Tanya Stanley

Mysteries of the Dominant Culture

The dominant cultures of the world express mysteriousness about them by enticing immigrants from around the world to migrate as individuals and as nations.  The first half of the course focused primarily on the migration of the individual or nuclear family.  After the midterm, the attention to national migration increased throughout the texts, lectures, and discussions of the course.  Although I stem from the dominant culture of the United States, I was absolutely certain in my understanding of the dominant culture and the attributes within.  After reading William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation, Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers, the Exodus story from the Bible, Hector St. Jean de Crevecoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer, and the selection from Jonathan Raban’s Hunting Mr. Heartbreak: A Discovery of America, the notion of national migration became easier to comprehend and yet more mysterious.  Cherie Correa’s essay “Topics that Opened My Eyes,” from the 2006 summer course dominant culture moment presentation expands on the mysteriousness of the dominant culture.  Like Correa, I was unfamiliar with the terminology of the “dominant culture.”  Correa’s reference to Anzia Yezierska’s short story “Soap and Water” alludes to objective four of the course goals by “identifying signs of the dominant culture” and recognizing the harshness the dominant culture represents for immigrants and minorities (Correa).  Throughout the class discussion and the apparent fixation of negation of the summer 2006 class’ discussion of the reading of Miss Whiteside’s comments towards the Jewish immigrant, many people view the dominant culture as a closed-minded majority unable to bend towards diversity among them.  Correa notes “one of the only options the immigrants have in order to succeed is to assimilate [and] to blend in with the dominant culture.”

Continuing with a focus on course objective number four, the weight of national migration becomes a focus as is contrasts with individual immigration as seen with the narrator of “Soap and Water” and earlier texts discussed this semester.  Of Plymouth Plantation enforces the notion of national migration through Bradford’s efforts and emphasis on the importance of community within a people.  Bradford’s focus on communal migration among the pilgrims creates a foundation for each individual to stand on and to rely on as a collective.  Bradford mentions several instances of the pilgrims fusing together as one.  When the pilgrims are preparing for their voyage, Bradford informs the reader that the people’s “conclusion was to live as a distinct body by themselves” (30).  The pilgrims create a mysterious aura about themselves with such a fixation of community well-being instead of the individual’s well-being.  In a world of individualism, we are taken aback from uncommon attributes of societies foreign to our norms.  Instead of oppressing the new perspectives, and thus new members of the society, we should embrace their differences and learn from them. 

The excerpt from Raban’s work Hunting Mister Heartbreak:  A Discovery of America represents two societies sharing one city—New York.  The Street People lived in the section of the “city where the ground was seen as the realm of failure and menace” (Raban 351).  The Air People—those who traveled by elevator to their homes—strain to break away from the Street People and the “accursed city of the same name”—New York (Raban 355).  Like the Jews in the Exodus story of the Bible, the Air People are forced to live in a city with those they despise; the Jewish community was forced to live with the undesired Canaanites (Numbers 33:51).  The Street People suffer from the oppression of the Air People like the Native Americans did by the pilgrims of Plymouth.  Like the Canaanites of the book of Numbers within the Bible, the Native Americans suffer the stripping of their land and their utter existence and the Street People become invisible to the narrator of Raban’s work:  “the Street People moved from the center to the periphery of the frame; within a minute or two they became virtually invisible” (Numbers 33:53 and Raban 350).

The mysteries of the dominant culture do not seem to cease; however, more mysteries arise through additional readings and analyses of more texts.  Yezierska’s work Bread Givers compliments the dominant culture mirroring a notion learned during a class discussion and exemplified throughout the semester.  The fashion industry encourages many consumers to purchase an overwhelming amount of clothing, shoes, and accessories every year—every season; however, an aspect of the dominant culture movement is the ordinariness of the dominant culture’s appearance.  The ordinary clean appearance seems boring and bland at first thought, but according to the texts, the lectures, and the on-going expressions of the dominant culture within the class, Sara’s notion that the dominant culture’s centralizes on the “plain beautifulness” of Americans enforces the awareness and acceptance of the ordinariness (Yezierska 212).  Not drawing attention to oneself and blending into society adds to the mystery of the dominant culture.  As a member of the dominant culture, I can remember trying to determine how to act out, dress against the norm, or just rebel in any way at all from the dominant culture; however, now I see a mystery which lies within the people that are part of the dominant culture as well.  Mystery lies within all cultures, even your own.  The dominant culture exists as an elusive notion through the drawing of others to its borders, the commonalities shared among the dominant cultures of the world throughout time, and the characteristics of the dominating culture.  I thought I was going to have a strong hold on the dominant culture aspect within the course, but I have developed an interest into researching other dominant culture aspects within the American society as well as different regions of the world. Crevecoeur believes in America “individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world” (Letter III).  America becomes “a new race of men” everyday, and through a willingness to accept one another, the dominant culture will become a community of Americans which is not depicted as the color of one’s skin or previous nationality.