This semester has been a very enlightening one for me. When I started the semester I did not know very much about immigrant literature or what it really meant to be a first or second generation immigrant. Even though I am only a fourth generation immigrant on my mother’s side, I am too far removed to share their experiences. My mother spent her entire life as fully assimilated to American culture and my first exposure to what it really means to be an immigrant occurred in this class. This semester our class has tackled immigrant literature. The first objective for our class identifies the immigrant narrative and shows how it defines or models American culture and breaks it down into four main groups. The first three groups are the immigrant narrative, minority narrative, and New-Immigrant. The dominant culture, the fourth and hardest group to identify, reveals itself through the different stories of the first four groups.

            Our class first identified the immigrant narrative. The immigrant narrative tells the story of people that travelled voluntarily to the United States. Many of them come to the United States because they see the American Dream and hope to attain it. Many of them look at the United States a see a country where they have the opportunity to prosper and gain economic opportunities. They come to the United States to find work and education.

            One story that we read that exemplifies the immigrant narrative is “Soap and Water”. This is the story of a Russian immigrant who works in a Laundry and wishes to go to college. She sees in the United States the opportunity to go to school. She goes to preparatory school and then worked all day at the Laundry so she could go to school. Even after the school did end the way she wanted it to, the teacher refused to give her a diploma because she was not clean and then she was unable to find a teaching job when she did get a diploma, she still found hope in America. Another teacher, Miss Van Ness, spoke to her and treated her well and like a real person. After this she exclaimed, “America! I found America!”. The dominant culture can be seen in this story as well. The dean of the college, Miss Whiteside, represents the clean and neat dominant culture. She holds the standards of the dominant culture that the immigrants must assimilate to. Also, there is a scene where she meets several cops who make her keep off the grass in Central Park. They also represent the dominant culture. The Dominant Culture is the culture immigrants assimilate to. In this story they are seen as the “clean” and reserved culture through the teacher and the policemen.

            A second story that shows an immigrant narrative is “The English Lesson” by Nicholasa Mohr. It tells the story of two people from Puerto Rico who move to New York and work at a restaurant owned by Lali’s husband. They take an English class to learn how to learn to speak better English. This story shows one of the stages of the immigrant story. In objective two for the class we see five stages of the immigrant narrative. Lali and William are going through stage 4 at this point. Part of assimilation to American culture is learning to speak English. The class is a sign that the two of them are assimilating to American culture. Once again the dominant culture can also be seen in this story. Mrs. Hamma represents the dominant culture in this story. Mrs. Hamma stresses the importance of learning the English language. She is very passionate about helping these immigrants better themselves and assimilate to American culture. Part of assimilation to the Dominant Culture is learning to speak English. Mrs. Hamma supports this and other Dominant Culture ideals. She speaks of Democracy and her student’s rights to speak their opinions.

            The second type of immigrant literature is Minority Narrative. Minority Narrative differs from Immigrant Narrative in a couple of important ways. First of all, minority groups are those who did not come to the United States voluntarily. This is an important aspect. The two groups of minority narrative our class has focused on are Native American and African-American immigrants. African-Americans came to the United States originally as slaves and the Native Americans were in America and were forced from their land by the “Old-World” immigrants. Secondly, instead of finding opportunity, minorities found only discrimination and hardship.

            “American Horse” by Louise Erdrich is a story that shows the minority narrative well. It is a story about a Native American mother that has her son taken from her by the CPS. Albertine American Horse has a son named Buddy. Buddy has nightmares about being taken away from his mother. Throughout the story it is apparent that Albertine loves her son and that he loves her. It also becomes apparent that Albertine provides a loving, although not necessarily rich or plentiful, home for Buddy. Then the Police come with a social worker and take Buddy away from his mother. In the name of help the Dominant Culture came in and destroyed a family. It is a good picture of what the United States originally did to the Native Americans. They came in and took their land and their livelihood in the name of progress. They forced them to live on reserves by Dominant Culture ideals. In the same way Vicki Koob and the police, who represent the Dominant Culture in this story, come into Albertine’s home and force her child from her arms because their home does not conform to the Dominant Culture. This family faces hardship and discrimination. They did not ask for “help” from the government. Like the definition of minority narrative, they did not want them to intrude. They were forced upon.

