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2018 Midterm2
(assignment) |
LITR 4340
 American Immigrant Literature Model Assignments |
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Clark
Omo
2
April 2018
Distinctions and Blurred Lines: A Synthesis of Adversity and Superman
The
experiences of New World Immigrants are as internally conflicting as they are
epitomic of the struggle to enter and assimilate to American culture. Immigrants
often carry scarred strain of memory, as Amber Boone’s essay, “New World
Immigrants: Blurring the Lines” mentions, that creates an undercurrent of
dissonance as they try to assimilate to the United States. For instance, in “How
to Date a Browngirl…” Boone picks out the line where the narrator mentions a
mother recalling the smell from when the US invaded her island home. But still,
the New World Immigrant strives to partake in America’s promises. As Trey
Kibodeaux relates in his essay, “Dividing the Dominant Culture”, individualism,
as opposed to the despotisms they left behind, possesses an immense allure,
especially for the Afro-Caribbean immigrant. This striving to become better and
to rule one’s own fate culminates in Austin Greene’s research essay, “Superman
himself is literally an immigrant”, where even the great American icon that is
Superman comes to symbolize the Immigrant’s desire to become better and take
possession of his or her own destiny. Each of the chosen essays expound the New
World Immigrants’ struggles and desires to assimilate to America, as well as
explores what exactly the Immigrants find so worthwhile in enduring their
struggles, accepting (or resisting) the loss of their native traditions, and
leaving their homes in order to enter the USA.
For
Amber Boone, the similarities as well as differences between the experiences of
New World Immigrants and those of Old World Immigrants and American Minorities
represents the sacrifices they have made, and yet also distinguishes them as
their own separate category of American Immigrants. Boone approaches this topic
by first explicating the definition of a Minority’s struggles within the US. She
says of Minorities that “these groups include minorities such as African and
Native Americans who were either forced to come to America, or who were forced
to relocate within America. These groups did not choose the ‘American Dream,’
and their experiences, therefore, may oftentimes model the ‘American
Nightmare.’” And so, the link between the Minorities and New World immigrants is
established, for, as the Minorities faced severe adversity in their forced
assimilation, so do the New World Immigrants also face regret and resistance as
they assimilate. Boone cites the regrets of Hector in “Visitors”, who is “’sick
at heart of being so Americanized.’” Language also becomes a major factor in
determining this link between Minorities and New World Immigrants, for “their
close proximity to their homeland forges more of a minority identity for them in
regards to familial relations and through language.” Hector again is chosen as
an example, as he struggles to maintain his language, but is ashamed he has lost
so much of it.
Boone
also identifies the issue of language and the identities it generates as a
defining factor in the writings of Paule Marshall in her story “The Making of a
Writer: From the Poets in the Kitchen.” Marshall utilizes this motif of language
as well, as Boone cites that these immigrant women “’had taken the standard
English taught to them in the primary schools of Barbados and transformed it
into an idiom… imposing their own rhythm and accent so that the sentences were
more pleasing to their ears.’” The women mentioned in this passage, rather than
fully accepting the dominant culture’s language and allowing to override their
own, rather, bent it to their own will and infused it with their own accents to
effect of poetry. And so, the New World Immigrant mirrors the American Minority
in the fact that, like the Minority members, they too feel an immense conflict
between maintaining and preserving the traditions of their homeland, as opposed
to letting themselves become fully consumed by the demands of the dominant
culture, and yet instead of letting the dominant culture impose its strictures
upon them, imposed their own rules
upon the dominant culture’s traditions.
And
yet, while this loss of tradition is still a very real and imminent threat to
the Immigrant, the power granted by America’s individualism, as such displayed
by the women in Paule Marshall’s tale, potently attracts the New World
Immigrants, as Trey Kibodeaux expresses in his essay, “Dividing the Dominant
Culture.” The promise of individualism to the Immigrant can become a sort of
double-edged sword, says Kibodeaux, for, while the idea allows for great control
of one’s social mobility as well as future, often the concept often comes into
conflict with more traditional Immigrant values. Kibodeaux cites the store “Like
Mexicans”, where the author, Juan Soto, “writes that his grandmother was once
lecturing him about the “virtues of the Mexican girl,” she claimed that ‘first,
she could cook, second, she acted like a woman, not a man, in her husband’s
home’” The grandmother here is stressing traditional familial roles, where women
know their function and stay within the bounds of that function, rather than
breaking those barriers and acting like a man. Such seems to be the underlying
promise of individualism, according to Kibodeaux. The breaking down of
traditional gender roles is a hallmark of the capacity to take one’s social
standing into one’s own hands and therefore command it, rather than let it be
impressed upon them by tradition. Kibodeaux summarizes the situation as such:
“So the grandmother calls for her son to reject individualism as far as a
romantic partner is concerned, in favor of a woman who submits to the man of the
house and serves him sufficiently.” The elders of this immigrant family wish to
preserve the traditions of their people, rather than let the idea of American
individualism poison the integrity of their ‘ideal’ family. The boy in this
story is not allowed to find love with any women other than that of a Mexican
girl, for, as Kibodeaux states “whites operate under the auspices of
individualism rather than traditionalism”. Individualism is as much a threat as
it is a blessing to the immigrant for, while it promises control, it can also
create chaos.
