Sharon Lockett

LITR 5731 Midterm--Long Essay

Preparation, Review, Notes, Outlining:  approx. 3.5 hrs

Writing, Edition, Revision:  approx. 4 hrs.              

Multicultural Literature:  Narratives of Hunger

            While evaluating articles for my research posting, I encountered the claim that many of Anzia Yezierska's works focus on the theme of hunger.  After pondering this notion, I realized that many of the works we have studied so far center on hunger:  physical hunger for native foods, spices, and dishes and metaphoric hunger characterized by seemingly insatiable desires for America's offerings.  This idea of unfulfilled hunger and the resulting quest for satiety leads me to suggest that immigrant and minority narratives are also "hunger narratives."  For example, immigrants, such as Asian and Jewish groups, hunger for the "American Dream":  opportunity, education, and identity with the dominant culture (Obj.1).  Minorities, such as Native Americans and African Americans, yearn for connectivity to the homeland, familial relationships, and equality (Obj. 3).  Finally, New World immigrants, such as Mexican Americans and Afro-Caribbeans, experience a dual, or more discriminating, hunger.  They desire opportunity offered by the New World, yet they partake judiciously.  Because of loyalty and proximity to home, they often remain undecided about how to pursue fulfillment (Obj. 3).  For this essay, I plan to evaluate these "hunger narratives" in light of our course objectives and attempt to focus on immigrant/minority distinctions as well as points of comparison or contrast. In addition, I would also like to consider that, even though each work offers a unique narrative, the stories also work together to form the rich body of multicultural literature.   

            Historically, immigrants, escaping religious persecution or political and economic suppression, come to the New World seeking the "American Dream" (Obj. 1).  They are ready to abandon traditional cultures for modern ones, embrace dominant culture values, assimilate as "model minorities," and adopt the social contract.  Their quest, however, often demands exploitation and discrimination, and their narratives consist of heartbreak and seemingly impossible odds.  Nevertheless, they hunger for fresh opportunities, newfound identities, and independence in the New World.   

            Highlighting Objectives 1 and 2, "Soap and Water" focuses on the immigrant narrative as a quest for the American Dream and charts its varying stages.  The protagonist claims that she has "hungered and thirsted for America," the "golden country" (Obj. 1).  She then recounts leaving the Old World and journeying to the New World: "I had come a refugee from the Russian pogroms, aflame with dreams of America" (Stages 1-2).  However, she soon meets shock, resistance, and exploitation, an experience she shares with minority cultures:  "I was tricked and foiled . . . the whole vicious circle of society's injustices was thrust like a noose around my neck to strangle me" (Stage 3).  And finally, she arrives at assimilation and loss of ethnic identity:  "I was changed . . . my past was forgotten that night . . . [I was singing] a song of new life" (Stage 4).  She facilitates her conversion by adopting the dominant culture social contract and participating in New World economy: she gets a job, pursues education "with youth's aching hunger," and becomes self-supporting (Obj. 2). 

            Illustrating Objectives 1 through 4, "When I Was Growing Up" highlights the immigrant narrative, the model minority, the Color Code, and the dominant culture.  In her poem, Nellie Wong "hungers for purple mountains" (here, we may recall the lyrics to "America the Beautiful") and pursues her notion of the American Dream (Obj. 1).  In her attempts to assimilate, she also meets humiliation and discrimination--"I fell further, crushed between high walls"  (Stage 3)--even though she becomes a model minority, "fitting into the group of smart children . . .  belonging, getting in line" and fulfills the ideals of the immigrant narrative (Obj. 2).  Her awareness of the dominant culture's color coded value system fuels her longing "to be white."  However, her efforts at washing away the "yellow" fail; she admits:  "I felt dirty . . . god made white people clean" (Obj. 3, Color Code).  She also acknowledges the sensuousness and desirability of blonde white women, epitomes of the dominant culture, (Obj. 4) and laments her inability to be like them. 

            As opposed to immigrants who journeyed to the New World voluntarily, minorities suffered forced participation.  Native Americans were robbed of land through unfair treaties, and African Americans became victimized as they were enslaved by dominant culture landowners.  Sharing the Stage 3 immigrant experience of exploitation and discrimination, but suffering exclusion from the social contract, minorities encountered the "American Nightmare" as opposed to the "American Dream" (Obj. 3).  Hence, as opposed to immigrants, they react by rejecting assimilation, retaining ethnicity, maintaining communal ties, and sharing resentment for the dominant culture.  For them, the hunger focuses on ethnicity, unity and equality. 

