Tanya Stanley

July 12, 2008 10:30 a.m. - 12:20 a.m.

Sculpting American Multicultural Literature:  The Mold of Success

            After completing the undergraduate course of American Immigrant literature, I remained somewhat unsure of the model minority aspect.  I could not see how the Jews and the Pilgrims represented a model minority.  The term minority suggested resistance and oppression in my eyes.  I remained unsure of the concept.  By taking the graduate course, I began the seminar by understanding and remembering some of the concepts, objectives, and, but I was determined to fully comprehend the model minority.  Now I understand that the Jews and the Pilgrims did represent model minorities because they were successful and refused to assimilate.  The advantages of taking the undergraduate course and the graduate course were rereading the narratives and poems.  Since I had previous experience with the literature, I was able to see the details I missed before.  I became a detective of examples of immigrants, minorities, and the dominant culture within the texts.  Some of the disadvantages I faced were during the seminar’s discussions.  After reading the texts, I remembered concepts we had discussed in the undergraduate course, but I did not want to reintroduce those ideas to the seminar because I was unsure if Dr. White wanted to emphasize those concepts.  The students eventually revealed many of the concepts, so I was able to talk about them, but the difficulty remained being silent when I observed something I remembered from the undergraduate course.

            After forcing myself to remain silent during some of the seminar’s discussions, I was able to focus on other students’ perspectives.  I saw interesting connections between the private life and the public life of immigrants, the woes of multicultural children of parents who intermarried, the color code working, and the connections between course concepts and unfamiliar realms of religion and the economy.  The higher level of discussion in the graduate seminar is the most valuable experience I had this semester.  Hearing other students’ ideas and experiences enforces my love for literature and discussing literature with my peers.  In the undergraduate course, I hoped more students would discuss their opinions instead of the same few who did.  Also, I became a fan of the C-SPAN videos and video highlights.  I have been searching the website for more discussions between authors.  I was unaware of C-SPAN and the literary discussions held at different universities.  I truly enjoyed this aspect of the course, and I hope to participate in more video highlights in the future.  In the Colonial and Postcolonial seminar, Dr. White recommended The New York Review of Books and I have enjoyed this experience ever since.  By introducing the C-SPAN videos, I am able to see what I hope to be doing in the future.  With the freedom we received regarding our research report postings, I was able to connect food and nostalgia within the immigrant experience.  Culinary nostalgia connects the required fuel of the body with people’s misremembered pasts.  Nostalgia glorifies the past, and culinary nostalgia causes one to wish for cuisine of the homeland once they have left its borders; however, the food now desired is usually undesired while those affected were living in the native country.  Like a perfect childhood, culinary nostalgia colors the dark and shadowy times of the past.  Immigrants experience much more than we discuss in such a limited time.  Having the freedom to research any topic regarding immigrants allowed for a varying range of reports—some of the ideas I had never considered such as the flight patterns of Mexican-Americans and the question of mandating English as the official language of America as compared to the Tower of Babel.

            By using the immigrant narrative as a model for describing multicultural American literature, we can isolate different aspects of the immigrant narrative instead of simply celebrating the differences and having discussions jump from subject to subject.  Many people talk about celebrating the differences between the cultures, but how many people know the number of Native American tribes or the differences between those groups.  By using the immigrant narrative as a yardstick for analyzing minority literature and the dominant culture moments, we can focus on fewer ideals and remain attentive of the course objectives and terminology.  The immigrant narrative represents the desires and reasons for coming to America.  Anzia Yezierska’s immigrant narrative describes the narrator as “…an unlived visionary immigrant [who] hungered and thirsted for America” who came from Russia “…aflame with dreams of America” (“Soap and Water” 109).  By using the immigrant narrative as a model, we can see the differences between an immigrant and a minority.  Nicholasa Mohr’s immigrant narrative, “The English Lesson,” describes the immigrant experience and the minority’s experience.  Diego Torres, the minority who is only learning English to improve his economic situation, desires to return home to the Dominican Republic once he earns enough money to buy his home and land (25).  Diego has no intentions of remaining in America or labeling himself as an American.   Unlike Diego, Lali and William want to learn the language to become more American.  Lali and William represent the immigrants who have yet to assimilate into the dominant culture, but who do not give up hope on the American Dream.  Like Lali and William, the narrator in “Soap and Water” refuses to cease finding her American Dream of being a teacher.

            Toni Cade Bambara’s narrative “The Lesson” represents the minority experience through the eyes of naïve children.  Sylvia, the story’s protagonist, experiences the differences between her society and the dominant culture’s society when she arrives at F. A. O. Schwarz.  Sylvia feels like an outsider and cannot force herself to touch the toys inside the store.  Sylvia becomes jealous of her friend Sugar who runs “…a finger over the whole boat” (“The Lesson” 150).  A disconnection between the dominant culture and the minority predicates the feeling of oppression and jealousy, but the minority resists the dominant culture and refuses to remain unmarked and censored.  By using the immigrant narrative as a model to discuss minority literature and literature of the dominant culture, we can see how each member reacts differently to the same experiences.  Like a blending of cultures through intermarriage, the Mexican-American blends the immigrant experience and the minority experience together.  Gary Soto’s “Like Mexicans” represents a third-generation immigrant whose private life corresponds to a minority—unwillingness to assimilate into the dominant culture by refusing to intermarry (301).  The narrator has an internal conflict when his grandmother tells him to “marry a Mexican girl” (301).  The narrator asks other members of his family for advice and each of them tell him to marry within the race and within the class (“Like Mexicans” 303).  Unlike the minority, the narrator marries a Japanese woman (“Like Mexicans” 302).  The narrator represents an immigrant by marrying outside his race and by attending college—his public life—but his family represents the minority pattern of the seminar.  The immigrant narrative gives us a model in which we can compare the similarities and contrast the differences between each group with multicultural American literature.

            After taking the graduate American Immigrant Literature seminar, I feel more comfortable with discussing the texts, the experiences of immigrants, minorities, and the dominant culture, and analyzing the course objectives.  I was able to compare the literature of the African-American women novelists course I had the previous semester to the concepts we learned in class.  I believe the most rewarding aspect of the class—of any class—is bringing in other texts and characters that share commonalities.  I enjoy reading about the human experience and the different perspectives of those involved.