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Sample Student final answers 2013 (2013 final exam assignment) #1: Essays: dominant culture overview |
LITR 4333
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Carolee Osborne
The Many Faces of Immigrant Literature
Our country is founded on the idea that
immigration is necessary for the flourishing of this nation. Immigration has
become a topic of debate because the dominant culture feels that the immigrants
are taking land and jobs from them, but this country embraces immigration which
is apparent even in the documents that make up this country. The Declaration of
Independence explains that King George III of England “has endeavored to prevent
the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for
Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their
migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.”
This shows the absurdity of King George III’s ideas of immigration and supports
the fact that this country can thrive by allowing immigration instead of
forbidding it. Immigrants, therefore, become a people who must adjust to leaving
their old world ideas and joining new world ideas, thus creating a need to
express their likes or dislikes with the current system through literature.
These facts can be summed up by using three categories of immigrants: the
standard immigrant, the New World immigrant, and the minority.
The standard immigrant must assimilate to the dominant
culture of their new world, but who decides what the dominant culture is going
to be? Although the Native Americans were already established in what we now
call the United States, the pilgrims decided that they wanted some of the land
for themselves. The pilgrims refused to assimilate into the Native American
culture, and therefore created their own dominant culture into which everyone
else assimilated. William Bradford depicts the feeling that many pilgrims
expressed regarding assimilation in his book
Of Plymouth Plantation where he
explains that the immigrants had to leave everything and everyone they knew to
go a foreign land and “go into a country they knew not but by hearsay, where
they must learn a new language and get their livings they knew not how, it being
a dear [expensive] place and subject to the miseries of war, it was by many
thought an adventure almost desperate; a case intolerable and a misery worse
than death.” (2.1A) Their refusal to assimilate creates a new dominant culture
that we still use today in which we embrace the plain style and work ethic of
the Protestants. The Pilgrims also wanted to write and be a part of history
which does not allow assimilation. Bradford describes them as having “a great
hope and inward zeal … of laying some good foundation, or at least to make some
way thereunto, for the propagating and advancing the gospel of the kingdom of
Christ in those remote parts of the world; yea, though they should be but even
as stepping-stones unto others for the performing of so great a work.” (4.5)
This intent lays the ground work for other immigrants to become a part of their
history by assimilating to the Pilgrims’ ideas and beliefs.
The standard immigrant is also characterized as someone who
is searching for the American dream. In order to achieve this dream, the
immigrant must assimilate into the dominant culture’s ideas and values.
The Scots-Irish are an immigrant group
which embodies most of the dominant culture’s traits so much so that they are
often confused with being the original dominant culture. Dr. White’s description
of the Scots-Irish explains it best through his website titled
Scots-Irish where he gives a
breakdown of how this immigrant group displays much of our dominant culture. He
states that “the Scotch-Irish are overwhelmingly Protestant, and their variety
of Protestantism--originally Presbyterian but splitting or morphing into
hundreds of sects--became the model for much of American Christian
fundamentalism and evangelicalism.” (White) One particular aspect of the
Scots-Irish portraying the dominant culture is through debates on immigration
where “The Scotch-Irish sometimes appear most alarmed or threatened by
immigration and by equal rights for non-white minorities. [Also,]The
Scotch-Irish suspicion of outsiders conforms to the Dominant Culture's position
of not assimilating but rather being assimilated to.” (White)The Scots-Irish
could possibly be the immigrant group that has been able to keep the dominant
culture unchanged for all of these years.
The model minority is a type of immigrant narrative in which
immigrants embrace the dominant culture and assimilate accordingly without
resistance. They have complete trust in the system and do not question the
rules. Sui Sin Far describes this type of loyalty to the system through her book
In the Land of the Free. In this
story an immigrant couple being reunited after the wife moved back to their
country to help out her mother, she gave birth to a baby while in her country
and therefore does not have a birth certificate. As she was leaving the boat she
was told that her son would not be able to leave with her and must stay with the
authorities until there is proof that he is her son. Her husband tells her “’Tis
the law … and twill be but for a little while- until tomorrow’s sun arises.’”
(5) The husband had blind faith that the system would work itself out in their
favor, but the reality is that the system caused them to lose touch with their
son to the point that he assimilated to the other children and did not recognize
his own parents in the end.
The new world immigrant is a completely different story. The
new world immigrants typically move
from a country that is close to the United States, so they are able to visit
their family more frequently which causes a mixture of
attachments between the country they left behind and their new home. A
former student, Sarah Gonzalez, explains this ambiguity in a previous essay
where she states that this close proximity to their country “can produce
dividing loyalties or cause a resistance to assimilation.” The close proximity
can also cause the immigrant to see America as having both good and bad traits.
Paule Marshall best describes this in her book
The Making of a Writer when she
describes a group of immigrant women debating over their new home. She explains
that “America came in for both good and bad marks. They lashed out at it for the
racism they encountered. … [But] it was nonetheless a place where ‘you could at
least see your way to make a dollar.’” (85) In this way the new world immigrant
embodies traits that belong to both the immigrant and minority narrative.
The minority narrative differs from the immigrant narrative
in a variety of ways. The minorities were forced to come to America, through
slavery for example, and therefore resist assimilation because they believe that
the dominant culture that does not apply to them. This affects them because the
minority wants a piece on the American dream but because they do not assimilate,
the dream is almost impossible. Toni Bambara shows this type of narrative
through her book The Lesson where a
group of African American children are in an upscale store trying to become
assimilated into the dominant culture. One of the children exclaims that “’this
is not much of a democracy … Equal chance to pursue happiness means an equal
crack at the dough, don’t it?’” (151)
His childlike innocence depicts the way minorities feel about America; they want
the American dream but refuse to assimilate to achieve this goal.
The dominant culture sets the standard of the norms for the American culture. The standard immigrant narrative describes how immigrants assimilate and the struggles that come with it. However, in the case of the Pilgrims, they refused to assimilate which made way for their own dominant culture to inevitably become the dominant culture that we still embrace today. The new world immigrant narrative shows how the close proximity of their old world from the new world affects them because they can see both the positive and negative of the new world. The minority narrative, however, rejects assimilation altogether because their ancestors were brought here against their will, and they feel that they should not have to assimilate to the dominant culture. The dominant culture is an ever evolving entity because we as a nation are composed of a fluid evolution. As we becomes less and less a nation of European extraction and more a conglomeration of various cultures, the result will be new and exciting. Our founding fathers realized that allowing immigration would create a nation full of hope and prosperity for the American dream and embraced the idea that cultural diversity will make our nation unique and strong.
