The Voice of America

            The story written or told from generation to generation describing the events of a particular culture loosely defines the term cultural narrative.  When discussing American Immigrant literature there are three distinct narratives that form America, and they are the immigrant, minority, and “in-between” narrative.

The “American Dream” is the theory, or belief, that America is the land where everyone, from any culture, has the opportunity to succeed and be free through hard work and determination.  This is the basis of the immigrant narrative.  No two stories are the same yet there are basic stages that the immigrant narrative follows consistently.  According the objective 2, the stages are as follow:

1. Leave the Old World
2. Journey to the New World
3. Shock, resistance, exploitation, and discrimination
4. Assimilation to dominant culture
5. Rediscovery of Ethnic identity

Being the grand-daughter of Polish immigrants I have had personal experience with the immigrant narrative being orally passed down.  I remember my “Baba”, grandmother, telling me the horror stories of being in the concentration camp and watching her whole family, except one sister, get sent to the gas chambers right before her eyes.  I could not imagine even a bit of what she went through as a young child.  Then her face lit up a bit as she explained being freed by American soldiers and her voyage from Poland, with nothing but her new clothes and sister, to Ellis Island where she could start her “new” life.  She described the fear of coming to a new country, learning a new language, while still being a teenage girl.  She met my Papa, who was also a Polish immigrant, and they moved into a suburban home, had three children, and worked hard their entire lives so that their children could have better lives than they had. 

There is not one single story that defines the immigrant narrative, quite the contrary; there are tons of unique stories that make up the group.  An example of the immigrant narrative from our text is Anzia Yezierska’s Soap and Water.  Anzia describes how hard work and determination, the “American Dream”, help her succeed and become what she has worked so hard to achieve.  Another in-class example of the immigrant narrative that paints a different picture than the two stated above, is The English Lesson by Nicholasa Mohr.  In this narrative the class if full of immigrants all wanting to learn English but for all different reasons.  It is a great literary example of the diversity of people that make up America.

The next narrative discussed in class was the minority narrative.  The minority did not choose to come to America and does not want to assimilate.  Objective three discusses the differences of the immigrant and minority in detail.  African Americans and Native Americans are the two leading minority groups that are the least assimilated of most ethnic groups.  In the narrative American Horse by Louise Erdrich, a mother refuses to assimilate, so her child is taken away from her for “his own good.”  The dominant culture believes that there is only one way to do things right and that is their way.

Another aspect of the minority narrative, as well as the “in-between” narrative, is the “color code”.  According to objective four, the dominant culture categorizes good and evil according to skin colors white and black, respectively.  An example of the racial “color code” comes from the prose No Name in the Street by James Baldwin, an African American author.  The narrative is about his inability to hail a cab due to the color of his skin.  The “American Nightmare” describes the Native Americans being bombarded, killed, and cornered by the white immigrants.  It also describes the African Americans being ripped from their homes nearly killed on a ship on some journey to a land where they were sold to inhumane, abusing white men.  This definitely negates the beauty and hope of the “American Dream”.

The third and final type of narrative discussed in class was the “in-between” narrative.  This narrative describes Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Afro-Caribbean unique stories, where “over-lapping” of the immigrant and minority narrative takes place.  In Paule Marshall’s The Making of a Writer: from the Poets in the Kitchen she describes the beauty of the words and ideas that flowed freely from the mouths of the women of her culture.  They came to America for the “dream” but kept their culture alive within their group.  Another example of the “in-between” narrative that was discussed in class is Judith Ortiz Cofer’s Silent Dancing, about assimilation within a traditional Puerto Rican family.

America is built on the cultural narrative.  We are the stories of each group, each person that calls America home.  I have learned that American Immigrant literature is America, and each story contains a truth that moves me beyond words.  I have learned about a country in this class, my country, my home, America.

[Julie]