Kristen Bird

Awaking Awareness

            The first nine years of my life were lived in the South.  I was born in Virginia and moved to north Alabama, where I was surrounded by relatives, my parent’s small hometown and – white people.  It was rare to see any person of any other ethnicity in Albertville, Alabama in the 1980s.  But the summer after fourth grade, my family moved to San Jose, California, and suddenly the world expanded, without me even realizing it at such a young age.  Best friends went from being all white to an array of beautiful colors.  Natalie was Hispanic, and her grandparents spoke Spanish in her home.  Alicia was black, and one of my closest friends still today was born in Korea and raised in the U.S.  Today, I am surrounded by a variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds by working with student journalists at Houston Baptist University’s student newspaper.  The newsroom is comprised of a variety of immigrant and American students.  Immigrant and Minority Literature made me more aware of and informed about the life experiences – struggles and dreams – of people who immigrate to America and of those who have been raised as a minority in this country.

Reading “Soap and Water” by Anna Yezierska as a first reading was important because it offered the first step to understanding the way immigrants are often viewed by the dominant culture and the indefatigable hope these individuals place in the American Dream.  The idea that the immigrant is assumed by the dominant culture to be unclean or permanently marked in some aspect was plainly seen in this reading.  Another example of the marked idea may be seen in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s story “Silver Pavements, Golden Roofs.”  The sadness and humiliation she and her aunt experience when accosted by teenage boys on the street was astonishing.  The word “nigger” that the boys chanted haunted Divakaruni, while at the same time she thought, “When our chauffeur Gurbans Singh drives me down Calcutta streets in our silver-colored Fiar, people stop to whisper, Isn’t that Jayanti Ganguli, daughter of the Bhavanipur Gangulis?” (IA 80)  The story, along with Nicholasa Mohr’s “The English Lesson,” was a reminder that to the dominant culture, a mark is a mark, regardless of the past accomplishments of the men and women in their own countries and regardless of the stupidity of the dominant culture to even assign the mark to the correct ethnicity or country.  This idea will be further expanded in the second essay.

            For the first time in this course, I also began to try to intentionally identify with the unique difficulties the minority encounters.  Some African Americans seem to automatically label white people as being prejudiced, and this at times has made me wonder if a type of reverse discrimination ensues, which unfortunately adds fuel to a cycle of animosity between some individuals in the two races.  But in reading the narratives by the African American writers, I felt a better sense of their struggle, and although I can not pretend to sympathize with their battle for civil rights as one who has experienced the cruelty racism can bring, I can now empathize better with their hardships and the battle scars that have developed an unbreakable and at times necessary and beneficial forceful spirit.  Alice Walker’s “Elethia” made me cringe with the hatred hanging in the statement, “They used to beat him severe trying to make him forget the past and grin and act like a nigger.”  And then she follows it with Uncle Albert’s statement, “Whenever you saw somebody acting like a nigger, Albert said, you could be sure he seriously disremembered his past.” (IA 309)  Statements such as these broadened my thinking in terms of the African American minority.

            Also for the first time, I thought intently about the American Indians and the injustice they suffered at the hands of the fresh, new white dominant culture that moved into their homeland and attempted to eradicate their culture.  Children in America grow up learning basic U.S. history including the Native American story and that many now live on reservations.  But how much is lacking in the simplified facts!  In Mei Mei Evans’ “Gussuk,” I was saddened by the Americanization of the people in the village of Kigiak, which will be discussed further in the second essay.  And Leslie Marmon Silko’s “The Man to Send Rain Clouds,” caused readers to wonder about the right of the dominant religion to impose on the people’s beliefs obviously without their consent.  But the narrative that seemed most telling and extensive was William Bradford’s “Of Plymouth Plantation.”  The portrait painted of the Native Indians as savages because they didn’t know the dominant language or culture was cruel and unjust.  And although, there may be no concrete or direct answer as to how America might have been founded differently, these people should have been treated with respect and dignity, as human beings, not dismissed as one might a beast of the field.

            I intentionally included new thoughts and ideas first, so I might conclude with a topic that has interested me for years and stems back to my religious beliefs.  In a class discussion regarding the Jewish nation, I stated that Christians often want to identify themselves with Jews because they believe that, as the apostle Paul talks about in Romans, Christians are engrafted branches into Judaism.  And since the Jews are historically recognized as God’s chosen people, their culture, history and faith in Jehovah interest me.  That’s why I was delighted to find through work on the research posting that Galveston served as a location for Jewish immigrants escaping persecution in the late 1800s.  Rabbi Henry Cohen did an incredible service to his own people, helping approximately 10,000 of them relocate safely to different parts of America in the early 1900s.  Many other prominent Galvestonians were also Jewish and impacted the community in areas such as education and business.  It was fascinating to find a personal interest so close to home – literally a few blocks away is the same synagogue whose members began meeting in the mid-1800s.

            Anna Yezierska’s “Bread Givers,” Sonia Pilcer’s “2G” and Bernard Malamud’s “The German Refugee” were three of my favorite readings during the course because they are accounts of the emotional, physical and mental struggles that the Jewish people faced, the two latter pieces specifically relating to difficulties caused by the terrors of the Holocaust.  Pilcer’s account begins, “I don’t ever remember not knowing.  The word Holocaust was not used in our home.  ‘During the war’ was how the stories began.” (VA 203)  Readings such as these formed the idea that this one horrific event in Jewish history will impact the output, the art, the literature of Jews for generations. This is in large part because the Jewish people are open – they do not hide matters, they do not beat around the bush.  They are honest, even about their own bitter hardships.  The hope is that the dominant culture’s push for assimilation does not too quickly wipe out the good and beneficial outpouring – such as “The Hiding Place” by Corrie Ten Boom, “The Diary of Ann Frank,” and writings read in class – that may be birthed out of the suffering and sorrow the Jewish people so unjustly endured.

At the beginning of this year, two major events happened in my life: I moved to Galveston and decided to go back to school.  My husband is a worship pastor, and we are helping start a church on Galveston island that reaches out to 18-35 year olds specifically. I am working with students at HBU and hope to be a professor after earning my masters degree and starting work on my doctorate.  Because of these two defining events in my life right now, understanding immigrant and minority lives through literature has become more imperative than I would have previously expected.  Although I entered the course with some hesitation, I soon began to tear into the stories with enjoyment, unwrapping an important piece of knowledge as a gift each class.  As a direct example, I read “Bread Givers” the first weekend after starting the course – I couldn’t put it down.  I am grateful for this course because it has offered me opportunity for practical application.  Being able to identify with students of various immigrant or minority backgrounds is crucial to establishing and maintaining relationships with my students.  I will take with me from this course a greater sensitivity to immigrant and minority students I meet as a professor and as a pastor’s wife.