            Another story, “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara, shows the minority narrative from the perspective of the African-Americans. This story shows the idea that the minority narrative will resist assimilation. It tells the story of African-American children who go to a toy store in a rich white part of town to look at expensive toys. The two main characters, Sugar and Sylvia, are students in Miss Moore’s class. Miss Moore has gone to college and wants to teach the students the importance of education. The students do not want to take the classes. They see the flaws in the system. As Sugar says, “…this is not much of a democracy if you ask me. Equal chance to pursue happiness means and equal crack at the dough, don’t it?” The students see the problems in the system and they know they will not necessarily get a real equality. They are descended from people that came to our nation as slaves and they have faced discrimination instead of opportunity. They stand apart from the dominant culture and refuse to assimilate because of this discrimination. The dominant culture appears in this story as well. It comes in when the students look at the expensive toys. They see boats and microscopes and paper weights that cost more money than the students can conceive of. The dominant culture has the money to buy these things and puts a high importance on having these things.

            The third type of narrative we have discussed this semester is the New-World immigrant. This group falls in the middle. They are people that willingly came to the United States but instead of finding all of the opportunity they found a mix of opportunity and discrimination.

            The first type of New-Word immigrant is the Hispanic immigrant. These immigrants come from Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Dominican-Republic or several other Hispanic countries in the New-World. One story that is typical of this type of narrative is “El Patron” by Nash Candelaria. This tells the story of a family crisis. The father becomes mad that his son does not sign up for selective service. The father, Senor Martinez, came to the United States from Mexico so that he could provide his family with food. He cam to the United States and went through a partial assimilation. He came to the United States and gladly took part in military service. He fought for the United States with pride, but did not go through a full assimilation. As long as he fought in the war he was accepted by the Dominant Culture but he did not go so far as to take to American cuisine for instance. He at one point complains about a “rotten meal” that is made up of the “nothing white bread that presses together into a doughy flat mass instead of the tortillas that Papa thrived on”. He holds onto his cuisine. The discrimination they faced also comes into play when Tito tells of his stand. He tells how when his father fought all of those wars he and the other Mexican-Americans came back to jobs as ditch diggers and busboys. He tells of how they fought the wars for the rich men with no real regard for themselves. Tito would say that he had to go to college so that he could overcome the discrimination and get a real job. His father came to the United States for opportunity, and he found it. Only he only found opportunity for a job in the military or as a busboy or ditch digger. They sit right in the middle. Coming for opportunity but finding walls.

            Another story that exemplifies the New-World immigrant is “The Making of a Writer: From the Poets in the Kitchen” by Paule Marshall. It tells of how a young girl learned about common language from her mother and her mother’s friends in the kitchen. She says that the way to become a poet is through listening to them. She tells of what she learned and heard from the adults. She tells of how they would go out to the corner of the street to wait for a white woman to come and bargain for a days work in her house. The woman spoke of the discrimination and opportunity both. They spoke of how they could not get equal opportunity. They only get the opportunity for a few dollars from this form of “occupation”. They face fierce discrimination. However, they also talk of how they willingly came to find opportunity. They recognize that these few dollars are more opportunity than they had in Barbados. Like in “El Patron” they also talk of how the war, World War II in this story, simply puts their poor sons in danger for the good of the rich men. The author captures what it means to be a New-World immigrant. They describe exactly how they are in the middle They face and see discrimination despite the fact that they came to the United States to find opportunity, equality, and freedom.

            Immigrant literature tells the story of the United States of America. We are a nation of immigrants. Most of us could trace our roots to one of these groups or another. These stories tell of what it means to struggle to become and be an American. They also show what it means to be part of the Dominant Culture. As hard as it is to point to, it does appear in each of these stories.

[Andrew]