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Sample Student final exam answers 2019 (2019 final exam assignment) Part 3: Model Research Reports |
LITR 4340
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Kaytlynn Smith
14 May 2019
Cultural Preservation Accomplished
Through Maternal Legacies
Much of the basis of literature lies in
its ability to speak to common experiences and trials that unite readers across
cultural and proximal boundaries, sometimes closing the gaps between seemingly
foreign conditions and finding the commonalities that mark these experiences as
part of the collective human condition. American literature has grown to include
an increasingly diverse arsenal of cultural texts, encompassing aspects of
immigrant, minority, and new world immigrant narratives. Despite their
differences, immigrants, minorities, and New World immigrant narratives
frequently unite under instances of historical and cultural preservation, in
many cases carried on by the teachings of maternal figures in an individual’s
life.
As a daughter and mother who fights to learn all there is
to know about my own family history, texts like Amy Tan’s
The Bonesetter’s Daughter, Joy Luck Club,
and Simone Schwarz-Bart’s The Bridge
of Beyond, serve as important reminders of how family and cultural history
shape our individual identities, much of which we learn from the oral tradition
of our mothers and grandmothers. The cultural significance behind these attempts
to preserve the little pieces of different cultures that make up my existence
today is what drives my interest in this topic to explore the similarities
between these traditions across different cultures and how the maternal figure,
and even maternal imagery, play a huge part in cultural preservation.
Maternal guidance varies culturally,
giving insights towards how immigrant families maintain their cultural identity
with the American “melting pot.” In a study conducted by Cecilia Cheung and
Catherine McBride-Chang, results show that Chinese mothers may appear “warm and
controlling” simultaneously, as shown through trends rating many mothers with
high “stern” ratings as having high supportive ratings as well. The study also
reveals cultural markers that set these children apart from their American
counterparts as early as kindergarten as indicated by the children’s awareness
of intrinsic (pleasing parents) and extrinsic (social respect and economic
success) (16). This marked difference in cultural awareness is suggestive of the
need for generational progression in terms of economic success that
characterizes so many immigrant narratives.
Similarly, Tan brings to light recurring
images of the self-less but stern Chinese mom who wants more than anything to
pass valuable generational knowledge down to her daughter, but struggles to do
so across American culture. Jing-mei Woo must fill her deceased mother’s absence
in the club that she started up back in China called the Joy Luck Club, where
four women play Chinese Mah Jong and invest in stocks to build up club money.
Jing-mei struggles with her multi-cultural upbringing, realizing that she
forsook the generational Chinese wisdom that her mother imparted before she
left, noting that she does not know her mother as well as she should. She
expresses this to her aunties, the other women in the club, noting that they
look like they see “daughters who will bear grandchildren without any connecting
hope to pass from generation to generation (41). In doing so, Jing-mei begins to
see some aspects that complicate motherhood within the immigrant narrative,
specifically noticing the worry of passing on their generational wisdom and
ideals across newer generations against the pre-existing dominant American
culture.
In another one of her novels, Amy Tan,
in The Bonesetter’s Daughter, the
main character, Ruth discovers her family history and the deeper meanings behind
some of the traditions upheld by her mother, reshaping her perspective on her
own identity, increasing her sense of purpose in the world and in her profession
as a writer. This narrative tackles themes and experiences that characterize
immigrant narratives and help provide a deeper context with which Chinese
immigrants uphold familial values and cultural tradition to preserve their
cultural history, while also assimilating to American society in some respect to
achieve economic success.
Tan’s novels exemplify what Kholer et.
al. term the “tiger mom phenomenon,” where Chinese parents, particularly the
mother, utilize extreme parenting techniques to ensure the success of their
offspring. The article cites Amy Chua, who defends her “extreme parenting” and
“torture” all out of Chinese tradition (69). In
Joy Luck Club, Waverly Jong
recollects asking her mother what “Chinese torture” is, to which her mother
responds that Chinese people do the “best torture,” to ensure their
socio-economic success in American society. The maternal characters in Tan’s
novels showcase aspects of the tiger mom phenomenon
where mothers may initially seem harsh and irrational, only to later
realize the good intention behind their mothers’ cultural teachings.
Not only can readers find such strong
themes of maternal wisdom in Chinese-Immigrant narratives, but they can also
find such traditions in other immigrant cultures, especially afro-Caribbean
cultures. Exemplified in Tan’s novels, the maternal wisdom often comes in the
form of proverbial phrases that may not initially make sense to their offspring,
afro-Caribbean inspired literature uses the same proverbial language to impart
important life lessons to pass down to subsequent generations. Similar to
Chinese-immigrant narratives, these generational teachings often come from
maternal figures in afro-Caribbean culture, taking on a deeper meaning, and
mastering a unique control of the English language in a way that elevates the
words beyond their literal meaning.
