Tuesday, 10 June 2008: Examples of the Immigrant Narrative. Anzia Yezierska, “Soap and Water” (IA 105-110) [handout]; Nicholasa Mohr, “The English Lesson” (IA 21-34)

Text-objective discussion leader: Tanya Stanley

Text-Objective Discussion:

Anzia Yezierska’s “Soap and Water” & Nicholasa Mohr’s “The English Lesson”

Tanya Stanley

Objective 1. To identify the immigrant narrative as a fundamental story or model of American culture and to recognize its relations to "the American Dream”…

Link to Syllabus

“Soap and Water”

·        Page 107—middle of second full paragraph:  “…longing for self-expression.”

·        Page 107—two paragraphs lower:  “...the impossible was a magnet to draw the dreams that had no outlet.”

·        Page 109—third full paragraph:  “…the unlived visionary immigrant hungered and thirsted for America.  I had come a refugee from the Russian pogroms, aflame with dreams of America.”

·        Page 109—same paragraph:  “…for hundreds of years the persecuted races all over the world were nurtured on hopes of America.”

“The English Lesson”

·        Page 23—last sentence:  “I study Basic English…To get a better job.”

·        Page 24—seond to last full paragraph:  “I taking the course in Basic English to speak good and improve my position better in this country.”

·        Page 25—second paragraph:  “…to improve my economic situation.”

·        Page 25—first full paragraph:  “All had similar statements.  They had migrated here in search of a better future…”

Question 1:  The characters in both narratives come to America to improve their situations.  How does the “American Dream” ideal present the immigrant narrative as a model of American culture? 

Question 2:  The “American Dream” exists for each immigrant in similar ways. Without focusing on the immigrants’ purposes for coming to America, how do our authors represent the “American Dream” principle within their texts?

Premise:

1d. American Immigrant Literature “celebrates difference” by surveying texts from or about a wide range of American ethnic groups. Also, though, a unified field or standard for identifying, grouping, and evaluating different ethnic groups is developed by using the immigrant narrative as a “yardstick.”

Instead of only celebrating difference and leaving each ethnic group to stand by itself, that is, our course uses the immigrant narrative as a way

• to mediate shared or parallel experiences and identities as far as possible in a single field or continuum.

“Soap and Water”

·        Page 109—third full paragraph:  “I did not find America in the sweatshops, much less in the schools and colleges.”

·        Page 108—first full paragraph:  “The courses of study I had to swallow to get my diploma were utterly barren of interest to me. I didn’t come to college to get dull learning from dead books.”

·        Page 108—last full paragraph:  “The hate which I felt for Miss Whiteside spread like poison inside my soul, into hate for all clean society.”

“The English Lesson”

·        Page 25—second full paragraph:  “But is one thing I no want, and is to become American citizen…”

·        Page 25—last full paragraph:  “My reasons to be here is to make money, man, and go back home buy my house and property.”

·        Page 25—last full paragraph:  “I no be American citizen, no way.  I’m Dominican and proud!”

Question 3:  Although their reasons may differ, both the protagonist of “Soap and Water” and Diego Torres of “The English Lesson” share the experience of journeying to America in hopes of improvement.  Instead of separating each ethnic group and listing the differences among them, how does the immigrant narrative represent a fundamental story of American culture by signifying similarities between the groups?