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Sample Student final exam answers 2016 (2016 final exam assignment) Part 1: Essays: dominant culture overview |
LITR 4340
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Zach
Thomas
12/7/16
Invisible Majority
Immigrants vastly make up the landscape of America by painting it with a
broad stroke. They enter a world with completely different customs and attitudes
to accept what has been presented them. They arrive with color, vibrancy, family
traditions, and above all, a sense of hope for a better future. Though the
painting is made with broad strokes, the colors began to run less bold on
arrival. These colors became so by bleeding into an already thick coat of white
paint upon the landscape. This white paint, while intriguing and
seemingly-absent, caused the dark colors to run less deep. In fact, it sets the
trajectory of the portrait and where it will end up.
The dominant culture operates in the same capacity. Their existence
begins with the Pilgrims who settled on the eastern coast of modern-day America.
These Pilgrims, documented by Bradford, came not with ruthless intent, but in
the heat of battle relished their victory with thankfulness to their God
(10.16). When they fought against the Native Americans, it emphasized the
metaphor that the Pilgrims came to introduce a brand new culture, and would not
assimilate to the pre-existing culture established by the American Indians. The
Pilgrims essentially implanted themselves into American soil, saw the lack of
technological advances and a language that was respectable to them, and then
assumed the dominant role.
Future immigrants would then assimilate to this dominant culture, not the
culture that was long since established. So what this looks like is an American
culture that modern immigrants try to recreate themselves, while leaving their
original culture back at home in their host country. Le Lay Hayslip points out
that, “Still, immigrants like me don’t arrive with our dreams full-blown.
Rather, it seems, we expand our hopes to fit this country’s vast horizons”
(117). The dominant culture of America looks significantly better for the
incoming immigrant, but in reality the hopes and dreams of the immigrant have to
be readjusted upon arrival. Often the amount of labor and discrimination that an
immigrant endures in America trumps what dreams they believed were possible in
this land.
Immigrants must then understand that their departure from their host
country would be like leaving a part of their soul behind. It is fairly
difficult for an immigrant to make a name for themselves against a white
backdrop of privilege. Extended families are not the norm for the dominant
culture, so the immigrant is most likely pushed into a very individualistic
society comprised of nuclear families. There are higher divorce rates within the
dominant culture because of the lack of marital commitment that does not
constantly entertain the changing needs of the spouse. J.D. Vance shares his
involvement in a Scots-Irish outlook on the dominant culture’s religion: “Our
religion has changed—built around churches heavy on emotional rhetoric but light
on the kind of social support necessary to enable poor kids to do well” (4). The
dominant culture represents, for the majority, a devotion to an anti-socialistic
society. It is every man/woman for themselves. This comes into direct contrast
with what John Winthrop wrote of the task of a community: that they should
participate in the greater good of the entire group, not the focus of one or two
individuals, so that no one is in need.
For the immigrant, there is not equality among different ethnicities
because of how prevalent the invisible, dominant culture seems. When the
Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal,” there must
be the correct lens used to identify what this really entails. The hope is that
it should be taken at face value and quite literally. The actuality is that the
Founding Fathers who created this document were the same men who owned slaves in
the South. The Pilgrims and the Founding Fathers were both Protestants who lived
under the Christian banner of social welfare, but within the borders of America
fell quickly to an individualistic society. This hurts the immigrant for a
number of reasons. For one, immigrants come to America poor, and their future
success is determined by free market capitalism, which has such a huge
discrepancy between the poor and the rich. Secondly, immigrants have to create
separate communities within the middle of large cities; these are primarily
ghettos, which inhibit immigrants from receiving good education to launch them
out of these communities. Equality becomes a loose term under the historical
documents of the dominant culture.
As much as there is to say of the dominant culture in negative
connotations, there are still some very beneficial aspects of their culture. For
instance, there has always been a strong dedication to literacy among members of
society. This has been imparted to America by the Pilgrims who had to be fluent
in reading the Bible. That is why much of the historical documents, such as the
Declaration and the Constitution, contain elements of Christianity within its
bylaws. Also, the dominant culture created a self-government which allowed the
citizens to represent their desired elected officials. Most immigrants come from
a home country that is either communistic or has a government that is failing in
providing basic needs for their people. One of the most basic needs these
immigrants are given in America is a foundation for human rights, such would not
be the case in a government who holds all the power and wealth. In advocating
the American Dream, the dominant culture remains distant to immigrants as if
they were totally invisible, letting them interpret what that dream really means
to them.
It is a prevalent view that the dominant culture demonstrates a seemingly
invisible culture. This is because they do not stick their noses into
immigrants’ business. The dominant culture is more passive in their relations
with immigrants because they remain indifferent towards them. Immigrants
represent a foreign entity to the dominant culture who are often ignorant to
their customs. Since the dominant culture rebranded society, immigrants are
accepted in terms of their overall worth to the economy. What American
immigrants assimilate to is a culture that invites diversity, while restricting
the right to uplift the dominant culture.
