Connie Bares 

Immigrant and Minority Narratives and All That Overlaps

Before this class, my understanding of the “immigrant narrative” was limited.  I have had a multicultural class where we discussed different cultures and focused on learning about different traditions within each culture,  but not as  “identifying the immigrant narrative as a fundamental story or model of American Culture.”  As identified in objective 1d, this course “uses the immigrant narrative as a way to measure multicultural differences between immigrant, minority, and dominant cultures.” 

The immigrant narrative can be described as a journey from the “Old World” to the “New World” by leaving behind Old World traditions and embracing New World modern culture.  Most immigrants come to the America seeking the American Dream, in search of a better life or freedom than the one they had in their homeland.  Once in America, immigrants are faced with shock, resistance, exploitation, and discrimination.  This is the stage of immigrant narrative that often overlaps with the minority experience.  But the difference can be seen again in the fourth stage when assimilation to the dominant American culture occurs and the immigrants begin to lose their ethnic identity.  Finally the immigrant narrative has a rediscovery of their ethnic identity in the form of nostalgia or pride in their heritage. 

The “The English Lesson” by Nicholasa Mohr identifies with objective 1 as a “fundamental story or model of American culture and to recognize its relation to the American Dream.”  This story is about various immigrants who have enrolled in a Basic English class.  The majority of them are from Puerto Rico, but there were several from China, Dominican Republic, and Poland.  They arrived in New York “in search of a better future.” (IA 25)  One of the main characters in the story, Lali, is married to Rudi who owns a luncheonette.  She is required to work hard in order to go to the English lesson on Tuesday evenings, “(she) promised that they would leave everything prepared and make up for any inconvenience by working harder and longer than usual, if necessary.” (IA 21-22) She believed that if she worked hard and learned English she would be able to help her husband with his business and do more for herself.  This is part of the assimilation to the Dominant Culture.  She is willing to sacrifice long hours to learn English to better her standing in society.  She believes by learning English she may be able to climb the ladder and have the same equal opportunities that are available to everyone in American.  “But you gotta remember, it’s like Mrs. Hanna said, this is America, right? So….everybody got a chance to clean toilets! Equality, didn’t she say that?” (IA 30)

The short story “ Soap and Water” by Anzia Yezierska reveals many of the immigrant narrative stages.  This story is about a young Jewish girl who has come to America from Russia.  She actually has two journeys in the story, the first being her journey to America.  “I had come a refugee form the Russian pogroms, aflame with dreams of America” (IA 109)  And the second her ideal of going to college, “was like the birth of new religion in my soul.  It put new fire in my eyes, and new strength in my tired arms and fingers.” (IA107)   As a young child, she had dreams of coming to America, but once here her dreams were shattered. She worked in a laundry during the day and went to classes at night. She attended preparatory school for six years before she began college.  But when she began college “with outstretched arms of youth’s aching hunger to give and take of life’s deepest and highest,” she ran “against the solid wall of the well-fed, well-dressed world--the frigid whitewashed wall of cleanliness.” (IA107)  She was discriminated against because she did not come from money and did not have the luxury of even “soap and water.” Once she finally finished college, Dean Whiteside withheld the narrator’s diploma because she did not represent Dean Whiteside’s idea of a teacher.  The narrator became furious and Dean Whiteside crumbled and granted her the diploma.  But the narrator was not able to find work, because she could not afford to buy new clothes and make a presentable appearance.  She was forced to accept the lowest-paid substitute position just to survive.

The narrator tries to assimilate into the Dominant Culture by getting a better education but everywhere she turns she is blocked by discrimination because of her appearance.  After many years of oppression, the narrator bumps into one of her former professors.  She is the light that the narrator has been searching for in the darkness that surrounded her.  “Just as contact with Miss Whiteside had tied and bound all my thinking process, so Miss Van Ness unbound and freed me and suffused me with light. I felt the joy of one breathing on the mountain-tops for the first time….I went out from Miss Van Ness’s office, singing a song of new life: “America! I found America” (IA 110) It was at this point that the narrator found the courage she needed to keep fighting and she found what she believed to be her American Dream.  With her new friendship she was freed from the ties that had bound her before. 

The minority narrative has a different aspect than the immigrant narrative. Some difference are that immigrants tend to lose their ethnic identity within one to three generations.  Minorities, however, remain distinct.   Two least-assimilated minority groups are the Native Americans and African Americans.  These two groups are not immigrants.  The Native Americans were already here when immigrants arrived to settle the new land.  Immigration for them represents more of the “American Nightmare” then it does the American Dream.  Their land was taken by the Dominant Culture and they were forced to leave their land and live on reservations provided by the Dominant Culture. 

