Background:  Poem written from the viewpoint of an Italian immigrant, second generation.  Author is looking back on some of the things that occurred while the family was learning to be “American”.

I will apply Course Objectives 2 & 3 to this poem in my presentation.

Objective 2:Variations and stages of the immigrant narrative

2a.  Basic stages of the Immigrant Narrative

                Stage 1: Leave the Old World

not addressed in poem

Stage 2:  Journey to the New World

 briefly addressed in line 7~ “the agony of steerage”

According to Webster’s, steerage = a section in a passenger ship for passengers paying the lowest fares and given inferior accommodations

Stage 3:  Shock, resistance, exploitation, and discrimination

Lines 1 & 2~ “First nobody liked us; they said we smelled and looked too short and dark.”

                          Lines 8 – 10~ “insults from the Yankees … fear of the bosses”

Stage 4:  Assimilation to dominant American culture and loss of ethnic identity

Lines 3 – 5~  The TV is teaching them how to be American.  Line 3~ “The TV proposed marriage”  *The TV offered them a way to belong.

-They’re learning by watching soap operas.   Line 5~ “palaces of soap”

Line 5 (“to prove we were married”) & Lines 11-13 (“well dressed citizens”)~ assimilation is effective, they look like the people on TV and like American citizens

2b. Narrator: who writes the immigrant narrative?   &   2d. Character by generation

Second or third generation Italian immigrant who knows something of both the Old World and the New.  Will grow, live, and probably raise a family in America.

2c.  Setting

                Narrator concentrates on the experience once in America—on learning to assimilate.

Objective 3: Compare and contrast the immigrant narrative with the minority narrative.

Similarities: 

                -Discrimination   Lines 2, 8, 10

                -Must accept a dominant culture

-The people in the poem can become at least somewhat accepted by America.  They copy what they see on TV.

-Evidence of this acceptance ~ author speaks of struggle and discrimination as if it’s in the PAST.

                                    ~Lines 11 & 12: The family is now “well dressed” and has clean carpets.

Discussion Questions:

The last line refers to Grandpa “who liked to spit on floors while he talked.”  Is this something Grandpa longs to do, but refrains from it because it’s not accepted in America?  OR Is it something he still does as an act of defiance, as a way to hold onto some small part of his heritage?

The tone seems to me to be one of disappointment and disillusionment.  Is the author more disillusioned with America or with his family’s reaction to America?  Do you agree with my assessment of the tone?

At first I took “fear of the bosses” to mean fear of factory bosses.  But, could this be a reference to the stereotypical “mob-bosses”?