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2016 Midterm2
(assignment) |
LITR 4340
 American Immigrant Literature Model Assignments |
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Amber Boone
Color Code
In an attempt to highlight central themes throughout model assignments, I
have chosen to examine two previous Midterm2 essays: “America’s Neighbor: New
World Immigrants,” by Cassandra Rea, and “White and Black Nation: With Hues of
Brown,” by Cesar Cano. In addition, I will also examine Dorothy Noyes’ Research
Report Start entitled “What is ‘White’ and Why?” I chose these essays, because I
felt each did an exemplary job of defining key aspects pertaining to American
Immigrant literature, and each offers their readers an integral analysis of
immigrant, minority, and dominant culture themes that together, help us to
better understand those immigrating to, or being stratified by, America.
However, the first two essays not only examine the immigrant and minority
narrative, but they also compare and contrast these narratives to the New World
immigrant’s experience, and each one thereby explores themes central to the
latter group alone. Dorothy Noyes, however, examines elements of the dominant
culture through which each group assimilates, or resists assimilation, into.
Together, these three essays all explore a theme that is common to all of these
narratives: the superimposed, yet still sometimes invisible, color code. This
code of discrimination, coupled with the voluntary migration of the New World
immigrant, helps to form their own unique narrative within the realm of American
Immigrant literature.
In Dorothy Noyes’s essay, she examines the color code that is not only
proposed by the dominant culture, but the one which is also superimposed upon
and within the dominant culture. In her essay “What is ‘White’ and Why?,” she
discusses identity, and a source of pride that may be found within one’s
ancestral history and overall cultural heritage. In her essay, she describes how
she feels about being subjected into a culture she has not asked to be a part
of, simply based upon the color of her skin. She questions where the meaning of
her cultural heritage has gone when she is faced with “all the descriptive
choices given on the census forms,” and yet, the only box for her “simply reads
‘White’” (Noyes). This oversimplification and attempted stratification only
lends to her feeling as though she has lost her rights to have a cultural
identity. Although she is represented as being a part of the dominant culture,
this same sentiment can be found abundantly throughout New World immigrant and
minority literature. Immigrants at large, while not always faced with a color
code conundrum, may still feel unfairly grouped within society. ‘Color code’
truly represents an attempt at placing members of society each into a certain
‘box,’ which not only limits them, but which also attempts to define them,
thereby placing borders where there need not be any at all.
“America’s Neighbor: New World Immigrants,” by Cassandra Rea, focuses
primarily upon New World immigrants and their attempts towards, as well as their
resistance from, assimilation into the dominant culture. In her story, Rea
points out that for the New World immigrant, 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 [them] negative preconceived
notions” upon arriving within their new homeland (Rea). One of the methods of
exploitation, according to Rea, consists of an imposing color code pressed upon
them by the dominant culture, which causes them “the struggle of discrimination,
the negative experiences of America, and the need for them to stay connected
with their culture” (Rea). This struggle, Rea asserts, not only demonstrates how
the New World immigrant connects to the minority narrative, but which also helps
to explain the difficulty in assimilating to a culture which has already labeled
you as an outcast.
Cesar Cano, in “White and Black Nation: With Hues of Brown,” not only
speaks upon color code, but actually focuses upon it. In his essay, he boldly
states that “economically, individuals with lighter skin tone are better off
than those with a darker shade” (Cano).
However, his analysis of this sheds a different light upon color code in
contrast to the previous two essays. Cesar Cano, rather than focusing solely
upon discrimination faced by New World immigrants arriving into the United
States, also examines the impositions of color code placed within the
immigrant’s primary country. For example, he explains that “in Mexico,
indigenous groups, naturally darker than their Spanish descendent peers, are the
‘blacks’ of society, and have suffered generations of abuse and injustices at
the hands of their fair skinned compatriots” (Cano). His reference to this not
only demonstrates how unfair color code can be, but it also shows how it is not
native to the United States. Many nations favor those with lighter skin, and the
problem runs much deeper than what is present solely within America. However,
his analysis does help to explain the discrimination that runs amidst
socioeconomics of the United States against minorities, and it explains one
element of the struggles faced by many New World immigrants coming to the US.
This discrimination, therefore, is not only faced by immigrants in their
homeland, but is also shown when they attempt assimilation into the dominant
culture.
Color code is a very disheartening facet of a New World immigrant’s
attempt at assimilation into the dominant culture of the United States. However,
as demonstrated by Dorothy Noyes, Cassandra Rea, and Cesar Cano, the problem
runs even deeper than an unaccepting dominant culture. As Noyes shows, color
code is discriminatory even within the dominant culture itself, and as Rea
shows, it can be something so prominent; it disheartens those wishing to
assimilate into American culture. Cano, in his story, demonstrates that color
code can affect much more than simply the assimilation process, because for many
cultures, it is already prominent within their homeland. This is a kind of
discrimination that seems to be faced on all fronts, and hopefully, it can be
something which unites us all against it in the future, so that we may all work
towards abolishing it entirely.
