Kimberly Ord

Part 2 – Long Essay

When considering how to discuss the historical backgrounds and narratives for immigrants, minorities and ethnic groups that mix the two, I thought it would be interesting to look at all of the texts in the context of the immigrant narrative.  How much do minority narratives have in common with the immigrant narrative?  And what aspects do the ethnic groups mixing the immigrant and minorities share with the minority narrative versus the immigrant narrative?  To do that, I’m going to examine texts that move through different stages of the immigrant narrative.  Objective two lists the stages of the immigrant narrative as:

1. Leave the old world
2. Journey to the new world
3. shock, resistance, exploitation, and discrimination
4. Assimilation and loss of ethnic identity
5. Rediscovery or reassertion of ethnic identity

So far, the only piece we’ve read that dealt directly with leaving the old world and the journey to the new world is “Children of the Sea” by Edwidge Danticat.  The story is a series of letters a between a young Haitian couple.  The letters from the boy describe the voyage from Haiti towards America and the letters from the girl detail the situation in Haiti.  Haitian immigrants are one of the groups that experience aspects of both the immigrant and minority narratives.  It is clear from the story that the refugees on the boat are fleeing horrific experiences in Haiti and that if the boy returns he will be tortured and killed.  In that way, his experience is similar to other immigrants who came to America fleeing political unrest.  However, in the case of the Haitian refugees there is another aspect.  The color code in the United States causes the Haitians to be discriminated against before they even arrive in America.

The faces around me are showing their first charcoal layer of sunburn.  “Now we will never be mistaken for Cubans,” one man said.  Even though some of the Cubans are black too.  The man said he was once on a boat with a group of Cubans.  His boat had stopped to pick up the Cubans on an island off the Bahamas.  When the Coast Guard came for them, they took the Cubans to Miami and sent him back to Haiti.  Now he was back on the boat with some papers and documents to show that the police in Haiti were after him.  He had a broken leg too, in case there was any doubt.  (IA 191)   

Instead of being taken in like the Cubans, the Haitian man was deported.  The unwillingness of the dominant culture to accept the immigrants from Haiti reflects that the dominant culture sees them more as a minority group than immigrants.

            “In the Land of the Free” by Sui Sin Far begins with the end of the journey to the new world and quickly enters stage three of the immigrant narrative.  At the beginning of the story, the Lae Choo is literally standing on the deck of the ship from China looking at America speaking to her son.  She is hopeful. “There is thy home for years to come.  It is very beautiful and thou wilt be very happy there” (IA3).  Unfortunately, her hope and happiness does not last long.  The baby is taken from her at the dock because he does not have paperwork to enter the United States.  Having her child taken away is a major shock for Lae Choo.  Preying on the family’s desperation to get their son back, a lawyer charges them $500 to go to Washington to get the paperwork straightened out.  Lae Choo pays with her jewelry.  By the time the baby is returned, he has already been partially assimilated into the dominate culture by the missionary women taking care of him.  Instead of wearing the “yellow jacket and lavender pantaloons” (IA 6) like the little boy Lae Choo sees out her window, he’s wearing “blue cotton overalls and white-soled shoes” (IA 11) and he has learned enough English to tell his mother to “Go ‘way, go ‘way!” (IA 11). 

            Stage 3 and 4 of the immigrant narrative are intertwined.  In the case of immigrants, they are shocked or dismayed by exploitation or discrimination but usually want to successfully assimilate.  That is why in “Soap and Water” the narrator is so angry at the way Miss Whiteside treats her.  The narrator has kept her side of the social contract.  She “pinched, and scraped, and starved myself, to save enough to come to college” (handout from IA 109) but she is still discriminated against.  At college people looked at her “as if I were crooked or crippled, as if I had come to a place where I didn’t belong, and would never be taken in” (handout from IA 107).  Even after graduation she could only get the “lowest paid substitute position” (handout from IA 108).  When she is at her lowest point and believes she will not be allowed to assimilate into the dominate culture, the narrator runs into Miss Van Ness on the street.  Miss Van Ness is kind to her and represents hope to the narrator that she will now be able to assimilate into the dominate culture.  “America!  I have found America!” (handout from IA 110) she yells.     