Minorities tend to resist assimilation (objective 3) to the Dominant Culture as illustrated in Leslie Silko’s short story “The Man to Send Rain Clouds.”  This story is about an Indian family who finds their grandfather has passed away.  The priest in the town is upset with them when they do not want the Christian burial.  The Indians resist the Dominant Culture by placing “a small gray feather in the old man’s long white hair.” “ Across the brown wrinkled forehead he drew a streak of white and along the high cheekbones he drew a strip of blue paint.  He paused and watched Ken throw pinches of corn meal and pollen into the wind that fluttered the small gray feather.  Then Leon painted with yellow under the old man’s broad nose, and finally, when he had painted green across the chin, he smiled. Send us rain clouds, Grandfather.” (IA 205)  These are customs that they have clung to and not forgotten.  It is their way of sending their Grandfather to the spirit world and in hope that he will provide them with rain for their crops.  The Indians have resisted assimilation again because they continue to wear the “moccasins that Teofilo had made for the ceremonial dancers.” (IA 207) Also they do not want the Christian burial by the priest, but they believe the holy water that the priest sprinkles will provide Teofilo with water so that he will not be thirsty and “now the old man could send them big thunderclouds for sure.”

The other minority group is the African Americans.  They did not voluntarily  choose to come to America; their ancestors were forced here by the slave trade.  They have had a history of oppression and poverty.  As demonstrated in Toni Bambara’s short story “The Lesson” Miss Moore has a different kind of lesson for the neighborhood children to learn.  Miss Moore had attended college and felt it was “only right that she should take responsibility for the young ones’ education.”  (IA 145)  This one particular day she takes the children of the neighborhood to Fifth Avenue.  On the way she discusses with them the value of money and “what things cost and what our parents make and how much goes for rent and how money ain’t divided up right in this country.”  (IA 146)  The children have begun their lesson on the class differences.  Miss Moore has experienced the “outside” world because she has attended college and is aware of the unfairness that these children will face as they grow up.  Once on Fifth Avenue, the children are faced with “crazy whites folks” in their fur coats and the expensive toy store. The Color Code of Objective 3 can also play a part here.  The skin color becomes a factor with an implication of power.  The “crazy white folks” have the money and the poor black children from the slums are left on the outside of the store looking in.  As they are looking at the prices they realize that the money spent on these toys could feed their entire family for a year.  They are shocked that people would be stupid enough to spend that kind of money on a sailboat.  Sugar begins to understand what Miss Moore is attempting to show them when she comments “that this is not much of a democracy if you ask me.  Equal chance to pursue happiness means an equal crack at the dough, don’t it?”

New World Immigrants fall somewhere in between the immigrant narrative and the minority narrative.  These include Mexican Americans, other Latinos, and Afro-Caribbeans.  They tend to stay loyal to their nearby home countries and they have mixed feelings about the USA. Mexican American immigrants are unique n ways that may make them more hesitant regarding assimilation to the dominant American culture.  Assimilation proceeds, but may be at a slower rate.  For example, the poem “Immigrants” by Pat Mora portrays a family who wants to be part of the American Dream but has mixed feelings or fears about loosing their identity and fitting in.  They “wrap their babies in the American flag” and feed them traditional American food, hot dogs and apple pie.  They buy them “blonde dolls that blink blue eyes or a football and tiny cleats” They speak in thick English but when no one is around they  “whisper in Spanish” “that dark parent fear, “will they like our boy, our girl, our fine American boy, our fine American girl?”  There is a fear of being accepted. This poem represents the immigrant narrative in that the parents want their children to assimilate and be accepted into the dominant culture.  But also it overlaps with the minority narrative because the parents seem to be trying to cling to their own culture by speaking Spanish when no one is around.  They do not want to assimilate entirely. 

In the story “Children of the Sea” by Edwidge Danticat, a group of Haitians are immigrating to America to escape the violence in Haiti.  This can be seen an immigrant narrative because they are choosing to come to American.  But the flip side is the minority aspect of the story.  They did not actually want to leave their country but were forced to because of the violence.  The narrator is being hunted for protesting the politics of Haiti.  As they are sailing across the Caribbean Sea there is talk about the Bahamas, The Haitians feel they are treated less than humans.  “They (Bahamians) treat Haitians like dogs in the Bahamas, a woman says, To them we are not human”  (IA 104) This is how the African slaves were treated when they were brought to America against their will.  The Color Code plays a role here as well, dark being evil  and light being good.  “The faces around me are showing their first charcoal layer of sunburn. Now we will never be mistaken for Cubans.  Even though some of the Cubans are black too.” (IA 101) When the Coast Guard found ships with immigrants on board, the Cubans were sent to Miami, but the Haitians were sent back to Haiti.  With their darkening skin they feared they could not pass as Cuban any more. 

Even though the culture of North American was formed by immigrants, most immigrants today feel they are outsiders looking in.  If they do not assimilate to the “Dominant Culture” they are looked upon as being different.  This course is helping me see our nation as a multicultural nation where every one is unique in some way.  The immigrant narrative is tool to which immigrant, minority and dominant cultures can be compared and understood.  With understanding, there can be less friction among different cultures.  

(Organization time 1hour, Writing time 4 hours )