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Midterm2 (2013 midterm2 assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2013 #1: Essays on New World Immigrants |
LITR 4333
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Cassandra Rea
5th
November 2013
America’s Neighbor: New World
Immigrants
Despite the numerous amounts of individuals
that have immigrated to the United States, there is a bold line of difference
between the various immigrants which originates from what part of the world they
came from. The Old World Immigrants pertains to immigrants from the Eastern
Hemisphere of the world and the New World Immigrants are from the Western
Hemisphere or America’s neighbor. Unlike Old World Immigrants who have no real
ties to America before-hand, the New World Immigrant does, due to the fact that
they are so close to America. The New World Immigrant involves Hispanics from
Central America and Afro-Caribbeans from countries such as Haiti and Jamaica. In
the majority of the narratives, there is that constant struggle of assimilating
to the dominant culture as well as their outlook on previous experiences with
America that help shapes their view of the country itself. Although they do
indeed immigrate to the United States for a better life such as economic
progress, basic human rights, and expectations for the next generation to
succeed, they are different in the fact that the nearness of their home country
makes it difficult for them to break with their homeland and the history of
international exploitation with America gives negative preconceived notions. It
is these similarities and differences that show a mixture of immigrant and
minority narratives within the New World Immigrant cultural narratives.
With the mixture of immigrant and minority
narratives in the New World Immigrants narrative, it is important that the two
terms must be established with a concrete value. An immigrant narrative involves
a story of escaping the Old World and assimilating to the New World including
its dominant culture. The story in itself is pretty simple, according to Cesar
Cano who states that “immigrant cultures voluntarily leave their home country
and move in search of a better life”. This is justified through the American
Dream; the perception that immigrants have of America when immigrating to the
New World. The immigrant narrative is very distinct in the fact that immigrants
are choosing to come to the New World on their own unlike the minority narrative
which deals with cultures that were already present or were forced to the New
World such as slavery. The minority narrative implicates the opposite of the
American Dream but rather the American Nightmare. Dorothy Noyes states that
“minority groups did not seek this life, this stereotypical American dream is
not theirs” but rather their unlucky hand in life. The minority narratives tend
to show the pattern of resisting assimilation while the immigrant narrative
tries desperately to assimilate to the dominant culture. That reason in itself
is the major difference between the two types of narratives, and yet they both
somehow mesh into a kind of new identity amongst the New World Immigrants.
The New World Immigrant can be categorized
into three different groups: Mexican Americans, other Latinos, and
Afro-Caribbean’s. Each group presents their own new identity from the
combination of the immigrant and minority narratives. Not only does the New
World Immigrant present this new concoction of a unique type of narrative but
they are also special in the sense that they are the largest wave of
contemporary immigration. In recent decades there has been an increase of the
New World Immigrant coming to the United States partially due to the fact that
America is the New World Immigrant’s neighbor. Another distinctive quality that
they present is the attitude within the narrative that adds a new flavor to the
mix of narratives. It is unlike anything that has been read thus far in the
class. This new flavor is apparent in Martin Espada’s
Coca-Cola and Coco Frio, “the fat boy
wandered/from table to table/with his mouth open”(Lines 3-5), and in this poem
there is a play on words that is unlike any other due to its bluntness as well
as the humor that the cultural narratives have lacked in the past. Granted not
all of the narratives have the humor but the candor and truths despite it being
the ugly truth sings loud and clear within all of the cultural narratives from
the New World Immigrant.
Even though the New World Immigrant is its
own exclusive category amongst Immigrant Literature, there is not just one
cultural narrative that sums up the whole story of a certain cultural group but
rather it is a piece of the puzzle to a bigger picture.
The first group of the New World Immigrant is the Mexican Americans. This
culture stands on its own due to the fact that the only thing that separates
Mexico from America is a border or an imaginary line. They are literally back
door neighbors to one another. This border also makes it difficult for this
culture as well as the others to commit to the American nationality of the
dominant culture and the struggle of wanting to stay loyal to their home
country. An example of Mexican Americans being able to stand on their own and
stay loyal to their culture appears in Nash Candelaria’s
El Patron when he describes the
hierarchy of the family, “Dios, El Papa, y el patron. It is these that mere
mortals bow” (IA 221). This quote in particular represents how there is no
individual freedom but rather it is left up to the extended family hence the
loyalty to the family. Another difficulty that Mexican Americans have is the
struggle to commit to the dominant culture, which stands true in Gary Soto’s
Like Mexicans when his grandmother
tells him “if you find a good Mexican girl, marry her of course” (PDF 302) but
he falls in love with a Japanese woman thus in to which he has a hard time
dealing with the repercussions that his family might not accept his choice. This
also stands in part of how Soto’s story relates to the immigrant narrative by
choosing intermarriage with another culture as opposed to staying within his own
culture. But both of these cultural narratives showed signs of the minority
narrative based on retaining their native tongue. They have not yet assimilated
to the dominant culture but rather they are holding on to it so they stay loyal
to their home.
