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2018 Midterm1
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LITR 4340
American Immigrant Literature Model Assignments |
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Tammy Tran
Conflicts and Solutions: A Comparison of Immigrant and Minority Narratives
Because of the current hot topics in immigration and the oppression of women and
people of color in U.S. politics, people tend to have a “we vs. them” mentality
and throw around the terms “immigrants” and “minorities.” Although the common
interpretation of the two terms tend to be that immigrants are a subgroup of
minorities, the American Immigrant Literature course defines these terms a bit
differently. American immigrants are people who come to the U.S. by choice to
seek new opportunities and/or freedom while “true minorities” are people who are
forced to come to America and experience prolonged exploitation. This paper will
cover the conflicts and solutions experienced by East Asian and Jewish
immigrants as well as true minorities like African and Native Americans as they
are portrayed in fiction and nonfiction literature.
Before understanding the conflicts experienced by immigrants and minorities, a
brief history is necessary. A significant wave of Chinese immigrants came to the
U.S. around the 1860s to 1870s, although they faced legal discrimination in 1882
due to the Chinese Exclusion Act and was not lifted until 1943. Many Vietnamese
immigrants came to America during and after the Vietnam War, especially in the
1970s to 1980s. One wave of Jewish immigrants came to the U.S. around 1880s to
1920s and another group of Jews fled from the Holocaust to America during the
1920s to 1960s, even though immigration was restricted. On the other hand, the
Native and African Americans came before the East Asian and Jewish immigrants.
Native American ancestors traveled from Asia to North America using the Bering
Land Bridge 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. They are considered true minorities
because they received involuntary, and usually violent, contacts from North
European settlers (who become the dominant culture) between the years 1600 to
1890 and continue to be exploited today. African Americans were brought to the
U.S. by slave ships starting around the 1610s and were expected to work for
someone else’s benefit rather than their own. Even though slavery was abolished
in 1865, legal segregation lasted for another century and unofficial segregation
still persist today.
A common conflict for immigrants is their frustration for why they cannot be
accepted in society initially. Education is a pathway to assimilation and the
narrator in “Soap and Water” finally received the opportunity to go to college,
but she came across a barrier. The narrator says, “I rushed for [college] with
the outstretched arms of youth’s aching hunger to give and take of life’s
deepest and highest, and I came against the solid wall of the well-fed,
well-dressed world—the frigid whitewashed wall of cleanliness” (Yezierska 17).
She shows willingness, gratitude, and passion, but the “clean world” refused to
accept her even in college. In Hayslip’s Child of War, Woman of Peace,
she also details her determination to change in order to be accepted by her
husband’s relatives and friends, but she realizes that “In a land of instant
gratification and miracle conveniences, apparently, there was no room for a
spontaneous show of love through the labor of one's heart and hands” (Hayslip
115). All of her efforts did not please them; they just found more differences
and faults to point out about her.
Although immigrants are pained by resistance from the dominant culture, they
eventually find ways to partially or completely assimilate and become accepted.
In “Soap and Water,” the narrator is welcomed by Miss Van Ness, a friend from
the “clean world” who finally accepts her. The narrator states, “Just as contact
with Miss Whiteside had tied and bound all my thinking processes, so Miss Van
Ness unbound and freed me and suffused me with light” (Yezierska 36). Through
her friendship with Miss Van Ness, the narrator can access the resources she
needs to assimilate into the dominant culture. Min makes a similar statement in
her memoir The Cooked Seed. She writes, “An hour hanging out with Kate
proved to be the most effective. I felt like I was walking out of the darkness
and into the light. I began to understand bits of people's conversations” (Min
208). Language is another pathway to assimilation and Min converses with her
English-speaking friend Kate to gain the English proficiency she needs to work
and succeed in America.
True minorities differ from immigrants because their conflict is feeling forced
to assimilate. In Erdrich’s “American Horse,” Albertine and Buddy are hiding
from the police because the latter wants the Native Americans to assimilate.
Vicki Koob says, “I want to find that boy and salvage him” (215). In other
words, she wants to ensure Buddy is assimilated into the dominant culture since
Albertine refuses to assimilate them both. To do so, they plan to take Buddy
away from his mother while his young mind is still impressionable. Miss Moore
from “The Lesson” also wants the children to get an education, which as stated
before is a pathway to assimilation. The children are left with Miss Moore and
are forced to endure her lessons, which the children do very grudgingly. Because
Miss Moore is the adult and their parents expect them to be with her, they have
to stay with Miss Moore. However, as Sylvia shows in her narrative, it does not
mean she has to agree with what Miss Moore says.
As hinted in the previous paragraph, the solutions true minorities use are
resisting assimilation and distancing themselves away from the dominant culture.
Albertine in “American Horse” resists the police by fighting head on with
Officer Harmony and is ready to die gloriously against the dominant culture. The
speaker in the poem “Blonde White Women” laments that the pinkish crayon could
not cover her black skin, but later realizes that “Even crayons fail me now— / I
can find no color darker, / more beautiful, than I am” (Smith 53-55). She
resists assimilation by embracing her own skin color and culture. In “The Man to
Send Rain Clouds,” Leon does not reveal Grandfather’s death to the priest
because he does not want the priest’s ways to impede on the ceremony and thus
distances himself and his family away from the dominant culture. Leon also
politely declines any Christian rituals the priest offers, another rejection to
assimilation.
Although the conflicts and solutions are different between immigrants and
minorities, they have similar experiences to certain degrees. For instance, both
groups experience exploitation. In “In the Land of the Free” Hom Hing interprets
James Clancy’s meaning to Lae Choo. He states, “to get our boy we have to have
much money” (Far 9). James Clancy is profiting off of this new immigrant
family’s loss of their son. He knows that the family would do anything to get
their son back, so James Clancy pretends to leave in order for them to give up
their valuables. Equiano in the Narrative of Olaudah Equiano, The African
is taken from his family and eventually brought to the slave ship in which the
traders take him to America. Slave owners will profit off of Equiano’s labor and
those of other slaves while treating them inhumanely. Both groups also
experience some degree of acculturation, or selective assimilation. Hayslip in
Child of War, Woman of Peace cuts her hair to appease her husband’s
relatives and friends, making her identity less Vietnamese even though she
maintains her family values--a common element of the “model minority.” In “The
Man to Send Rain Clouds” some of the Native Americans are seen with a “pair of
stiff new Levi’s” and a “green Army jacket” (Silko 206). Both of these instances
show that both immigrants and minorities acculturate their appearance but may or
may not change their cultural values to fit the dominant culture.
In summary, immigrants and minorities have different conflicts and solutions,
but do have some overlapping experiences. The immigrants’ main focus is to seize
freedom and opportunity in order to thrive, so they will find ways to resolve
their issues and enter the dominant culture. True minorities are forced and
expected to comply with the dominant culture, causing them to rigorously
maintain their own culture while distancing themselves from the dominant
culture. Both groups experience oppression and feel the need to acculturate in
some way in order to survive. Of course, labels are just general categories for
organizing people, so there are exceptions and grey areas. For instance,
refugees fall in the grey area of voluntary and involuntary travels because it
depends on whether refugees really had a choice to leave or their situations
forced them to leave. There are also some minorities who wish to assimilate,
like Robert in Mei Mei Evans’ “Gussuk” who wants to experience the dominant
culture through Lucy, a third-generation Chinese-American. Examining these two
groups of people reveal the complexity of experiences each immigrant and true
minority has, making it difficult to accept the assumption that all “minorities”
are the same.
