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Index
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LITR 4340
 American Immigrant Literature Model Assignments |
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Zach Thomas
Dominant Involvement
America represents a culmination of diverse individuals who chase the
American Dream. Often, minorities and immigrants are the ones who are mentioned
on the news and all other avenues of media. The dominant white culture is
considered highly invisible because they make it that way. It is easy to discern
why media represents immigrants and minorities more and that is to take the
vulnerable spotlight off of the dominant culture. It is necessary to discover
that the dominant culture is afraid of identifying their flaws, but if the media
does, they find the right things to say to dissolve the situation. I do not mean
to speak of this as a conspiracy theorist, but one who views America as a
country who needs immigrants and minorities to enhance society’s ever-changing
social structure.
The perplexity of why the dominant culture became the dominant culture is
an ever-pressing question. Dorothy Noyes, in her essay titled, “What is ‘White’
and Why?” unifies this frustration in saying, “I find myself curious as to how a
group that started off as immigrants themselves, overwhelmed the native culture
and established [dominance].” This is a difficult question to answer because
there seems to not be an overall resistance to the implementation of the
dominant culture. For the Native Americans, they were overwhelmed by the
diseases the Pilgrims came over with and also the more technologically advanced
weapons they brought with them. The Pilgrims came not with the original intent
to conquer the land from the Native Americans because they had no knowledge of
them. With their interactions with the Indians though, they realized that they
would have to fight to claim control of the land. It is tough to process the
weight of how the dominant culture became who they are today.
America has a history of immigrant and minority relations that better
attribute the land as a melting pot. The Pilgrims who came to settle and
establish the dominant culture could not totally remove the existence of the
Native Americans. Eventually, they would have to work together to share the
land. Pilgrims encompass a people fraught with frustration towards their home
country of England. The second wave of dominant culture immigration pushed for a
more individualistic and profitable society. Cassandra Rea converses in her
essay titled, “Evolving Through Time: The American Immigrant,” that “…the
Puritans actively sought personal gain rather than for the community, which
would lead them to leave the original immigrant community.” The Pilgrims, who
were running from Catholicism, pursued Protestantism which entitled the
followers to live in a society defined by socialism. However, the Pilgrims grew
farther and farther apart as a community because greed and selfish ambition
pushed them to quarrel about materialistic things. Ultimately, this division
would be remaining in society because it is viewed that individuals are the ones
who achieve success.
The mirage of the American Dream would then continue as a dominant
culture factor. Immigrants come with the hope of a better future, a land of the
free, the right to practice and speak freely in any capacity. The problem with
this dream is that it does not always become reality. For Adam Glasgow in his
essay titled, “The Roots of America’s Dominant Culture and Those Who Choose to
Join It,” replicates this dream in a positive light since, “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 immigrant is driven by a
fountain of hope for their future and that of their offspring. It is remarkable
to see the varying ways in which they accomplish it. Unfortunately, the means by
which they must achieve this goal are often so difficult they seem impossible.
It is important to highlight the travesties that make up the dominant
culture as well as the benefits they give to society. The dominant culture seems
to tolerate vast numbers of immigrants coming to America, but do not really care
to interact with them in professional circles. The overwhelming description of
the dominant culture is that they have set up a system of meritocracy. The
benefits begin to outweigh the cons when every individual is given the same
rights to achieve a certain career or goal. Whoever performs at the highest
level is then given the position. To understand the dominant culture, the
immigrant engrosses themselves within American society to the extreme level of a
nationalist.
