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2019 Midterm2
(assignment) Sample Midterm2 Answers Part 1: Essays on Immigrants, Minorities, and New World Immigrants |
LITR 4340
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Kaytlynn Smith
9 April
2019
Comparing, Contrasting, and Examining the Overlap in
The New World Immigrant Narrative
Immigrant and Minority narratives attest to the cultural diversity found
within the U.S., revealing much about the historical inequalities that permeate
American society even today. Although similar in terms of certain themes,
Immigrant and Minority narratives diverge in several ways, most noticeably at
the point involving choice. Despite these key differences, Immigrant and
Minority narratives remain similar in terms of alienation, risks of
discrimination, hardships, and differing attitudes towards assimilation into
American society. Moreover, New World Immigrant narratives express themes found
within the cultural overlap that occurs within immigrant and minority
narratives.
While the narratives portray some overlap in terms of defining “choice”
by exhibiting moments of gray area that suggest limited choice, minority
narratives typically involve forceful removal of people from their indigenous or
home land. To truly contrast the immigrant and minority narrative, a black and
white definition of choice must be instated to specify that immigrant narratives
result from the choice to leave a native country, in many cases for a brighter
future, while minority narratives, described as “voiceless and choiceless,” lack
any form of choice. Most notably driving this idea of choice, the perception of
“the American Dream” largely constitutes whether the narrative falls under
minority or immigrant. In her short story,
Soap and Water, Anzia Yezierska
exemplifies the ways in which “the American Dream” drives immigrant narratives,
pushing herself to obtain a professional education, earning her a secure
position in American society and working towards socio-economic success.
Yezierska describes the American Dream, claiming “the impossible was a magnet to
draw the dreams,” explaining that the American Dream represented the only form
of hope that pushed her immigrant narrative forward.
Similarly, Anchee Min’s The Cooked Seed
allows insights to the immigrant narrative, while also exhibiting the gray
areas in the idea of choice that allow her story to relate to her roommate
Takisha’s minority narrative. After Takisha accuses Min of not understanding
“what it is like to be owned,” Min reflects that she didn’t actually know what
it was like to not be owned, recounting her harrowing experiences under the
Communist Party of China. Although Min’s only path to survival lies in her
emigration to a foreign country to escape the dangers of the oppressive Chinese
government, Min still ultimately possess the choice to leave that minority
stories simply do not contain. In The
Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, . . . the African,
Equiano describes his capture and removal from Africa into slavery as “fate,”
suggesting a level of choice that simply does not exist in his circumstances. In
fact, Equiano later reveals the motivation to assimilate to the dominant culture
actually lies in his longing to return to Africa after gaining freedom. In this
sense, the immigrant narrative often revolves around an individual’s ability to
take their fate into their own hands, while minority stories largely result from
involuntary removal from their homeland and their attempts to navigate their
circumstances.
Like
Olaudah Equiano, many New World Immigrants express a longing for their
home-land, but attempt to balance this cultural perseveration with assimilation,
often finding themselves stuck between two (or more) different cultures. In
Paule Marshall’s
“The
Making of a Writer: From the Poets in the Kitchen,” the author’s maternal
figures assimilate into American society, adopting the English language, but add
layers of meaning and context to the words that somehow preserve their cultural
values. Similarly, Martin Espada, in his poem
Coca-Cola and Coco Frio, exemplifies
the ways in which cultures preserve ancestral roots despite moving away to a new
country, referring to his family home-land as “Puerto Rico, island of family
folklore.”
The poem expresses a battle between
his culture in Brooklyn and his cultural ties to Puerto Rico, using maternal
imagery of the homeland to distinguish his mixed loyalties. While many New World
Immigrants left their homeland by choice, many express a longing to return, as
indicated by their frequent visits back and forth between America and their
family origins.
