LITR 5731 Seminar in American Multicultural Literature (Immigrant) UHCL summer 2006 text objective discussion

Tuesday, 13 June 2006: Other Hispanic Americans: Immigrant / American Dream story, or Minority?

“You have choices. If the girl’s from around the way, take her to El Cibao for dinner Order everything in your busted-up Spanish. Let her correct you if she’s Latina and amaze her if she’s black…If she’s not from around the way, Wendy’s will do.”

“A local girl may have hips and a thick ass but she won’t be quick about letting you touch. She has to live in the same neighborhood you do, has to deal with you being all up in her business…A whitegirl may just give it up right then.”

From the title, we are given the idea that this will be instructions on how to date an individual according to race, but the narrator usually gives advice according to the girl’s location. There is a separation between the girls who live in the neighborhood (other minorities/immigrants) and the girls who live outside of the area (white/some “black girls who grew up with ballet and Girl Scouts”). It is no longer a separation of race, but becomes more of an issue of dating an “insider” versus an “outsider.” Those on the inside are treated carefully because they are a part of his daily life while those on the outside are treated flippantly by being taken to Wendy’s and making sexual advances towards.

The “government cheese” is mentioned at the beginning of the story and again in the very last sentence “Put the government cheese back in its place before your moms kills you.” What does the “government cheese” symbolize in this story? What does it represent to the narrator? What does this say about each girl?

Objective 2: “Model Minority” vs. “Immigrant” and the “Character by Generation”

Objective 3: To compare and contrast the immigrant narrative with the minority narrative.

Objective 4: In contrast to the normal pattern of immigration by individuals or families with intentions to assimilate to their new home, some groups immigrate as communities with the intention of not assimilating.

- Pg 311 “ Afterward reporters came back into the kitchen to interview the two cooks, and the next morning the Daily News carried a picture of Alejo, Diego, and Khrushchev…”

- Pg 317 “ Even Horacio had contempt for Hector. Knowing that Hector was nervous in the company of visitors, he would instigate long conversations in Spanish.

- Pg 318 “He was not interested in “culture.” He had returned from England a complete European who listened to Mozart instead of diddy-bop music.”

“Model Minority”: These “ideal immigrants” take advantage of opportunities in economic advancement and education.

- Pg. 224 “Everyone but Luisa was bringing home money. They used that money to buy furniture and to send Virginia to night computer school taught by Spanish instructors.”

- Pg. 224 “They would work like dogs, raise children, prosper. They did not allow the old world, the past, to hinder them. They did not cry but walked straight ahead. They drank but did not fall down.”

While each story is alike because both families are of the same dissent and emigrate from the same country, the outcomes are completely different. There is the “immigrant narrative” which follows the life of Alejo from his humble beginnings in America to his son’s assimilation and rediscovery of ethnic identity. The underlying story of Aunt Luisa takes gives us a more “minority” style story. We see how the two families begin and how miraculously different they end.

One of the most telling moments in the story is when Hector tries to “make a conscious effort to be ‘Cuban.’” He recalls a magical Cuban drink that his Tía Luisa made, but shortly after their arrival from Cuba, he discovers it was only Hershey’s syrup and milk. What realization does the narrator then have about his effort to be “Cuban”? What does this tell us about society’s influence on his assimilation and his effort to rediscover his culture?

Objective 3: To compare and contrast the immigrant narrative with the minority narrative.

Objective 4: To identify signs of the “dominant culture” to which immigrants assimilate in terms of class, ethnicity, gender or family life, and religion.

- Pg. 182 “Yet Father did his best to make our “assimilation” painless…We were the only ones in El Building that I knew of who got presents on both Christmas and día de Reyes”

- Pg. 185 “I have an American boyfriend…If I marry him, even my name will be American. I hate rice and beans—that’s what makes these women fat.”

- Pg 184 “But, what I remember most were the boiled pastels…Everyone had to fish one out with a fork. There was always a “trick” pastel--one without stuffing—and whoever got that one was the “New Year’s Fool.”

- Pg. 186 “Your cousin was growing an americanito in her belly when this movie was made…thinking maybe she could get rid of her problems before breakfast and still make it to her first class at the high school.”

- Pg. 186 “Yes, they probably flushed it down the toilet. What else could they do with it—give it a Christian burial in a little white casket with blue bows and ribbons? Nobody wanted that baby—least of all the father, a teacher at her school with a house in West Patterson that he was filling with real children, and a wife who was a natural blond.”

Cofer gives us the perfect example of combining aspects of both minority literature and immigration literature. Her use of the video is like a kaleidoscope for the narrator. At once glance of the video, she sees all of her ideal images of Puerto Rico so strongly that she can still taste and smell all the details she has forgotten. But with a twist of the camera, she sees all of the past and the culture that she has overcome and forgotten to become who she is.

What do the silent faces represent to the author as a minority? As an immigrant?

What is the significance of the movie being the only memory she has in color while all the others are grey?