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Sample Student final answers 2013 (2013 final exam assignment) #1: Essays: dominant culture overview |
LITR 4333
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Cesar Cano
Universally Bland Yet Appealing to All
All semester long the term dominant culture
surfaced in most if not all of our classroom discussions. I took it to mean
white culture, but if asked to define white culture I would be at a loss for
words. I feared my inability stemmed from so deep rooted hatred for white
oppressors, but Ryan Smith’s essay from 2009 eased my worries. I am going to
make a hasty generalization and judge from his name Ryan is at least half
descended from the dominant culture, the last name Smith being the giveaway, and
he expressed the same hesitation at the term. It also slipped his mind. Why so?
I have lived in the United States for over twenty two years; surely, I must have
encountered the dominant culture at one point or another. As Dr. White pointed
out the dominant culture is invisible because of its predominant presence. It is
everywhere therefore it slips the conscious mind. Ken Kesey, in
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,
declares if one lives next to a waterfall all their lives there comes a point
where you no longer hear the water’s roar. I have lived next to the waterfall
all my life and no longer consciously hear it. This final essay is a great
opportunity to re-explore the founders of this country in the light of the
immigrant narrative, because I too forget the dominant culture immigrated to
these lands.
The reason for migration by pilgrims is no
different than that of modern immigrants; both groups are in search of a better
life. Pilgrims were escaping religious persecution. Their “dissent from the
Church of England” as noted in chapter two
Of Plymouth Plantation forced them to
seek not only a new land to call home but to leave England through illegal
matters. By using smugglers Pilgrims were able to leaver England, only after
selling all of their property. Immigrants today use the same methods. They fall
into huge amounts of debt for a chance of coming into the United States with the
aid of “coyotes,” or human smuggles. The trip is not always easy or guaranteed,
as many are abandoned during the trip. Pilgrims also suffered at the hands of
their smugglers were forced to pay “extraordinary
rates” for their passages.
And yet were they
often times “betrayed” by the smugglers.
After living in Holland for twelve years, Pilgrims saw their children began to
acquire certain Dutch liberties and they would not stand for this,
fear that is also experienced by new
world immigrants. Paule Marshall’s mother fears she cannot raise her children
correctly in a culture that looks down on corporal punishment. Oscar Hijuelos in
his story “Visitors” touches on the theme of immigrants quickly Americanizing
and losing their culture. The Pilgrims would not take such a risk and did not
assimilate into the Dutch culture, as it was their goal to maintain their own
culture and religion. This unwillingness to assimilate prompted the migration to
the Americas, a land “devoid of all civil inhabitants, where there are only
savage and brutish men which range up and down, little otherwise than the wild
beasts of the same” (Of Plymouth
Plantation). At this point the Pilgrims journey begins its comparison to the
Jewish exodus from Egypt into the promised land of Canaan. The Jewish nation was
instructed to not intermarry with the Canaanites and to effectively drive them
away as God had promised that land to their ancestor Abraham. The pilgrims took
this to heart, and saw their pilgrimage as divinely ordained, and did not
intermarry with the Native Americans. In fact, they introduced Christianity to
the Native Americans instead of adopting their culture. Protestantism and its
plain style of worship says the attention should be to the personal relationship
to God and not elaborate ceremonies, along with the importance it attributes to
literacy are founding values of the dominant culture. Functionality and
education remain important aspects of the dominant culture and values that
modern immigrants attach themselves to. In “Soap & Water,” the protagonist
describes these values of simplicity and cleanliness as both barriers and goals
for the immigrant. Members of the dominant culture are “agents of clean
society.” Her story is of a model minority since she is able to successfully
assimilate into the dominant culture.
The success of America’s conquest prompted many other ethnic groups to also
migrate to the young nation. These new waves of immigrants did not fit the WASP
label as they hailed from other European nations besides England. The United
States became a cosmopolitan country with a cocktail mix of races. Crevecoeur
defines an American not as a descendent of Englishmen but a “strange mixture of
blood” and could point to family “whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose
wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose present four sons
have now four wives of different nations.” This quality of an American adds to
their transparency. Without one single ancestry tree, the dominant culture is a
mixture of all those immigrants who came here in the early stages of this
country. In a similar way, new immigrants are also changing the landscape of
modern America. Immigrants from Latin America, Asian, and the Caribbean are
intermarrying with white partners and created a new variety on the definition of
American. These immigrants bring aspects of their culture into the mainstream.
Food being one of the major channels, as a vibrant metropolis in the United
States enjoys cuisines from around the world.
One of the early immigrant groups were the Scots-Irish. These were immigrants
from the Northern parts of Great Britain who helped shaped the USA’s dominant
culture. They share the same Protestantism, political and cultural aspects with
the first settlers. But certain aspects of the Scots-Irish put them in the light
of a minority group. Although part of the dominant culture, they tend to
distrust the governing officials or law enforcement individuals. They live
through a rugged individualism and see the mainstream culture as “out to get
you.” So, members of the dominant culture distrust it themselves.
Due to the variety of peoples that came together to form America’s dominant
culture it is difficult to pinpoint it to one specific groups of people. This
creates a culture of transparency where the identity of American can be lifted
by peoples from varying ethnic and cultural backgrounds. This unique quality
makes the dominant culture at once bland yet universally appealing.