Another way to examine the differences and similarities between minority
and immigrant narratives stem from receptiveness and aptitude in assimilating to
the dominant culture. In her poem, Blonde
White Women, Patricia Smith recounts her apparent desire to resemble the
blonde white women of her world, revealing a growing awareness to the cultural
and visual markers that separate her from the dominant culture. Smith recounts
attempts to assimilate as a child, wearing a dull gray mop head to cover her
“nappy” hair, and rubbing the pink crayon on her hand “until the skin broke,”
revealing the extent to which society conditioned her to inherently resent her
natural appearance and culture. However, the poem shifts in perspective, as seen
through her diction, indicating a growing sense of self and confidence, noting
that she can find no shade of crayon “darker, more beautiful,” than the color of
her own skin. Characteristic of a true minority story, Smith’s struggle to find
her place in a society of white women exemplifies the struggles and
discrimination that minority cultures experience, where these cultures often
find themselves resisting assimilation to a society that does not necessarily
allow them to assimilate due to the cultural markings that stamp minorities as
different from the dominant culture.
Similarly, some immigrant narratives reveal instances of resistance
towards cultural assimilation to the dominant culture, as seen in Le Ly
Hayslip’s, Child of War, Woman of Peace.
After leaving Vietnam and marrying an American man, despite her best efforts
to assimilate to her new family’s culture, she faces constant criticism and
speculation that further alienates her from the dominant culture. However, after
receiving a vision of “purity” at a state park, Hayslip’s motivation to
assimilate reignites: “I was starving now and ready for anything from the great
American banquet” (IV.II 125). While her cultural practices and even her image
and dress marked her as different against the dominant culture, Hayslip’s
narrative embodies the immigrant narrative in that she rediscovers the American
Dream and thus readily accepts the path to assimilation.
Because of the proximity of New World Immigrants to their homeland, land
outside of the U.S. within the western hemisphere, their aptitude to assimilate
becomes complicated as loyalties often become divided between the homeland and
the U.S. In Paule Marshall’s “To Da-Duh, in Memoriam,” she reconnects with her
homeland through visits to her grandmother in Barbados, taking in her
grandmother’s cultural teachings, while sharing her experiences from New York.
In the short story, Marshall suggests her longing for Barbados in her artistic
recreations of the “swirling Van Gogh suns and palm trees” (IA 377). Despite her
longstanding residency in New York and ties to American culture, Marshall
exhibits a longing for her family’s homeland that often characterize New World
immigrant narratives.
Generational and academic progression can serve as another key indicator
that differentiates an immigrant narrative from a minority narrative, often
exhibiting a strong sense of familial obligation, educational advancement, while
balancing cultural assimilation to the dominant culture. In J. Christine Moon’s
“What Color Would You Like, Ma’am?,” she exemplifies the generational
progression through protagonist Thien, who carries the evident burden to succeed
in the STEM field, carrying his family up the ranks of America’s social ladder,
while also maintain his familial duties to the family and their business.
Thien’s narrative explores the pressures experienced in “model minority”
stories, where the children of immigrant parents, likely Asian, aim towards
academic success for the sake of their parents’ sacrifices to initiate the
possibilities towards a better life through their immigration to the New World.
Evident in the scene where he returns the sixty dollars given to him by his
mother, Thien displays a strong obligation to his family and awareness of his
parents’ sacrifices, both cultural and financial.
In contrast, Toni Bambara’s The
Lesson paints a different attitude towards assimilation and education,
characteristic of a minority narrative. In this text, Bambara recounts her own
childish perspective growing up, laughing at, and even hating, Ms. Moore, the
neighborhood symbol of education (IA 145). While it is not necessarily Bambara’s
childhood attitude towards education that constitutes a minority narrative,
Bambara’s story reveals the instinctive feeling that education, especially for
African American youths, seemed unnecessary and unnatural, interrupting the
usual flow of routine that Bambara and Sugar followed on a daily basis.
Reflecting on the lesson, Bambara implies a sense of internalized anger towards
the unequal distribution of wealth that Ms. Moore revealed to the group,
noticing “something weird is going on,” as indicated by a weird feeling in her
chest (IA 151). While immigrant narratives typically showcase the struggle to
achieve high academic and financial success for the sake of the previous
generations’ sacrifices, minority narratives paint a different picture in terms
of reception towards education, based more so on the societal conditioning that
proper education is reserved solely for the dominant culture, thus thwarting
minorities from feeling natural in seeking a higher education that society deems
unnecessary on their behalf.
