Kimberly Dru Pritchard

Defining Characteristics of the Dominant Culture

            The study of minority and immigrant literature must naturally include a venture into the world of the dominant culture. However, we often find difficulty in identifying and defining the dominant culture in immigrant and minority literature. As immigrants voluntarily settle into the “melting pot” of American society, differences disperse and unity emerges. Yet, this idyll appears (or does it?) only after bitter physical and psychological cultural wars are fought by the immigrants that ultimately lead to their emergence as assimilated members of the dominant culture. The role of the dominant culture in multi-cultural literature is an elusive one.  Often overshadowed by the “markings” of the immigrant (i.e. skin color, language, educational status, cultural expectations, etc.) the dominant culture often appears dominating (excluding Asians and African Americans from country club membership), manipulative (the shyster lawyer who takes family heirlooms from Hom Hing to ensure the return of his son), and downright evil (Half-Face’s brutal rape of Jasmine on her first night in the United States). Yet, this is the very culture the immigrant wishes to join. 

            One important aspect of the dominant culture is its emphasis on education, specifically reading and writing.  Both the Exodus story and that of the Pilgrims embrace the importance of the written word as a characteristic of the dominant culture, as the Jews and the Pilgrims were people of the written word.  In Numbers 33.2, Moses writes about “their goings out according to their journeys by the commandment of the Lord.” Furthermore, William Bradford chronicles the entire voyage of the Pilgrims as they journey toward Plymouth and even explains that he “endeavour[s] to manifest in a plain style, with singular regard unto the simple truth in all things” (1). Furthermore, the Pilgrim’s even encouraged literacy among the women not only for the sake of their individual souls, but for the purpose of instruction of the children. Literacy today remains one of the most characteristic elements of the dominant culture.  Success in life is directly tied to one’s acquisition of literacy. Even the involuntary immigrants such as the African slaves understood the immediate need of literary as a pathway to success.  Frederick Douglass learns to read and write from young white boys who live in the neighborhood.  Harriet Jacobs steals a few moments during the day to continue the lessons that her mistress has been forbidden to provide.  Literacy preserves the past while at the same time anticipates the future and the promises it holds.

            In addition to literacy and education and in opposition to the ethnic spice of the immigrant culture, the dominant culture possesses an unmarked, generic quality that characterizes its existence. In Hoffman’s “Lost in Translation,” the young immigrant student, “no longer a visitor,” gives no identity to her American counterparts referring to them only as “my friends” or “my American friends” (222,223). They are nameless, faceless individuals with whom she communicates and to whom she desires acceptance. Also, in Divakaruni’s “Silver Pavements, Golden Roofs,” the immigrant defines the dominant culture as “so blond, so American…[with] a smile as golden as the way hair that falls in perfect curls to [the] shoulder” (IA 70).   The colorless, unidentifiable members of the dominant culture mystify and overwhelm the immigrant who struggles to melt into the monochromatic world of American society.

            Another trait of the dominant culture is the detached, impersonal quality that incorporates much of their existence.  For example, in Far’s “In the Land of the Free,” a government employee speaks to Hom Hing “in an official tone of voice” and says, “Seeing that the boy has no certificate entitling him to admission to the country, you will have to leave him with us” (IA 4). This cool indifference of the employee coupled with the devastating news he brings the young couple serves to alienate the immigrant from the dominant culture. Also, in Bradford’s narrative, his “plain style” functions as a form of psychological detachment from the obvious drama that undoubtedly plagues the settlers on a daily basis. Deaths, wars, famine, and starvation are conveyed in a matter of fact manner, and this, in turn, creates the aloofness that is a characteristic of the dominant culture.  

             Perhaps the most significant characteristic of the dominant culture is its support of and enthusiasm for capitalism.  Even the Pilgrim’s recognized the chaos of communal living and the subsequent need for individual success. Bradford explains that “after much debate…the Governor gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular…and so assigned to every family a parcel of land” (132-133).  Moreover, capitalism moves a community forward as Jonathan Raban illustrates in “Hunting Mister Heartbreak: A Discovery of America.”  Raban’s narrative clearly communicates not only the successful rise of American capitalism but also the resulting imbalance that further alienates the dominant culture from the immigrant and minority cultures. For the immigrant, capitalism is one of the major selling points for leaving one’s homeland and traditional values and settling into an alien culture in an unknown land.  Raban, referring to Macy’s department store, explains that “something had happened” between 1972 and 1988.  Now, the department store “smelled of serious money” (345).  The air “reek[s] of new leather and Rive Gauche…a man [rattles] off popular classics on a concert grand…[this is] platinum-card country…a twinkling gallery…of gold, silk, scent, and lizardskin” (345).  What a chaotic, flamboyant display of American capitalism that descends on the patrons who run “sluggishly through the long, marble-pillared corridors of jewelry, handbags, and cosmetics” (345). Ironically, it is the ostentatiously designed displays that produce the gaping awe and not the products themselves, and this epitomizes the façade that the dominant culture embraces to hide its imperfections and disillusionment from the outside world.

            Moreover, Haban’s use of “street people” and “air people” further characterizes the dominant culture in terms of their capitalistic efforts and their subsequent separation from immigrant and minority cultures. The “street people” are basically those who are “misfortunates…an expression that [has] taken over from bag ladies, winos, and bums…and they [are] seen as a tribe” (349).  The “air people” (dominant culture) “[lump] together the criminal and the innocent, the dangerous and the safe” (349).  As a result, the group marked as “street people” includes not only immigrants and minorities, but members of the dominant culture who have been deemed unfit to serve as models of the American Dream.  The dominant culture desires personal space and anonymity in their bubble-like existence. They close the curtains “against the street” and drift away like a “balloonist floating high over the lawless wreckage of the city” (351).  This snobbery and foolishness paints the dominant culture into the proverbial corner and diminishes their value in the eyes of those less fortunate. In fact, the dominant culture loses its “heroic qualities” in Raban’s narrative.  The American Dream shatters into countless shards of broken dreams and empty promises. The department store itself comes to represent not only American capitalism but the mysterious and unattainable dominant culture – a society where one can look but not enter. The negativity often associated with the dominant culture comes full circle.  The “air people” glide past those who do not matter, refusing eye contact and regarding them with “frank contempt” (351).  The insignificant one must question this culture and its obsession with wealth, beauty, and perfection.  Is this truly the American Dream?  Or, is the dominant culture actually a two-headed monster that promises one thing but delivers another?  It appears the dominant culture is all of these things and more.

            Clearly, it is difficult to define the characteristics of the dominant culture. It is representative of both the American Dream and the American Nightmare. For many, the dominant culture holds a promise for a future without the burdens of oppression and poverty.  For others, it breeds discontent and mistrust when it does not deliver that intended promise. Furthermore, the dominant culture in its faceless, nameless quest for success and advancement often overlooks or even ignores those who do not exactly qualify as members of their exclusive country club.  I fail to see the “heroic qualities” that many believe surround the dominant culture...instead, what I find is the seriously hypocritical nature and cool indifference that characterizes many Americans today.  It is truly unfortunate that so many Americans are unable and unwilling to celebrate the diversity that fuels our nation.  Perhaps the flame of that elusive dream still burns, and perhaps there is hope for both the air people and the street people.