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2018 Midterm2
(assignment) Sample Student Midterm2 Answers Part 1: Essays on Immigrants, Minorities, and New World Immigrants |
LITR 4340
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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.
