2018 Midterm2 (assignment)

Sample Student Midterm2 Answers

Part 1: Essays on Immigrants, Minorities, and New World Immigrants

LITR 4340    
American Immigrant Literature
 
Model Assignments

 

Gregory Bellomy

The Mirror from the Outside

One of the most redeeming qualities of literature is its capacity to challenge readers’ beliefs about the world and to enhance their perspective, which is otherwise tragically limited to first-person experience. While not all literature is preoccupied with challenging prevailing thought patterns or attitudes, narratives which center upon the outsider’s experience of dominant society routinely critique practices and norms which readers may have otherwise taken for granted. Within contemporary American literature, these views of American society from the outside can be divided into two groups: minority and immigrant literature.

          Although categorizing works of literature is somewhat limiting and unjust (particularly in how the process overly simplifies individual texts), there is some utility in this application towards contemporary American texts. Labeling a piece of literature based on its narrative perspective provides a lens for readers to examine how a narrative generally reflects on the dominant culture. In this sense, the distinction between the two narratives retains importance, though it admittedly lacks the ability to be applied universally (as will be illustrated later). Despite their Venn diagram-like tendency to overlap (as being from an outsider’s point of view), immigrant and minority narratives diverge with regards to how the dominant culture reflects on them; as such, minority narratives are often regarded as being unfortunate histories or realities, but immigrant narratives are more generally identified as being intrinsic to American identity. Whether this owes more to the commonality of history (most Americans descend from immigrants one way or another) and experience or how Americans generally prefer to view themselves is unclear, but there are certainly strong and legitimate arguments to be made for both cases.

          While both immigrants and minorities share a cultural status as being outsiders, another way that they can be distinguished through the freedom of choice; the person who immigrates makes a conscious and physical effort to interact with the dominant society, while minorities are not afforded the same degree of choice. From the historical perspective this ought to be considered self-evident; Native Americans were pushed off their land by European settlers until almost all of it was gone (see: Manifest Destiny), and the ancestors of most black Americans were imported into the United States as slaves. Additionally, both Native Americans and black Americans have had traditionally less access to and representation in the American government and economy (plainly visible through Jim Crow laws and the Department of the Interior). To this point, the Native American and African American narratives that we have read generally illustrate the lack of choice and power. In Leslie Marmon Silko’s “the Man to Send Rain Clouds,” the priest exemplifies the indifference of the dominant culture to the will and belief of the people; he wants to say the last rites for the old man, even if they are not wanted. In “Gussuk,” Robert seems to be depressed because of his lack of choices and mobility. In “the Lesson,” the children accompany Miss Moore to FAO Schwartz to look at a lot of toys that they have no hopes of being able to afford, generally feeling insecure and alienated through a process which was intended to teach something more positive.

          As mentioned, the distinction between minority and immigrant narratives is not always clean or possible to make. The literature of immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean tends to exemplify this overlap. This takes place because immigrants from these parts of the world share racial and perhaps some ethnic likeness with minority groups, but these perspectives also identify themselves as being immigrant in nature. One of the best examples of this was in “How to Date a Browngirl,” by Junot Diaz; where the narrator, a high-school aged male with amorous intent, juxtaposes his own identity against the expectations and generalizations that are placed upon it from the outside world. Another author who challenges the distinction between immigrant and minority narratives is Paule Marshall. In “Poets in the Kitchen,” the women whom she credits as being her inspiration were both minorities and immigrants; their shared experience found life in the forms of idiomatic, yet poetic expressions. While some might mistakenly disregard the words and wisdom of old ladies as being less than poetic, the truth is that this collective identification through speech serves one of the most ancient narrative and poetic functions, which is the establishment of group identity.

          Narratives by people who come from Central and South America can also defy strict labeling as being explicitly based in minority or immigrant experience; some of them exhibit traits which are inherent to each type. In the Distance between Us, Reyna Grande talks about the poverty which she hoped to escape, the father whom she hoped to accompany to the United States, as well as the conflicting local and federal government attitudes regarding their treatment and legal status. Nash Candelaria’s “El Patron” also mixes elements of these two literary perspectives. It exhibits the divergence between the older generation’s values regarding military service and the younger generation’s need to make a positive impact in the world. In this case, Tito represents a level of acculturation which approaches that of model immigrants in that he attends college, but on the other hand, his aversion to signing up for Selective Service (on principles clearly associated with his education and acculturation) mirrors the idea of resistance. Even though Tito’s resistance is not specifically based on his sense of identity in the story, one must also question how his identity (as an Hispanic) might enhance the danger of his decision to abstain from service. While this does not necessarily place Tito in our prevailing concept of what is a minority, anti-war activists have long been a political minority in American history (the years of peace get harder to find). Here, though, we have at least established the idea that resistance is not necessarily limited to minority status based upon race, gender, ethnicity, or religion.

