Amy Noblitt

It’s Not that Black and White; More Gray

According to our objectives, one of the main differences between minorities and immigrants are their journey to the United States rather than their skin color.  The difference between the two, though, should end there.  Unfortunately there is an overpowering force called the Dominant Culture, which demands that immigrants and minorities alike should sacrifice their own culture to the American Dream.   This false idol asks that they give up so much of themselves, but it does not guarantee success in return. 

First generation immigrants, such as the father in Gish Jen’s story, “In the American Society,” are more reluctant to sacrifice their past to the American Dream, but the second and third generation immigrants can not wait to “fit in” with the Dominant Culture and are usually happy to throw their culture away.  The daughters in Jen’s story can not wait to be able to join the country club and they push their mother to join and use the prejudice of the country club members to get them invited to a country club function.

Minorities on the other hand usually retain their culture from generation to generation, and when people such as the narrator in Baldwin’s novel No Name in the Street do join the Dominant Culture, they become an outsider which makes them ashamed of themselves.  Even when they leave their culture to try to better their own people the assimilated minority can never fit in with their culture again.  The narrator has a suit he can no longer wear.  He wore it to the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr. and the suit does not “fit” anymore after that moment and he tells a news reporter that he can never wear the suite again.  An old friend of his sees the article where the narrator talks about his unusable suit and his old friend asks if he can have it since they are the same size.  The narrator agrees and he brings the suit down to the Bronx.  Arriving in a limousine he already sets himself apart from his friend, the narrator takes the limousine because he can’t get a taxi to stop for him.  He could have taken the subway but he takes a limo instead, this shows his need to show off, although, the narrator doesn’t think of it that way.  The narrator offends his friend and his friend’s family and leaves the suit there.  The suit is the narrator’s old skin in which he can no longer fit into and he must pass it on to his old friend who has not shed his skin. 

Minorities try to retain their own culture, despite the demands of the Dominant Culture.  The Dominant Culture punishes them for their “stubbornness” and this punishment is to remain outsiders from the rest of the country.  Even those who do assimilate are punished for being a trouble minority such as Officer Harmony in “American Horse.” 

This punishment is also applied to New Immigrants, such as Hispanics and Afro-Caribbean cultures, although not as much.  The idea that Hispanics are more likely to mix with other races makes them more “acceptable” to the Dominant Culture.  This mixing is seen as a desire to “better” themselves, although, it really should mean no such thing.  Junot Diaz’s “How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie” shows that the narrator’s desire is usually for a white girl but any girl who puts out is good.  The narrator says to get a white girl in bed, “Tell her you love her hair, that you love her skin, her lips, because, in truth, you love them more than you love your own.”  The treatment of the Hispanic cultures is still not as good as the traditional immigrants.  In Judith Ortiz Cofer’s story, “Silent Dancing” the father is denied good housing for his wife and children because his last name is Ortiz.  It did not matter to the landlords that he looked European; his Puerto Rican last name denied him the ability to provide for his family.  “‘You Cuban?’ one man had asked my father, pointing at this name tag on the navy uniform—even though my father had the fair skin and light brown hair of his northern Spanish background, and the name Ortiz is as common in Puerto Rico as Johnson in the United States.” 

Color plays a large part of the immigrant and the minority narratives.  It as been proven in black families that if a parent has a light skinned child and a darker skin child the light skinned child will be treated better.  I was substitute teaching in Louisiana when I learned this so I decided to start listening to the black high school students talk, and I became more aware of how they exalted lighter blacks over darker blacks.  This idea is fed to us through the media and previous generations.  You see this in a lot of our literature as well, such as, “How to Date a Browngirl…”, “Silent Dancing,” “To Da-Duh, in Memoriam,” “American Dream: First Report,” and “When I was Growing Up.” 

I see a change in the negative treatment of new immigrants and minorities between generations, though.  In the past, those who did not assimilate were treated badly by the Dominant Culture, but I believe that there are an increasing number of people in the Dominant Culture who feel that to assimilate or to “forget the face of your father” is the real sin.  In a shrinking world we have become more aware of our neighbors and that we are one race instead of many.  This creates a more accepting embrace of different cultures.  You see the rising of Japanese, Indian and Hispanic cultures not only to the immigrants and the minorities but also to the people who belong to the Dominant Culture.  The more xenophobic, traditional culture is being phased out and the modern culture is becoming more powerful everyday.  The traditionalists may try to use propaganda against the new immigrants, but they tried the same thing with the influx of Irish during the potato famine and the Vietnamese after Vietnam.