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2018 Midterm1
(assignment) |
LITR 4340
American Immigrant Literature Model Assignments |
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Anne Ngo
An Understanding of Assimilation in Immigrant Narratives
In immigrant narratives, there
are levels to which people assimilate, meaning one may assimilate or reject to a
degree. By reading the essays from past students, I learned that the experiences
of immigrants differ from one another, that there are degrees to which
immigrants assimilate or resist from the dominant American culture. Thus,
through an examination of three essays, one can have a deeper understanding of
assimilation, resistance, and acculturation in immigrant narratives, and that
each immigrant, or group, has a different story.
Austin Green’s “Culture Clash” not only explores the commonalities and
differences between immigrant and minority narratives, it also details on the
immigrant experience, explaining that assimilation is a way “to be a part of
America.” His essay also offers insight on assimilation and how the dominant
culture perceives some groups as the model minority. Thus, by reading Green’s
essay, “Culture Clash” provides an overview of assimilation and the effects it
has on immigrants, allowing readers to have a deeper understanding of how
immigrants cope with living in the dominant American society.
As Green’s essay offers readers an understanding of assimilation in
immigrant narratives, Madison Coates’s essay, “From the Land of the Rising Sun
to the Land of the Free: Japanese Immigration to America,” examines resistance,
assimilation, and acculturation through a look on Japanese immigration to the
United States. In reading Coates’s essay, I learned that one’s resistance,
acculturation, or assimilation to the dominant culture can change. As Coates
notes, when the Japanese arrived in Hawaii, they kept their culture with them,
living coincide with that of the American culture. However, through the
challenges they faced from the European commercial companies, they began to
resist. Thus, this movement between acculturation to resistance shows that the
stages of immigrant narratives is not linear or follow the same path; there can
be variations to the stages (Objective 2c: Course Home Page). Thus, when
studying immigrant narratives, it is important to consider that an individual or
a group can resist, acculturate, or assimilate fluidly, without being stuck to
one. With this understanding, immigrant narratives does not just end with
resistance, acculturation, or assimilation; they keep going.
Through an understanding of resistance, acculturation, and assimilation
in regards to immigrant narratives in Green and Coates’s essays, Jessica Tran’s
“Rebuilding a New Life” focuses on Vietnamese immigration to the United States
and the acculturation of Vietnamese-Americans. I selected Tran’s essay because
as a Vietnamese-American, some of the experiences that she pointed out in her
research were familiar to me. In Tran’s research, she not only explains the
history of Vietnamese immigration, but also notes the acculturation of many
second-generation Vietnamese-Americans to the dominant American culture. As
mentioned, the children of Vietnamese immigrants often develop their own coping
strategies in order to acculturate to the American culture. This experience is
something I can relate, trying to be a part of two cultures. In reading her
essay, Tran provides insight to the second-generation Vietnamese-American
experience and how immigrants and their children may acculturate to the dominant
culture as a means to cope with living in the dominant American society.
By reading these three essays, I have a deeper understanding of
assimilation in immigrant narratives. I learned that there are variations within
an individual or an immigrant group’s assimilation to the dominant American
culture. I also learned that an individual or a group can move from assimilation
to acculturation or resistance, and vice versa. Knowing that, as a
second-generation American, I have a greater understanding of the modes in which
American immigrants cope with living in a different country and how the
second-generation Americans navigate through two (or more) cultural identities.
