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Sample Student final exam answers 2019 |
LITR 4340
 American Immigrant Literature Model Assignments |
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Ronni Abshier
Where All Worlds Meet: How
Immigrant and Minority Experiences Compare
Throughout this course, its students have been subjected
to literature from all different types of immigrants, minorities, and
immigrant-minority hybrids as well as works from members of the dominant culture
against which those minorities and immigrants to America are measured. For many
students, when it came to each subgroups response to assimilation, there were
similarities that jumped out across the narratives of these vastly different
people. Students like Carrie Block, Jojo Hunter, and Amber Boone, each have a
different take on the similarities in the responses to assimilation that
minorities, immigrants, and the dominant culture each have.
For Carrie Block, the major differences between the
different types of people living in the United States are seen between the
dominant culture and minority populations due to their views on assimilation.
While the dominant culture, of course, expects anyone living in the USA to
assimilate, at least to some degree, the minority cultures that exist within the
same space are resistant to change and in some cases outright reject it.
According to Carrie, “They resist or push away from the Dominant Culture” and
“are very distrusting of the government and dominant culture.” This behavior,
Block argues, is due to the ways in which minorities found themselves in the
United States to begin with. While some were already living on the lands when
they were annexed into the United States, like Mexican-Americans, others were
captured and brought overseas against their will, like African-Americans and
their descendents. Due to their unwillingness to be a part of the United States
to begin with, their views on assimilation are vastly different from the
dominant culture’s.
Jojo Hunter also details the different types of
minorities and immigrants and their views on assimilation in her 2018 essay. For
her, the immigrant narrative of Le Ly Hayslip in Child of War, Woman of Peace
also shows some similarities between the way that immigrants and minorities
view assimilation. Here, Jojo explains that while the immigrant narrative is
often associated with successful assimilation and the desire to blend in, Le Ly
Hayslip brings some dissonance by feeling rejected by the dominant culture even
though she learns the language and tries to subscribe to their ideologies and
traditions as well as intermarrying with a member of the dominant culture.
Because she is unable to be accepted even after so many attempts at learning the
ways of the dominant culture, Jojo draws similarities between her story and
those of the minority groups in the USA.
Funnily enough, Amber Boone has an interesting take on
assimilation when it comes to how the dominant culture is represented. While the
dominant culture seems to always encourage assimilation onto their immigrant and
minority counterparts, Boone points out in her 2016 essay “The Ones Who Would
Not Assimilate” that the dominant culture actually possesses none of the views
for themselve in regards to assimilation that they expect of others.
Historically, the dominant culture in America, or those descended from the
Anglo-Saxons, have not been known to assimilate at all. In fact, according to
Boone, “Their plain style, religious views, and resistance to assimilation were
ideals they maintained and strongly held onto.” One can plainly see that even
the dominant culture once refused to assimilate, and instead pushed back against
the cultures and customs of the people already inhabiting the lands they
migrated to.
All three model assignments that I reviewed for this
essay had interesting information about the ways different types of immigrants
and minorities handled assimilation, and specifically how they resisted it. The
only difference between the resistance seen by minorities and immigrants to
assimilation and the resistance seen by the dominant culture that currently
exists in the USA, as highlighted in these essays, is that the Puritans and
Pilgrims won with their struggle to remain true to their own culture, customs,
and ideals. Unfortunately for the minority and immigrant groups mentioned in the
model assignments, these less prominent cultures have not been able to
accomplish the same feat.