            For minorities, the social contract with the dominate culture is different.  They did not choose to be part of America, so they cannot be expected to assimilate and many do not want to.  Most of the friction between minorities and the dominate culture in the literature we have studied is either because the minority groups don’t want to or have not been allowed by the dominate culture to assimilate.  Like in “Land of the Free,” in “American Horse,” the dominant culture takes a child from his mother.  However, in this case, the family is Native American, minorities, not immigrants.  In “In the Land of the Free,” the customs officers, members of the dominate culture, who take the baby away seem to regret doing it.  One “regarded her pityingly” (IA 4) and muttered “I don’t like this part of the business” (IA 4).  In “American Horse,” the representatives of the dominate culture display no pity.  In fact, Miss Koob is quite judgmental.  Her judgments are based on the lack of assimilation of the family to the dominate culture.  She is appalled by Uncle Lawrence’s appearance.  She walks around their house taking notes, judging it by the standards of the dominate culture.  She wants to “find that boy and salvage him” (IA215). 

            Albertine and her family have not assimilated to the dominant culture.  For them, the American dream of immigration is the American nightmare.  “I Have Not Signed a Treaty with the United States Government” by Chrystos points out forcibly that Native Americans were here first and do not want to assimilate by declaring “We revoke your immigration papers/ your assimilation soap suds” (UA 305).  “The Man to Send Rain Clouds” by Leslie Marmon Silko demonstrates a different way the Native Americans deal with the dominate culture.  They resist assimilation by not telling Father Paul that Teofilo has died so he cannot perform the Last Rites and a Christian burial.  However, they incorporate sprinkling holy water over his body “so he won’t be thirsty” (IA 207).  They take part of the dominate culture and use it for their own reasons.

            In “Barbie-Q,” the girls are assimilated into the dominate culture.  They play with Barbies and are overjoyed when they find so many Barbie items in the sale after the fire.  From just reading it, I couldn’t tell the ethnicity of the girls. My first thought was that the story reflected more difference in economic status than cultural.  But the last two lines stood out to me.

And if the prettiest doll, Barbie’s MOD’ern cousin Francie with real eyelashes, eyelash brush included, has a left foot that’s melted a little – so?  If you dress her in her new “Prom Pinks” outfit, satin splendor with matching coat, gold belt, clutch, and hair bow included, so long as you don’t lift her dress, right? – who’s to know. (IA 253)

I wondered if the melted Barbie, who looked like any other Barbie if you didn’t look very close, represented the fears of groups who experience both the immigrant and minority narratives.  Do Mexican Americans who want to assimilate or have assimilated fear that if the dominate culture looks too closely at them they will be declared a minority and not allowed in?    

The last stage of the immigrant narrative is partial rediscovery of ethnic identity.  The best example of that I read was “Coca-Cola and Coco Frio” by Martin Espada.  In the poem, that the boy has been assimilated into American culture is represented by the Coca-Cola.  “He drank obediently, though/ he was bored with this potion, familiar/ from candy stores in Brooklyn” (UA 125).  But on his first visit to Puerto Rico he tried coco frio.  “The boy tilted the green shell overhead /and drooled coconut milk down his chin;/suddenly, Puerto Rico was not Coca-Cola/or Brooklyn, and neither was he” (UA 125).  It is significant that the boy who makes this discovery is from Puerto Rico.  Puerto Rico is part of the Untied States but has its own culture and the people were already living there when it became part of the U.S.  Puerto Ricans who move to the mainland United States experience both the immigrant and minority narratives.  They share the journey and assimilation process with other immigrants, but they may retain their ethnic identities or not be fully accepted into the dominate culture like minorities.  Also, like other groups that experience both the immigrant and minority narratives, the boy is close enough that he can visit Puerto Rico to rediscover part of his heritage.  Traditional old world immigrants were usually unable to do that due to the distance of the journey.    

So far, I have learned a lot in this class.  I had never really thought about the difference in the minority and immigrant experience because we so often use the word minority to describe all nonwhite groups.  I was also surprised by the similarities in many of the immigrant stories.  Including both the reading for the class and what I read for the research posting, I’ve read stories from immigrants from  Iran, Italy, China, the Philippines, Mexico, Tibet and several northern European countries that are all basically the same.  The details are different, but they all follow the immigrant narrative.  It makes me hopeful that the answer to the questions in objective one – Can anyone identify with ethnic or gender groups other than their own?  - is yes.