Sample Student final answers 2013 (2013 final exam assignment) #1: Essays: dominant culture overview

LITR 4333     American Immigrant Literature (Model Assignments)

Cassandra Rea

9^th December 2013

Evolving Through Time: The American Immigrant

Throughout time, America has become the promised land, the land of opportunity for many immigrants who desire to come to this land. Even from the very beginning, English Immigrant settlers as well as others after them have shown the yearning to achieve something more, to be free of their native land and becoming something new. It was the American Dream before it was titled the American Dream, in the sense that it offered the picturesque idea of painting the dreamlike picture of being free of rules with the allowance of achieving better than before. It is with this notion that has shaped the standard immigrant story of the idea of the American Dream to the earliest of settlers including the pilgrims and has continued to stay constant throughout time because America offered something new that no other country could offer, which was the opportunity to achieve greatness. Yet despite being such an appealing indication, there is also the minority group that does indeed go against the grain. All in all however, each type of immigrant as well as the minority all show an insight to a very fascinating story that are just pieces of the puzzle to the immigrant narrative.

The dominant culture derives from the early English settlers known as the pilgrims and the founding fathers. They too shared the dream of starting new life within the Americas based on their religion. According to Rhonda Fisher, she explains how the pilgrims differ from others because they “immigrated as a colony which sets them apart from any other category of American immigrants and seems to be the sole reason they successfully establish that dominant culture to which later immigrants would assimilate.” (Fisher 2007) They ultimately traveled as a congregation because they wanted to keep their religious values and customs intact without the worry of their future children being influenced upon by others. Just like Fisher emphasized, the Puritans quite heavily regarded themselves as a community rather than individuals, “if one member suffers, all suffer with it” (Winthrop 10). This also explains how the Puritans are the early examples of the dominant culture because they had no intention of assimilating to the natives (Native Americans) present within America but rather they stayed firm to their beliefs and practices. Even though the Puritans had all the faith and good intentions to lead them into the promised land, they eventually found that the land of opportunity offered that and eventually the Puritans would become more individualistic rather than staying together as a community.

Once settled and established, the Puritans actively sought personal gain rather than for the community, which would lead them to leave the original immigrant community that they so clung to behind. William Bradford recounts these chains of events in Of Plymouth Plantation, he stated that “so much that they removed, as for the enriching of themselves…they had given away already the best and most commodious places to other, and now wanted themselves” (Bradford (33.7-33.8), he describes how the Puritans no longer choose to put the church community first but rather themselves. With the Puritans branching off like this sets up the stage for the creation of the Founding Fathers. Once the Founding Fathers established the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, America became its own country with the melting pot of much different type of Europeans becoming one nation who will become the dominant culture. Hector St. Jean de Crevecoeur observes this transformation of the melting pot which is becoming the dominant culture right before his eyes, “the strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country…he is an American, leaving behind all prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds” (Crevecoeur 3.7). The idea of the melting pot is quite clear in his statements because these individuals are intermarrying and no longer sticking to their culture.

Besides the Puritans and the Founding Fathers, there is another group that also ties into the realm of the dominant culture which is the Scots-Irish. The Scots-Irish are under the same umbrella as the dominant culture bit are perceived very differently such as being labeled where as the dominant culture is not and likes to stay plain. They too immigrate to America “for economic opportunity plus or minus religious freedom, human rights” (Scots-Irish Immigration), unlike the Puritans, they did not travel with a community but rather by families and individuals. They did not necessarily have to assimilate when migrating because they already knew English. They are labeled different in the sense that they are considered the part of the population that is uneducated or hillbilly folk. This is due to their rustic nature of living out in the woods which came from them having to migrate further west on request of the east coast elite. It is because of the east coast elite that the Scots-Irish have distanced themselves from the dominant culture and can be seen as a minority group because their behavior and past history. However, the Scots-Irish do in fact make up a good part of the country and whether either side likes it or not, they do indeed fall under the dominant culture based on their ethnicity and not having to assimilate because they were already used to what was going on. The Puritans have set the ground work for the founding fathers as well as the Scots-Irish to build and establish them as the dominant culture due to intermarriage and the early stages of America’s melting pot amongst these European descendants. Despite emerging into the dominant culture, they too have also shown the early signs of the standard immigrant narrative by stating their desires to be free of religious persecution as well as economic opportunities.

The immigrant narrative does not just apply to a specific culture or race but it is a story or narrative that associates with traveling the New World and trying to accomplish the American Dream. It tells the journey of the individual escaping the Old World and traveling to the New World with intentions to assimilate to the dominant culture. The perfect example of the standard immigrant story comes from Anzia Yezierska with “Soap and Water”, as a young adult, she goes through the hardships of reaching the American Dream at all costs even with the dominant culture labeling her. Throughout her narrative, she expresses the struggle of trying to assimilate to the dominant culture, “at last I came to college…I rushed for it with the outstretched arms of youth’s aching hunger to give and take of life’s deepest and highest, and I came against the solid wall of the well-fed, well-dressed world—the frigid whitewashed wall of cleanliness” (Yezierska 17). Despite her eagerness to assimilate within the New World by going to college, assimilating to the dominant culture and the portrayal that it presents deems rather difficult for her. But just like any standard immigrant narrative, her faith in the American Dream is restored with hope at the end of the narrative, “I was changed and the world was changed… My past was the forgotten night. Sunrise was all around me…America! I found America” ((Yezierska 36-39). Despite going through hard times, she has risen above and found her American Dream that she had been hoping and dreaming for all along. Despite her standard immigrant story, there are other pieces to the immigrant narrative that continue on beyond just the standard. Another type of immigrant narrative deals with the New World Immigrant.

