Tanya Stanley

June 28, 2008

Assimilation:  An Unmarked Contract into the Melting Pot

Prior to my analysis of Cherie Correa’s LITR 5731 midterm submission, I was not comfortable discussing the dominant culture’s social contract.  After analyzing the expectations of the dominant culture’s social contract through the texts we discussed, I realized the importance of immigrants remaining unmarked as they accept the social contract.  Correa suggests immigrants are willing to abide by the social contract of the American Dream because they want to be accepted.  First-generation immigrants may not understand or embrace the dominant culture’s inexplicit societal demands, but the social contract becomes heavily weighted with their children’s ambitions.  The first-generation immigrants’ grandchildren typically embrace the social contract of the dominant culture without reservations.  Being unmarked is a profound aspect of the dominant culture’s social contract.  If the dominant culture observes an immigrant as marked, the assimilation process loses momentum until the noticeable characteristics diminish.  Personal hygiene and learning the language appear to be two primary distinctions regarding immigrants as marked or unmarked.  The dominant culture insists immigrants remain unmarked, especially regarding cleanliness.  The deodorizing of the body removes irregularity from the dominant culture’s sense of smell—a sense of smell that usually stimulates when the smell of nothing intertwines with the natural scents of the body.  Unrecognizable scents create distaste within the dominant culture, which forces the immigrant to accept and practice the social contract of personal hygiene—a routine of cleanliness—if the immigrant desires assimilation into the dominant culture.  Like hygiene, the language of the dominant culture is a powerhouse to assimilation.  By learning the language, immigrants can communicate with the dominant culture, but often times the language of the immigrant remains slightly marked.  If the dominant culture hears an irregularity of the English language, the immigrant’s assimilation process tends to lengthen.  The dominant culture does not listen to the familiar sounds of the immigrants who have already assimilated; however, the dominant culture perceives unfamiliar sounds, rhythms, and speeds and begins to scrutinize the audible differences of the message instead of listening to the content of the message.  Personal hygiene and learning the language represent two of the social contracts required for immigrants to assimilate to the dominant culture.  Immigrants may not be fully aware of the dominant culture’s social contracts upon arrival, but acceptance into the dominant culture requires participants to remain unmarked—devoid of scent and of participation.

Does assimilation suggest independence from one’s group in order for an immigrant to become successful and part of the dominant culture?  Can independence force some immigrants into isolation of the world they journeyed to in their search of prosperity? Christina Holmes, an undergraduate student of the 2007 LITR 4333 course, inspired me to ask myself what assimilation means for some immigrants.  Model immigrants may assimilate to the dominant culture with minimal negation while others suffer humiliation and temporary solitary confinement.  Christina describes the protagonist of “Soap and Water” as an immigrant who finds oppression from the dominant culture and her fellow immigrants:  her acceptance into the dominant culture [is] not contingent upon her being educated, as she had thought, but more so on her appearance and how well she fit the standards of the dominant culture. She suffers rejection from her own people for wanting to better her life and discrimination from her peers for not fitting the mold of American society.   The protagonist is aware of the dominant culture’s emphasis on its participants as receiving an education in order to prosper; however, the protagonist remains naive to the importance of having an acceptable appearance.  Like many oppressed immigrants, the protagonist suffers from marked characteristics unacceptable by the dominant culture and the dominant culture’s inexplicit social contract.  If the dominant culture observes an immigrant’s distinctiveness, oppression usually begins.  In order for the immigrant to assimilate with minimal negation, she must adopt the necessary requirements of acceptance.  Independence and personal enrichment sometimes yield aloneness for some immigrants.  The immigrant may experience oppression from the dominant culture while suffering from the oppression of fellow members of the immigrant’s pre-assimilated society.  A desire for autonomy may yield temporary solitary confinement—an undesirable independence shared among some immigrants because the immigrant remains an outsider regarding the dominant culture and the immigrant becomes an outside to her peers who do not wish to assimilate.

I read my introduction of the undergraduate American Immigrant Literature midterm and desired to expand on the fusion of immigrant narratives and minority narratives as a heterogeneous mixture of both immigrant and minority literature by connecting with the notion of assimilation as an unmarked existence.  Many people believe the melting pot ideal of America is a false concept untrue to the original American Dream.  However, historically the melting pot succeeded completion; the melting pot represents the dominant culture to which the immigrants attempt to assimilate.  The members of the dominant culture do not question one another about their heritage.  The heritage of the dominant culture has become that of America—not Ireland, England, Italy, nor France.   The dominant culture remains unmarked and unobserved.  Unlike the dominant culture, marked immigrants face ridicule, objection, and rejection such as the experience of the minorities.  Most minorities refuse to assimilate to the dominant culture.  When few minorities attempt to assimilate, the color code forces a blockade of the process.  Even with obtaining a college education, financial success, political power, or celebrity status, minorities and some immigrants crash into the color code barrier because they cannot hide their marked physical characteristics.  As long as the immigrant can remain undetected by the dominant culture, assimilation into the melting pot can occur.  If an immigrant remains marked, she remains part of the heterogeneous mixture and not of the melting pot.

Log on:  June 28, 2008 12:15 p.m.

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