          Returning to the concept of identity establishment as a narrative function, the genre of American Immigrant Literature contains astounding breadth. The experiences contained within this group vary in terms of original culture (which informs the habits and norms of the narrator) and the degree of acculturation that has already taken place (often dictated in terms of generations). The confluence of these two factors creates a broad spectrum of possibilities that can only be compounded when individual attitudes, propensities, and proclivities are added into the equation.

Despite this variety of perspectives, there exists in American Immigrant Literature a unifying principle, an “American Dream,” which compels people to pursue a better life in the United States. The differences in individual perspectives, though, lead to a wide range of interpretations of what the “American Dream” means. In the excerpt from “Woman of Peace, Child of War,” Le Ly Hayslip only wanted a peaceful life, away from the carnage and horrors of war. Lali, of Nicholasa Mohr’s “the English Lesson,” sees the American Dream as an opportunity to experience life in a less restrictive gender role. For the Ihedigbo family, the American Dream primarily meant having a space to support and nurture the family. For Thien, of J. Christine Moon Ko’s “What Color Would You Like, Ma’am?” the American Dream was a summer of video games and basketball with his friends. For Thien’s family, as well as the Chang family of “In the American Society,” the American Dream was to send the youngest generation to school and to fund it with the family business. This concept of social advancement through education meshes well with the ethos and needs of the existing dominant culture, which typifies some aspects of the idea of “model immigrants”.

          Model immigrants are best understood as those whose people whose cultural values most closely align with the prevailing or dominant culture. As our America’s society and economy have changed, so has the concept of what constitutes a model immigrant. Until recently, one of the primary modern immigrant traits was the entrepreneurial spirit, which is probably the oldest and most constant American value. As new economic realities have emerged, the model immigrant status has shifted from an emphasis on commerce towards the belief in education as a means for betterment, which also matches with our cultural attitude regarding its importance. In the modern economy, this attitude seems to be a formula for success, since most high-paying jobs require a degree or some other (usually higher) certification. While the model immigrant status seems to ensure a higher probability of success in attaining the American Dream, the narratives of these experiences generally feature some degree of embarrassment associated with incomplete assimilation. In “the Cooked Seed,” Anchee Min has the pains of learning about dormitory life whilst learning to speak English. The Chang family had to deal with an overbearing and drunken host, along with labor law issues at their pancake house. The Ihedigbo family were embarrassed by their grandmother’s urinating in the parking lot and had to buy deodorant for their “Nigerian smell.” The fear of inadequate acculturation belies an attitude which is almost completely opposite to minority narratives, particularly in how authors see themselves in relation to the dominant culture.

          The feature that distinguishes the minority narratives from the immigrant ones is the concept of resistance, rather than acculturation. In most of the texts that we have read this semester, the immigrant narratives show people trying to find ways to assimilate into the dominant culture, while the minority narratives often show a revulsion to this force. In “American Horse,” for example, the Albertine fails to keep the Child Protective Services officer from taking Buddy, but she was trying to keep him away from the state. The refusal to let the priest administer the last rites in “the Man to Send Rain Clouds” also represents a revulsion from the dominant culture. Another aspect of resistance is in the subversion and reassignment of meaning, as Silko’s characters do with the priest’s Holy Water, which maintains respect for the Native Americans’ attitudes and worldview. These differences return to the fundamentally divergent attitudes of what the dominant culture (for immigrants, the “American Dream”) means for the beholder.

          In keeping with the concept of authors’ perspectives, the process of reading immigrant literature enhances and refreshes our conceptions of dominant cultural norms. One of the richest examples of cultural critique is in Child of War, Woman of Peace. Le Ly Hayslip’s recollection of her first trip to the grocery store illustrates the initial impressions of a cultural outsider. She expresses genuine shock at the way women dress when they go into public. Le Ly also describes the experience as being abundant with indistinguishable choices (because everything is in a package) while it is absolutely devoid of smell. Perhaps the strangest part of the experience for her was the concept of shopping for an entire week’s worth of groceries, instead of merely buying what is to be eaten over the ensuing hours. These sorts of experiences encourage readers to imagine and even accept that the lifestyle we accept as commonplace is shocking to many who see it for the first time.

          As an aspiring high school teacher, I appreciate literature’s power of expanding the reach of our perceptions and experiences. In the humanitarian sense, the practice of reading the way that other people see the world has to be one of the best ways of enlivening and evolving a person’s sociological imagination. Besides encouraging people to imagine the thoughts and feelings of a person who has an outsider’s perspective in our society, the process of reading immigrant and minority narratives also inspires identification and understanding between members of different backgrounds. In this age of social and political polarity, it seems important that we find ways of reestablishing commonality among American people, and literature can play a key role in that process.

Reflecting upon the experiences of immigrants and minorities provides a useful lens for examining the norms, rules, and assumptions that dominate American culture. For people who have never lived or traveled beyond our national borders, immigrant and minority literature provide an outsider’s view of a world that is often taken for granted as being a universal norm. While the information age has recently provided a greater amount of breadth and perspective regarding what is normal (in terms of human experience and behavior), the both immigrant and minority literature have existed longer and been more specifically dedicated towards this purpose.