Picking out some of the main themes and
motifs that unite these narratives, both immigrant and New World immigrant,
readers can trace similarities that point towards the importance of maternal
figures and the traditions that they pass down generations of immigrants in a
lasting attempt to preserve their cultural beliefs and family history as a part
of their identity. Translating these themes in immigrant and New World immigrant
narratives into key words, I found several sources that explore aspects of
maternal influence in different cultures and how these influences help preserve
lasting traditions that could very well become lost in history. Naeimeh
Tabatabaei Lotfi, in her article, “A Unique Approach of Memory Narrative Therapy
in Diasporic Contexts,” examines the effects of narrative forms of writing to
relay trauma and stress in a diasporic context that follows the immigrant
narratives of Amy Tan. Lotfi suggests that migration literature uses innovative
narrative techniques that aim to share memories to “unite the immigrant
families, as well as helping parents to transmit their national identity to
their children” (1913).
Similarly, Simone Schwarz Bart’s novel,
The Bridge of Beyond, grapples with
self-discovery by way of maternal guidance, exemplifying the cultural
significance to spoken word and oral history in ethnic cultures. While this text
does not necessarily exemplify the immigrant narrative, it focuses on
Afro-Caribbean culture, which helps contextualize the cultural messages embedded
in texts we have read this semester like Paule Marshall’s “The Making of a
Writer: From the Poets in the Kitchen” whose maternal figures assimilate to
American culture to provide for their children, but hold on to certain aspects
of the Barbadian upbringing, such as the use of speaking in proverbs to convey
culturally significant morals. Schwarz-Bart’s novel helps contextualize some of
the minority themes that permeate New-World immigrant narratives, often
developed from negative relations with colonial forces, like the U.S.
Like Schwarz-Bart’s, Martin Espada’s
poem, Coca-Cola and Coco Frio, the author relates maternal imagery of the
coconut trees in Puerto Rico to convey a sense of longing for a deeper
connection to his cultural origins. Initially appearing hesitant towards the
“island of family folklore,” Espada establishes a shift in the narrative by
juxtapositioning a popular American beverage, Coca-Cola and a traditional Puerto
Rican beverage, Coco Frio, to demonstrate the differences between the two
cultures, one noticeably artificial against the natural milk that comes from
Puerto Rican coconut trees. Additionally, Espada uses maternal imagery,
describing how the coconuts “sagged” in the trees, “heavy with milk, swollen and
unsuckled”. This imagery not only implicates a sense of longing for cultural
origins, but it also identifies Puerto Rico as the motherland from which he and
his family descend. This clash between symbols, American and Puerto Rico, typify
the types of themes that characterize many New World immigrant narratives.
From this research, I’ve learned just
how deep these maternal images permeate immigrant narratives and cultures, and
how these images influence the development of culturally diverse identities. Not
only do these maternal teachings seem to stamp these cultures as foreign or
ethnic, but the idea of a matriarch itself can represent a foreign ideal in
American society, most often associated with patriarchal ideals. For future
research, I would like to consider looking at the patriarchal importance that
characterizes so much of American values and contrast this idea with the
research found that suggests maternal influence as the glue that holds ethnic
groups and their cultures together despite assimilation into American society.
Works Cited
Cheung, Cecilia S., and Catherine McBride-Chang.
“Relations of Perceived Maternal Parenting
Style, Practices, and Learning
Motivation to Academic Competence in Chinese Children.”
Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, vol. 54,
no. 1, 2008, pp. 1–22. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/23096077.
Espada, Martin.
Coca-Cola and Coco Frio. 1993. Print.
Lotfi, Naeimeh Tabatabaei1. “A Unique Approach of Memory
Narrative Therapy in Diasporic
Contexts: An Analysis of The Bonesetter’s Daughter and
The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan.”
Theory & Practice in Language Studies, vol. 4, no. 9, Sept. 2014, pp.
1912–1917. EBSCOhost, doi:10.4304/tpls.4.9.1912-1917.
Kohler, Maxie, Jennifer Kilgo, and Lois M. Christensen.
"The Tiger Mom
Phenomenon. “Childhood Education, vol. 88, no. 1,
2012, pp. 69.
Schwarz-Bart, Simone, and Barbara Bray. The Bridge of
Beyond. New York Review Books,
2013.
Tan, Amy. Joy Luck
Club. Penguin USA, 2016.
Tan, Amy. The Bonesetters Daughter. Ballantine
Books, 2008.
