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Sample Student final answers 2013 (2013 final exam assignment) #1: Essays: dominant culture overview |
LITR 4333
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Adam Glasgow
FINAL EXAM PART I:
The Roots of America's Dominant Culture and Those Who
Choose to Join it
America is a nation of immigrants. From
the pilgrims, to the founding fathers, to the Afro-Caribbean immigrants of
today, we are a country of cultures smashed together and choosing to assimilate,
or not assimilate, to one another. America is commonly called a melting pot,
although that assumes that those immigrating to the U.S. do indeed choose to
join the dominant culture. Another view is that America is something of a
"patchwork nation," made up of many pockets of cultures avoiding one another. So
what is the truth? Which of these two views more accurately describes American
identity? Where does the dominant culture come from, and what reasons would
immigrants choose to, or not to, assimilate?
Much of the dominant culture has its roots
in some of the earliest American immigrants: the Pilgrims and Puritans. These
voluntary European exiles came to the new world after being frustrated with how
Catholic-like the Church of England was, despite the fact that it was, in name
at least, a Protestant church. The Pilgrims and Puritans established a plain
style culture that was, by necessity, centered around the well being of the
group. At the beginning Of Plymouth
Plantation, William Bradford is very straightforward about his use of plain
style. "...I shall endeavor to manifest in a plain style, with singular regard
unto the simple truth in all things; at least as near as my slender judgment can
attain the same." The plain style, which can be applied to everything from
writing, food, architecture, and lifestyle in general, is valued by the Bradford
and the Pilgrims because they feel its straightforward nature is the best way to
convey truth. Plain style is one of the most significant and easily identifiable
influences on what has become the dominant culture in America.
One previous student's final exam from 2006
called "One Dominant Culture to Which They Must Assimilate" points out more
examples of this from the novel Bread
Givers by Anzia Yezierska. The student notes that Sara, a character from the
novel, "struggle to assimilate her appearance." to the "'plain beautifulness...
simple skirts... finished quietness' of the dominant culture's clothing." The
novel, written in 1925, takes place just a few years before it was written,
which is over 300 years after the events that take place in
Of Plymouth Plantation. It is a
testament to the power of the plain style's influence in establishing a dominant
culture that this much time can pass and young Jewish girls in America for the
first time can still feel its presence. There are, of course, more sources that
have fed into the dominant culture, like the Scotch-Irish who immigrated in the
18th and 19th centuries who ended up mainly in the Appalachia (as discussed in
the Historical Backgrounds page from our class). But the Pilgrims and Puritans
and their plain style laid more of the groundwork for the dominant culture than
any other group of people, other than perhaps the founders of the United States.
When talking about the origins of the United
States and the dominant culture in modern U.S., it is impossible not to discuss
the founding fathers. It is because of the ideas they laid out that America is
viewed as a land of opportunity that is attractive to immigrants, even today.
Regardless of the fact that the laws of the land at the time did not seem to
share this view point (I think you can argue pretty easily that they still
don't), the Declaration of Independence states that "all men are created equal."
If you are an underprivileged person living in poverty in a country with few or
no rights that your leaders would consider "unalienable," reading the
Declaration and seeing that Americans take founding documents like it and the
Constitution extremely seriously is going to make relocating to the country an
extremely attractive proposition. The dominant culture seems to offer the
opportunity to work hard and be rewarded for it; an offer that most other
countries don't seem to make. The Pilgrims in
Of Plymouth Plantation came to the
New World, worked hard, and were rewarded with a place of their own where they
could raise their children. That idea, which is more or less the American Dream,
persists.
With the offer of a country such as this, it
is natural that men and women from other countries would immigrate to it. In
Nicholasa Mohr's The English Lesson,
we are exposed to a number of different characters who have immigrated to
America and are trying to improve their grasp on the language in order to better
assimilate. With only one exception, the characters, despite the fact that most
of them were poor and in rough situations, were optimistic about the future and
worked hard to make it a good one. This is the standard immigrant narrative -
come to America, adapt to the culture, work hard, and hopefully make a good life
for yourself and your children. There are plenty of groups, however, that might
be in America and want to better themselves, but who do not wish to abandon
their native culture. In The English
Lesson, for example, a man named Diego Torres from the Dominican Republic
gave his reasons for not wanting to fully assimilate by becoming an American
citizen. Near the end of his rant to his fellow students, he says, "So I come
here from necessity, pero this no my country." Diego had a much more negative
view of the United States. He came over to earn money, but did not want it to
become his home - he didn't identify with the culture and thought poorly of it.
Those who live in America but largely do not
wish to assimilate into the dominant culture are known as minorities. Minorities
may come from somewhere else, but they do not necessarily share the same goals
of immigrants. The most obvious example of a minority group in America is
African Americans. In The Interesting
Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, we read about a man who was
kidnapped from his homeland in Africa and shipped to America to work as a slave.
Even though he came to America, it was not voluntary, and so he is not
considered an immigrant. However, later in the narrative he does work to buy his
freedom and move North - a part of the story that does look much closer to an
immigrant story as opposed to a minority one. Minority groups are typically very
resistant to adopting the ways of the dominant culture, but he seemed willing to
do so when moving to the North.
The polar opposite of the minority is the so
called "model minority," which is a bit of a misnomer as those who belong to
this group are immigrants and not members of a minority group. Model minorities
are "ideal immigrants," in that they go above and beyond what one normally
expects from an immigrant group. They work hard, focus on family, and strongly
believe in the power of education. At one point, Jewish immigrants would fit
this description. Now, Asian Americans are the most obvious example of a model
minority. The story by Gish Jen called "In the American Society," for example,
the father character is completely devoted to the American ideal of hard work.
He puts the culture on a pedestal and works to emulate it, probably not even
aware that in some ways he is more "American" than those born in the country.
The idea of the model minority does, in many ways, seem complimentary to the
group. However, labeling groups this way isn't without its problems, as doing so
is a form of stereotyping.
The last group I'd like to touch on are New
World Immigrants. This group is unique in that they come from places closer to
the United States, so they usually have more realistic and less idealized
expectations of what life in America is like. In Edwidge Danticat's "Children of
the Sea," for example, you have the story of a young man trying to escape to
America because of turmoil in his home country of Haiti. His attempted
immigration is because of the possibility of a better life, but he isn't
choosing America because of some vision of the American Dream, he's choosing it
because it's simply his best option. In some ways, New World Immigrants are
something of a mixture between immigrant and minority. Their close proximity to
their homeland often makes it relatively easy to travel back and forth and
retain more of their culture.
The welcoming nature (real or perceived) of
America's dominant culture to anyone looking for a better life has lead many
different kinds of people to sign the social contract and participate in the
American experiment. From those who enthusiastically jump on board, to those
joining more reluctantly, the idea of a place that rewards hard work and views
all citizens as starting out on equal grounds is an appealing one, and unless
America proves to the world that this perception is completely off base, the
United States will continue to be a destination for immigrants looking for a
good life for them and their future generations.