Another group that falls into the New World
Immigrant is other Latinos which include immigrants from the Dominican Republic,
Puerto Rico, and Cuba. It is this category in particular that some of the
cultural narratives add that new flavor of humor such as Junot Diaz’s
How to Date a Browngirl… not only
does this cultural narrative put a new attitude on the New World Immigrant
narrative but it also shows the many examples of representing both the immigrant
and minority narrative. Diaz relates to the immigrant narrative by talking about
the type of girl 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. But he also expresses connection to the minority
narrative when he explains how to not “tell her that your mom knew right away
what it was, that she recognized its smell from the year the United States
invaded your island” (IA 277). This connection in particular embodies the
experience of involuntary contact as well as exploitation by the U.S. in their
countries; in particular he is referring to U. S. military intervention of the
Civil War in the Dominican Republic in 1965. It also shows a reason as to why
they are ambivalent toward the dominant culture because of the tragedy they
faced in their homeland. This is also prevalent in Oscar Hijuelos’s
Visitors, 1965 when he describes that
“only in America…the days of the new technology: mushroom-cloud bombs and
satellites and missiles”, here associating America with war and how they have
powerful technology and frequently use it. Despite
the bad picture that Diaz portrays of America that relates to the minority
narrative, there is also the bright light as well such as when his cousins have
emigrated from Cuba to escape the communist regime. His cousins in the cultural
narrative represent the immigrant narrative because “they did not allow the old
world, the past, to hinder them” (IA 324), unlike the standard New World
Immigrant, they indeed saw the land of opportunity and worked hard to achieve
the American Dream. For these Latinos a huge role that played in their
narratives was the unintentional contact with the U.S. due to wars and America
getting involved. They had a preconceived notion that America was not all
sunshine and rainbows but rather comes with mixed feelings when immigrating to
the country. But also the theme of intermarriage comes up frequently which shows
the path towards assimilation within the dominant culture because they are
slowly leaving their roots behind.
The final group that makes up the New World
Immigrant is the Afro-Caribbeans who come from all over the Caribbean including
Haiti, Barbados, and Jamaica. The Afro-Caribbean’s are harder to identify with,
in the sense that they are descended from many different cultures including
African slaves, with French and British influence or mestizo (any person of
mixed racial origin). They are the group that appeared to have suffered the
worst within the New World Immigrant umbrella because slavery was present within
some of these countries especially Haiti. In Edwidge Danticat’s
Children of the Sea which deals with
a boy and girl in love writing to one another despite the letters never reaching
one another. The boy in the narrative describes how he “used to read a lot about
America..it is sunny…there are no borderlines at the sea” (IA 99), this can be
related towards the immigrant narrative because he describes America as sunny
with no borders, this can be a symbol of the endless possibilities that the
American Dream has to offer. But it is also has the minority narrative in the
sense that color discrimination pops us, “when the Coast Guard (U.S.) came for
the,, they took the Cubans to Miami and sent him back to Haiti” (IA 101). In
this quote there is the sense of the preconceived negative emotions that are
associated with the U.S. because Haitians are in fact the least favored nation
for immigration to the U.S.
In addition to this narrative, Paule Marshall’s
To Da-Duh, in Memoriam, she shows how
it is so easy to travel back and forth from their home land of Barbados to their
established home in New York, “we had just crossed in the landing boat, leaving
behind us the ship that had brought us from New York” (IA 368). Here there is
the confusion or mixed feelings of not assimilating to the dominant culture
because of the strong ties of their country as well as being able to travel
frequently for the author’s mother. But she shows signs of the immigration
narrative due to her desire to return back to America, “I longed then for the
familiar: for the street of Brooklyn where I lived” (IA 371). She is the second
generation immigrant who is breaking away ties from her native country and
slowly assimilating to the dominant culture because she associates home with
America. Her grandmother also has this predetermined notion that America has
nothing that can compare to Barbados especially the difference between the
dominant culture and them, “do the white people have all these things too or
it’s only for people looking like us?” (IA374). With her grandma asking this
question, the minority narrative appears once again with the theme of color
discrimination. Her grandma knows that the dominant culture gets better
treatment. The Afro-Caribbean narratives show light towards America but also
show how hateful and discriminatory America has been to them due to the color
code. But the Immigrant part in them wishes for something better, hope, a new
start from all the bad experiences that was left in their home countries.
The New World Immigrant is exceptional in
its own right because they do just relate to neither the immigrant narrative nor
the minority narrative. The have created a cultural narrative that combines
these patterns to create their own identity. Also, the idea of the mestizo is
appearing especially in the Afro-Caribbean’s because they are people of mixed
racial origin which also contributes to the new identity. No matter what country
they come from, the New World Immigrant has a hard time wanting to assimilate to
the dominant culture in fear of not staying loyal to their native land. But they
also have vivid notions of America being the land of equality and opportunity
due to their involuntary contact with America before immigrating to the country.
Despite these feelings of unassertiveness towards America, they still come here
with the hopes of economic progress, better opportunities for the children
educationally, and basic human rights but there is the struggle of
discrimination, the negative experiences of America, and the need to stay
connected with their culture. Whatever it may be, the New World Immigrant sees
the opportunity for a better life that can be ultimately seen in their backyard
with America because after all, America is indeed the New World Immigrants next
door neighbor.
