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Sample Student final exam answers 2018 |
LITR 4340
 American Immigrant Literature Model Assignments |
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Greg Bellomy
Immigrant Stew
Reading the writings of people who went
before us is an excellent opportunity for students of literature. Beyond making
students aware of the various ways in which ideas can be organized and explored,
the use of model assignments also challenges students to raise the level of
their writing output. Such has been my experience in reading the model
assignments in our class on American Immigrant Literature.
I
was quite impressed by Chandler Barton’s final essay “Rule, Britannia! The Rise
of the Anglo-Saxons and their Cultural Hegemony of the West and the United
States,” investigates the Anglo-centric origins of American immigration.
Although this is generally blended today into a singular experience labeled as
“WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) culture,” Chandler divides this into two
primary groups: the religious descendants of the Puritan culture and Scots-Irish
influence. For the most part, Chandler’s work in identifying these groups
mirrors the understanding that I have developed as a part of this course. Still,
his inclusion of Cavalier immigrants and their influences on American society
surprised me. I had to agree with his conclusion that our popular culture is
starting to reflect a greater amount of inclusion; it makes me wonder to what
degree popular culture embodies the values of dominant culture, though.
Katie Morin’s final essay, “The Birth
of America’s Dominant Culture” provides some original lenses for understanding
the implications of immigrant narratives. One of the more interesting
suggestions that she makes indicates that cultural assimilation equates to a
sort of display of respect and gratitude for the prevailing culture. In this
sense, acculturation represents a sort of sublimation of values and norms into
the worldview of the immigrant. This matches with Katie’s observation that the
degree of acculturation often weighs on the roles and opportunities that are
offered for people who immigrate to the United States. Within this observation,
readers can detect an implicit assumption about the interactions between
dominant and minority cultures; resistance to dominant culture is tantamount to
ingratitude. This is not to say that minorities suffer
because they are ungrateful; rather,
injustices suffered by minority groups inspire a revulsion of the dominant
culture. Returning to Katie’s observation about how the degree acculturation can
relate to social status, it is possible to imagine how such a social disconnect
leads to continued inequality, particularly in terms of economic representation.
It also presents the possibility of solutions being developed to enhance
intercultural communication and understanding.
Because the process of reviewing model
assignments has inspired some personal favorites, I had to read another essay by
Katie. Her research essay, “The Galveston Movement: An Analysis of Jewish
Immigration to Texas” was exceptionally interesting and well-written.
Previously, I had no idea that there was a significant Jewish migration to Texas
during the first decades of the Twentieth Century. As it turns out, most of
these people who came through Galveston ended up settling in other parts of the
country (provided they were not deported). I thought it was funny that Katie did
not originally conceive of Galveston as an inlet for immigrants; the first of my
paternal grandmother’s family in the United States came to Galveston in 1849 (as
did many of the Fredericksburg Germans). Just last summer, I learned the role
that Houston played in accepting Holocaust survivors and helping them to
reestablish themselves in the wake of World War II. Katie’s essay reminded me
that I have so much to learn about local history and minority experiences as a
major part of that.
Reading Chandler and Katie’s essays was
edifying, this time because they seemed to raise more questions than answers. To
me, this seems to be one of the hallmarks of productive academic writing. The
academic process challenges writers to account for what they know and to
validate what they think, which, although it culminates in writing, is primarily
a thinking experience. In this sense, the model assignments allow students to
get inside the thoughts of others, highlighting the process of developing ideas
and accounting for the limits of knowledge. The diversity of individual
viewpoints and ways of thinking promises a learning experience, and for those
who are interested, possibilities for future research and writing.
