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2016 Midterm1
(assignment) |
LITR 4340
American Immigrant Literature Model Assignments |
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Zach
Thomas
Part One: To Be or Not to Be
Minorities and immigrants are uniquely identified in American literature
as a backdrop to the dominant culture. They are a dark, layered, and oppressed
veil of blue-collared America that keeps the country from collapsing. However,
many immigrants and minorities lose their culture and take hold of the dominant
culture’s
way of life as the only means of survival. Those who choose to resist have to
work even harder to keep one’s culture from being tainted by the New World. It
is often faith and family influence that inspires these people groups to engage
in the American Dream as a promising goal to their present suffering. For they
are either seen as dissolving into the dominant culture or remaining outsiders
and creating separate communities to accommodate their traditional way of life.
The narratives of immigrants are fascinating in at least one aspect by
the notion or theme of the American Dream. It is the lifeblood of those who wish
to be more than what they were given in their host country. For immigrants,
there is at times a full assimilation into the dominant culture to achieve this
dream. In Anchee Min’s
The Cooked Seed, the Chinese protagonist comes to America in hopes of
going to art school and starting her career as an artist. Her requirements for a
roommate are simply, “Anyone who speaks English, and who doesn’t mind my
silence” (195). Language for Anchee Min was the epitome of the assimilation that
she went through. She realized very quickly that in order to be someone in
America, not one that was a waiter or day-laborer, but one that held a higher
socio-economic status must then know English and speak it well. This becomes
Min’s first priority: to learn English by absorbing conversations with
classmates and listening to media in order to assimilate to the culture.
Anchee Min did not resist much to the dominant culture as she knew this
was highly necessary to becoming an artist in America. Being that she was an
immigrant and Asian, the mostly true stereotype of passivity within her culture
allowed her to leave her background of living under tyrannical rule and violence
in her home country. Not to say that her background was null or void, but that
she could change her future by not resisting to what the dominant culture had to
offer. It meant a job for her and money for her future children, possibly many
generations worth. The same can be said of the Chinese immigrants in America,
In
the Land of the Free.
The
father of this Chinese baby has to work exceptionally hard to get his son back
from being deported. His wife waits for over a year to welcome this new baby
home and along the way they have given all their precious jewelry to a white
lawyer who has connections to the judge in charge of the child’s custody. There
were some obvious setbacks in coming to America for this Chinese couple, but the
husband more so than his wife, assimilated to the dominant culture. He works to
the point of having his own small business, but learns very quickly that the
government requires more money of him in order to have his son back. The main
difference in these two stories of assimilation is that the latter faces an
adverse dominant culture after the family has assimilated. Resistance is not
viewed as beneficial to these two stories of Chinese immigration.
However, there is some resistance within the Jewish immigrant community.
For Anzia, in
Soap
and Water,
there is push-back to the dominant culture because of its obsession with
cleanliness. Her denial of a diploma from her dean was the initial precursor of
a hatred toward the dominant culture. Anzia works at a laundromat after school,
even sometimes missing supper, to clean the dominant culture’s clothes. The soap
and water play as a metaphor for the erasing of color within American society.
Anzia feels under “the tyranny of their culture” because she suffers the
injustice of not receiving her diploma due to her dirtiness (6). In contrast,
Anzia later decides to attend college as an ironic means to push back the
dominant culture. She believes that attending college could allow her to speak
for herself and to carry importance to her opinions. So she must work in her
assimilation, then to eventually resist the dominant culture after she has
graduated college. The family dynamic of resistance, as opposed to the
individual, is also possible. For the Nigerian family in Sandals in the Snow,
opposition to the dominant culture is more prevalent in the adults than the
children. The children see at schools that their white classmates are inherently
obnoxious and disrespectful towards any kind of authority. The Nigerian children
do agree with their behavior, but eventually wish to dress and smell like them.
For one of the daughters, she is bullied by the traditional way her mother does
her hair so she takes out her intricate braids with the help of her teacher.
This is seen as a slap to the face by her mother when she gets home because that
is how she always done her hair. To resist the dominant culture remains the
tougher option in immigrating to America because it is counter-cultural to a
white nation that finds cleanliness to be of the highest importance.
Assimilation to the dominant culture looks similar within the minority
narrative, but there are key differences. For instance, minorities do not view
the American Dream in the same fashion as immigrants. In the case of Olaudah
Equiano, there is no joy in being kidnapped from his home in Africa and being
made a slave in Europe, then in America. Assimilation for Equiano looked quite
different from the average immigrant story. He chose to become assimilated to
the dominant culture only in the effort to buy his own freedom. As he worked and
sold small trinkets for profit, he worked up enough money to do so. The act of
assimilation was embraced by Equiano as the footing needed to return home. The
narrative speaks of his later life as a sailor, who married, and lived in
Europe. So whether or not Equiano desired to return to his homeland as a learned
African, the dominant culture was able to win him over after have conditioned
him for so long in their culture and government. Another way assimilation looks
different amongst minorities is that they are more often than not pressured and
forced into assimilating to the dominant culture. This was also Equiano’s case
coming to America as a slave, not knowing English or any of the customs that had
been forced upon him to learn. Since he was seen as a commodity though, he was
not given the same rights to grow in knowledge of the culture by means of
literacy because few would want a “smart” slave. Unfortunately, the dominant
culture works in assimilation to develop their economy further by use of
minorities.
Resistance for the minority focuses its efforts on family connection to
bring about unity in the perverse outside New World. Through persecution and
violence towards minorities, there are few areas to resist the dominant culture
in, but one of them is the family unit. In the
American Horse, the Native American
boy is seen primarily attached to his mother. They are in hiding from the local
police and a social worker who want to take the child away from his mother. The
boy has a dream describing a metallic object heading toward him in a violent
manner which destroys everything in its path. This prophetic dream came as a
wakeup call to the reader to symbolize the dominant culture. The mother is
inferred as being unfit to raise her own son and her child must be taken away by
the white social worker. The shared sadness of mother and child represent a
picture of connection that is brought face to face with a disconnected dominant
culture. As the story portrays, the powerhouse of the dominant culture causes a
divisive wedge between family life and togetherness. Resistance seems futile for
the minority, but there is hope for those who have been without a voice.
How drastic it must feel for the immigrant or minority that wishes to either assimilate or resist the dominant culture. The American Dream is seen as the ideal circumstance that an immigrant can achieve, but for the minority the grass is always greener on the other side. However, over time minorities and immigrants have begun to acculturate the social landscape in which they live. There is give and take. American society can benefit from the shared cultural practices of other countries while also giving benefits to the immigrant or minority. Less retaliation would be an option for America’s future if society worked together in understanding each different country’s way of life.