            Highlighting Objective 2, Stage 3 and Objective 3, "The Lesson," focuses on discrimination, loss of power, economic inequality, resentment toward the dominant culture, and group unity.  The narrative exemplifies forced participation as the children are "round[ed]" up at the mailbox, transported from their familiar communities, and taken to a toy store against their will.  While suffering this dominant culture experience, Sylvia realizes her marginalized status:  "I feel funny, shame . . . people lookin at us" (Stage 3).  The children are then prompted to acknowledge that "poor people . . . have to demand their share of the pie" or they will continue to endure poverty and "live in the slums."  The only comfort they can find in this rich white world is their unity and their mantra: "White folks crazy."  At their young ages, the American Nightmare has just begun (Obj. 3). 

            Illustrating Objectives 2, 3, and 4, "Blonde White Women" focuses on Stage 3 and 4, the Color Code, ethnicity, and the dominant culture.  In this poem, Patricia Smith undergoes Stages 3-4 of the immigrant experience but ultimately returns to a minority experience.  At Stage 3, she experiences rejection by her teacher:  "she pried me away," and at Stage 4, she attempts assimilation by coloring her skin pink (Obj. 3, Color Code) and adopting the name "Donna."  However, she returns to her roots, "shake[s] the snow" from her "short black hair," and emerges as "Patricia Ann."  Ultimately, she acknowledges that the "delightful" blonde white women (Obj. 4) possess no more beauty than she.

            New World immigrants fall into a category between traditional immigrants and minorities; they are often termed the "ambivalent minority."  Historically, their homelands have undergone negative New World involvement resulting in economic or political suppression.  Hence, like minorities, they share resentment for the New World and maintain loyalties to home cultures and familial ties.  However, like immigrants, but unlike minorities, they are allowed participation in the social contract and realize the economic opportunities offered by the New World.  Unfortunately, this divided attention can cause inter-cultural strife as some members embrace the New World while others do not.  Since New World immigrants benefit from close proximity to home (unlike traditional immigrants who undergo the "cultural guillotine"), assimilation remains more of an option than a requirement.  For them, fulfilling the hunger can result in an undecided path.

            Illustrating Objective 2, Stage 4 and Objective 3, "Hunger of Memory" highlights the dual interest in Old and New Worlds, immigrant tendencies to adopt English, the resulting inter-cultural struggle, minority value for family loyalty, and minority tendencies to reject dominant culture values.  In this story, Richard Rodriguez follows an altered Stage 4 immigrant path by adopting English and abandoning the language of the "Old World."  He asserts:  "As I grew fluent in English, I could no longer speak Spanish with confidence." However, unlike immigrants, he faces ambivalence and guilt as he abandons, or so his family thinks, familial ties:  "I felt that I had betrayed my immediate family"; he grapples with his extended family relationships, his grandmother in particular, until he realizes that even though she refuses to embrace the dominant culture (a minority pattern), she can respect his dual loyalty to both cultures.   

            Highlighting Objective 1, Objective 2, Stage 3, and Objective 3, "The Making of a Writer" focuses on familial unity, discrimination and dual participation in old and new cultures.  In the story, this close-knit sisterhood (a minority pattern) acknowledges the immigrant/minority experience with discrimination (Stage 3).  They receive "only a hard-boiled egg and a few spoonfuls of cottage cheese for lunch."  However, they also concede that in "beautiful-ugly" America, "you could at least see your way to make a dollar," "buy the brownstone houses," and thus realize the American Dream (Obj. 1).  Even though they admit that Barbados is "sweet" and reminisce "often and at length about home" (a minority pattern), they must also admit that it is "poor."  This dual approach to the New World also extends to their language patterns in which, unlike minorities, they embrace English.  They do, however, personalize the language by adding cultural phrases and idiomatic expressions.  With open minds and hearts, they find ways to thrive in the New World.  

            While each of these "hunger narratives" tells a unique story, the stories also work together to comprise a larger, just as compelling, body of literature.  In every story, the individual, whether immigrant, minority, or New World, is a participant in American culture, and each seeks to fulfill the hunger for human happiness.  As I have come to understand and appreciate these immigrant/minority distinctions, I find they serve as valid launching points for analysis.  The terms and their contexts have enabled me to "ground" my learning curve, to increase my appreciation for individual works, and to locate the works within the larger body of multicultural literature; moreover, I am able to talk more systematically and constructively about race and ethnicity.  However, I believe that even though we have "nailed" the distinctions as organizers of multicultural literature, we should be ready for change.  As America continues to satisfy the hunger of immigrants, minorities, in-between groups, and other multicultural groups, the distinctions may breed into other categories and provide other bases for analysis and interpretation.  The "melting pot" continues to stir and to feed as America continues to grow outward and upward.  And as long as we embrace the transition, we will gain an even richer understanding of our ever-changing American culture.