But
the chaos is not all that there is. Some immigrants, such as those on the story
by Edwidge Danticat, “Children of the Sea”, an Afro-Caribbean man is “cast out
of Haiti for his political beliefs, critiquing government policy”. As Kibodeaux
mentions, the despotic government that had taken control of Haiti had cast out
those that did not agree with its policies or the way of life it tried to
impose. As Kibodeaux mentions, the Haitians are being denied essential human
rights, and therefore, wish to journey to America to experience freedom and
escape political persecution” The Haitians seek a place where they cannot be
persecuted. They want a home where their thoughts and opinions will not be met
by a military crackdown. Kibodeaux goes on to say that the “characters in the
story feel that they do not have enough individual agency, so they seek to find
a place where individual agency is accepted.” More than freedom to think, they
want freedom to take control of their own lives. Their homeland has lost this
with the new government, for with the regulation imposed by the government upon
thought and action, they cannot truly ‘live’ their own lives. They must live the
lives that the government approves of. America comes to represent that, as
Kibodeaux says, “the journey to America serves as that freedom, and quality of
life, in order to determine how they would like to live their lives”. Control
and freedom are what the Haitians want, and America promises both, for its value
of individualism encompasses the capacity to seek one’s own destiny, rather than
have that destiny limited by the demands of a dictatorial society.
Individualism, as Kibodeaux asserts, is the most alluring promise for these
Haitian immigrants, for it means order instead of chaos.
But
from this Heraclitean dichotomy stems a desire for freedom as well as control
over one’s future, such as that of Superman. In Austin Green’s research project,
“Superman himself is literally an
immigrant,” he traces the immigrant origins of Superman’s conception and
eventual evolution into an American Icon through the background of one his
writers, Gene Luen Yang. Yang found that one of the main attractions for writing
the Superman stories was the titular character’s struggles with maintaining to
separate social identities. Green quotes Yang as saying: ““As an immigrant’s
kid, I spoke Chinese at home and English at school. I had two different names. I
felt like I was living under two different cultural expectations. Super heroes
are the same way. They have two different names. They have to operate under two
different sets of rules. I’d say that’s the piece of Superman that I like the
best. That’s what resonates with me the most….” Like what Boone and Kibodeaux
identified in their essays, there exists a conflict for immigrants when they
come to America, and that conflict involves balancing one’s own original
traditions with the new.
Superman, in a way, represents that exact same conflict. As Superman must
balance between adhering to the rules of one identity, he must also adhere to
the rules of another. And as he shifts between the two, he must adapt his style
of dress, body language, attitude, behavior, etc. As a result, Superman must
adapt, just as Boone mentioned the women do in Paule Marshall’s story regarding
the imposition of their own native tongue upon American English. And as Superman
learns to do this under his own “’two separate sets of rules’” as Yang says, so
must Superman. And with this acculturation comes the gaining of power. Superman
has powers that set him above the average man, so much so that he has become the
zenith of individuality. He controls his own fate, and no one else. In a way,
the American comic book hero represents what the Immigrants in Kibodeaux most
wish to attain: control over their own lives. They want freedom to live how they
want to live, rather than have it
dictated to them by traditions or by despotic governments.
The
road for New World Immigrants to America is not a smooth one. As all three of
the essays either explicate or implicate, these Immigrants face not only
resistance from the dominant culture in terms of acceptance, but also resistance
from within themselves. As Amber Boone’s article highlights, New World
Immigrants face a tremendous amount of regret, and to an extent, self-loathing,
as they leave their old ways behind so that the new may be instilled, such as in
the case of Hector and others. This experience begins to closely mirror that of
American minorities, whose own experiences entail resistance and isolation on
both the external and internal levels. And in the midst of this conflict arises
the factor of individualism, Trey Kibodeaux’s essay examines the role and allure
of individualism to the New World Immigrant, and how, in his words, it promises
agency to the coming Immigrant. Essentially, individualism allows for greater
control over one’s life as well as future, an inner power that promises freedom
of both though and deed. Much like how Superman, with all his amazing powers,
still has to face the challenges of maintaining two separate identities, as
Austin Green examines in his research report. The immigrants ultimate struggle
is not just for freedom, but ultimately a place where they can breathe free from
traditions and dictatorships, and follow their own paths, rather than have it
carved in stone by a hand that is not theirs.