The New World Immigrant is labeled differently from other immigrants based on the fact of location; they are in the same hemisphere as the new world (western) whereas other immigrants migrate from the eastern hemisphere. The New World Immigrant includes individuals such as Hispanics from Central America and Afro-Caribbean’s from countries such as Haiti and Jamaica. Because they are so close to the New World, the New World Immigrant is responsible for the largest wave of contemporary immigration. Their story differs from the standard immigrant narrative because there is struggle with assimilating to the dominant culture and staying true to their Old World ways or culture as well as the vulnerability of experiencing exploitation of previous experiences with America. It can be seen as a mixture of an immigrant narrative and a minority narrative (forced to immigrate, resisted assimilation, the American Nightmare). An example of the New World Immigrant comes from Junot Diaz’s “How to Date a Browngirl…” he tells a story of how to date different types of girls from whites, to brown girls, and even of mixed origin. He explains in the narrative the type of girl that he should marry, ““white ones are the one you want the most” (IA 277), here not only does he have the attraction to the dominant culture but also the idea of intermarriage hence wanting to assimilate to the dominant culture; which relates to the immigrant narrative. But he also makes the connection of previous of exploitation made by America, “tell her that your mom’s knew right away what it was, that she recognized its smell from the year the United States invaded your island” (IA 277). This in particular refers to U. S. military intervention of the Civil War in the Dominican Republic in 1965. This in particular shows the indecisiveness in America and the yearning to assimilate is on the fence due to past experiences. The final group that fits into the immigrant narrative is the complete opposite of the New World Immigrant, which is the model minorities.

Unlike true minorities who are not immigrants because they were forced to come to the New World (African Americans) or were already present (Native Americans), the model minority is a term used for the “ideal immigrant”. It is one who assimilates to the Dominant Culture as well as exceeding the dominant culture values such as socioeconomic progress, hard work, commitment to education, and extended family stability. Specific cultures that are considered model minorities include Jewish Americans and Asian Americans. They are ideal in the sense that they take advantage of every opportunity that the New World has to offer such as education. An example narrative of the model minority is Gish Jen’s, In the American Society, her father came to the country and took over a pancake house in which he became very successful. He was successful enough that her father had already had money put back for college for his two daughters. In this part of the narrative, this shows the drive and determination and going beyond the minimum to be prosperous. With having money, their mother wanted to assimilate by joining the local country club. She wanted the need to fit in with the dominant culture and used all her resources to try but failed. This narrative has all the right functions of the model minority because it shows the determination to succeed as well as the desire to assimilate to the dominant culture. Just like the New World Immigrant, the Model Minority fits into its own sub category amount the immigrant narrative because of the unique attributes it presents within the narrative.

Despite their being three different types of the immigrant narrative, there is the minority narrative which does not fall into an immigrant narrative because minorities did not choose the American Dream, they were already native to the land before the dominant culture (Native Americans) or they were forced to the New World (slaves). The minority narrative offers a different perspective towards the dominant culture as being fowl or vicious with no sense of hope, instead of the American Dream, they refer it to the American Nightmare. This is documented in Olaudah Equiano’s narrative in which he stated that he “constantly grieved…wishing for death rather than anything else.” (CH. 3 Par. 2), his life in slavery was so horrid that he longed for death so he could escape the fate of being a slave forever. Rather than choosing to assimilate like immigrants, he felt that death was a better sentence than assimilation. It is with minorities like this that share an inside look into the involuntary contact, exploitation, and resisting assimilation that shows how these cultures view differ from immigrants; they do not paint the picture so lightly towards the dominant culture.

 America is perceived by many immigrants as the land of opportunity. Even with the rise of the dominant culture coming from the Puritans and the Founding Fathers, they all share one thing in common, the immigrant narrative. Despite evolving into the dominant culture, the Puritans and the Founding Fathers documented their reasoning to leave the Old World in pursuit for the opportunities in the New World. They rose to become the dominant culture because upon landing in the New World, they had no intentions of assimilating to the Native Americans. Instead, they formed their own culture with other Europeans traveling fast; the melting pot began to simmer with intermarriage of these different Europeans to eventually form the dominant culture of America. Throughout time the dominant culture has advertised the optimistic life and opportunities the New World had to offer but with a price. The need to assimilate to the dominant culture is very crucial to how the immigrant is labeled and even their opportunities. Despite coming from different parts of the world, there are three different types of immigrant’s narratives that offer a sliver to the immigrant narrative as a whole; Old World Immigrants (Eastern), New World Immigrants (Western), and the Model Minority. They each play their unique role in the immigrant narrative because of their perception and acknowledgement to the dominant culture. The Old World Immigrants struggle but keep pushing to assimilate, the New World Immigrant is torn between assimilation and loyalties, and the Model Minority dives in head first superseding expectations. With these three different types of stories, they help mold and shape the immigrant narrative that gives the reader a glimpse into how the dominant culture began, what it is today, and how immigration is perceived throughout time. All in all these narratives help mold America into the country it has become due to the fact that they are part of history, from real individuals dating all the way back to the Puritans before becoming the dominant culture people know today.