Many New World Immigrants, especially those of Afro-Caribbean decent,
experience similar circumstances concerning pre-determined educational
advancement per the dominant culture, but while they may suffer some
repercussions of American discriminate color coding, New World Immigrants
experience a level of ambiguity within their ethnicities and can sometimes use
this ambiguity to their advantage. In his article “How to Date a Browngirl,”
Junot Diaz attempts to hide aspects of what he seems to feel are the
unattractive parts of his Dominican culture to appeal to a girl. Diaz also uses
his racial ambiguity to his advantage noting, “she’ll say I like Spanish guys,
and even though you’ve never been to Spain, say, I like you” (IA 278).
Similarly, in Edwidge Danticat’s “Children of the Sea,” she briefly refers to
the American color-coding that affects immigrant acceptance into America when
one of the passengers on the boat to the U.S. remarks “now we will never be
mistaken for Cubans,” (IA 101). Because New World immigrant migration to the
U.S. remains relatively new in the history of immigration trends, Americans
often group New World immigrants with existing immigrants or minorities using a
color-code of skin tones.
Another way to differentiate between immigrant and minority narratives
lies in the working class’s ability to relate to the immigrant narratives of
striving for socio-economic success, especially when reflecting on their own
distant ties to the immigrant narrative. In her article, “The American Society,”
Gisha Jen recounts Mrs. Lardner, a member of the local country club who insists
on advocating for Jen’s mother’s membership, referencing her own Jewish ancestry
(IA 162). Mrs. Lardner attempts to identify with Jen’s family’s plight to
assimilate and fit in to the dominant culture, drawing from her own connection
to her father, a third-wave Jewish immigrant, declaring this information a
“secret,”. Through her attempt to identify with Jen’s family’s assimilation
process, Mrs. Lardner reflects the dominant culture’s tendency to misunderstand
the true extent to which immigrants suffer discrimination and difficulties in
assimilating to American society, due to their own lack of proximity to their
immigrant ancestors. In this way, dominant cultures tend to glorify immigrant
narratives, largely fixating on the “rags to riches” stories that drive
capitalist society forward.
Similarly, Anzia Yezierska’s Bread
Givers explores the narcissism that can permeate retellings of old immigrant
stories that embody the rags to riches stories, especially in Max’s story,
comparing his eagerness to share his story to “inviting him to a feast to ask
him to talk about himself”. Additionally, Yezierska implies a level of
embellishment in Max’s rags to riches story, as indicated by the rich language
used to describe the American dream as experienced by Max. In this story,
Yezierska relays a true rags to riches story, while using subtle shifts in
diction and figurative language to suggest the ways in which people can glorify
immigrant narratives, typically very artfully but sometimes unrealistically as
well.
While New World immigrants tend to come to America for socio-economic
advancement and better lives for their families, they also face complications
assimilating to American society, like finding work, pursing higher education,
and climbing the economic ladder, stemming from their complicated loyalties to
tradition and American culture. In “How to Date a Brown Girl,” Diaz refers to a
story about how tear gas cans cracked in one of the local’s basements, dosing
the entire neighborhood in “military strength stuff” (IA 277). Diaz advises the
reader to leave out the part where his mother immediately recognized the smell
from the year the United States invaded his homeland, implicating some feelings
of resentment towards America. By leaving this information out, Diaz tries to
impress the American girl, who may interpret such implications of resentment
towards America unattractive. In doing so, Diaz exemplifies the struggle to
assimilate because of obligations to both American culture and Dominican culture
that permeates so many New World Immigrant narratives.
While immigrant, New World Immigrant, and minority narratives share many
similarities that unite through the shared plight of otherness, and the
struggles to exist in a society against another, dominant culture, key
differences help define and shape the cultural backdrops of contemporary
American society, revealing historical progression towards cultural tolerance.
Although American society still requires much work in terms of fostering a
culture of tolerance, one way that society can continue to progress is by
knowing the differences between the immigrant and minority narratives, and how
both narratives serve as sources of immense cultural perseverance and strength
that can help promote a society appreciative of cultural diversity.
