LITR 5731 Seminar in American Multicultural Literature
Minority Literature

Lecture Notes

UHCL catalog listing:

LITR 5731: Multicultural Literature
Intensive study of a particular ethnic group's texts and authors; a trans-ethnic theme or topic; a survey of minority or immigrant literature, or colonialism. Course may be repeated for credit when content varies. (Crosslisted with CRCL 5731).

 

ID cards

name (as you want it to appear in schedule--a first & last name at least)

contact information:

must have: email address(es)

optional: phone(s), US Mail address

 

Experience with minority / multicultural literature? (previous classes, reading interests)

 

What are you currently reading on your own? 

 

Preferences for presentations?

  • "No preference" is acceptable

  • Choices or preferences for dates, specific assignments, groups, authors?

  • Any bad days?

 

Further options:
Any issues to preview that may affect your semester? (health, family, legal, etc.)

Next stage in presentation assignments:

Instructor will assigns presentations

emails draft of presentation schedule to class (maybe by Friday night)

If problems, let me know by noon next Thursday

I'll bring copies to next Thursday's classes

 

Course methodology:

Professor / instructor organizes, provides background information, explains and reinforces objectives and outcomes (assignments)

Students lead discussions of texts, model expression of objectives

rationale:

peer learning: in modern culture, students learn better from their own age group compared to elders

student expression and modeling translates old knowledge into new forms, applications

+ bonus for professor: learning from students

 

 

 

self-introductions

Each person say:

Your name (first and last) as you like to be called

Career or student status, reasons for taking course, career goals relative to Literature

A few words on course content: Options:

  • Familiarity with minority literature or our course's authors or texts?
  • Personal or professional interest in minority issues?
     
  • What have you been reading lately?

 

 

 

minority definitions

USA = "a nation of many nations"

Plenty of ethnic groups available for study: Armenian-Americans, Filipino-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Norwegian-Americans . . . .

Absolutely impossible to study every ethnic group

Who do we classify as minorities? Who must be included?

not discussed much or systematically.

Different teachers follow models set by their instructors, or concentrate on groups they know something about or have a personal connection to.

This course classifies 2 or 3 ethnic groups as minorities according to their difference from a prevailing background of the majority American culture.

Premise: dominant culture of USA is shaped by immigration

Hypothesis: minority cultures are those that do not fit traditional immigrant patterns

 

80-90% of U.S. population is either immigrant or descended from immigrant

Immigrant's story parallels the American Dream story

Old World > New World

Rags to Riches

Social contract implicit in immigration story: you choose to come here, you play by the rules, you get ahead

 

Contrast minority experience

Objective 1

 

Native Americans and African Americans were not traditional immigrants.

Mexican Americans are usually referred to as immigrants, but story is complicated by Mexican War and conquest of Mexican territory, plus other historical and cultural issues.

Social contract of minorities is different: 

No choice in interaction with dominant culture--forced contact. (Immigrants choose to join American culture--though each story is varied and nuanced.)

Compared to immigrant ethnic groups, "minorities" are not necessarily encouraged to assimilate, esp. in terms of intermarriage.

Immigrants may be treated as minorities or may choose not to assimilate for a generation or two, but normally three generations achieves assimilation, after which they're just more of the dominant culture--in contrast to identified minorities, who remain minorities insofar as they don't intermarry or assimilate.

 

Objective 1

To define the “minority concept" as a power relationship modeled by some ethnic groups’ historical relation to the dominant American culture.

1a. “Involuntary (or forced) participation”

(Unlike the dominant immigrant culture, ethnic minorities did not choose to come to America or join its dominant culture. Thus the original "social contract" of Native Americans and African Americans contrasts with that of European Americans, Asian Americans, or most Latin Americans, and the consequences of "choice" or "no choice" echo down the generations.)

 

1b.  “Voiceless and choiceless”

(Contrast the dominant culture’s self-determination or choice through self-expression or voice, as in "The Declaration of Independence.")

 

How much does the immigrant / assimilation story parallel the American Dream?

 

 

 

 

Declaration of Independence & American Dream

Declaration of Independence

Purpose: Declaration as "origins story" for dominant culture of USA--defines values, embodies narrative

Questions from handout:

·        As a “Creation / Origin Story,” what narratives or models of human identity, behavior, or relation does the Declaration model?

·        What racial / ethnic or gender groups are excluded from consideration? That is, when the Declaration says that “all men are created equal,” who is and isn’t indicated by “men?” What are the requirements for being “equal?”  

How does the Declaration express or embody "the American Dream?"

(Admittedly it's not exactly an immigrant story, but all the people who wrote and signed it were descended from immigrants, and its implicit story-line and values are comparable to the Immigrant's "American Dream.")

 

Questions for discussion:

What narratives or models of human identity, behavior, or relation does the Declaration model? How does it fit with America's dominant culture?

How does the Declaration express or embody "the American Dream?"

What racial / ethnic or gender groups are excluded from consideration? That is, when the Declaration says that “all men are created equal,” who is and isn’t indicated by “men?” What are the requirements for being “equal?”

 

 

Instructor's answers to Discussion question: How does the Declaration express or embody "the American Dream?"

1. We're not taking it any more!

2. We speak for and govern ourselves. ("declare the causes . . . assume a separate and equal station among the powers of the earth")

3. We break away from the past--we're not bound by tradition. ("dissolve the bands")

4. This is the "natural order" of things ("necessary"; "laws of nature and of Nature's God")

5. Equality--"all men are created equal" (just what is equal is left unsaid: personal worth? opportunity?)

2nd discussion question: When the Declaration says, "all men are created equal," who counts as men?

 

 

Reactions?

Hypocrisy?--slaveholders among champions of equality?

legitimate reaction

but just because the Founders had serious human limits doesn't necessarily mean that their entire system was corrupt

possible to see Declaration as a first step toward equality that others would eventually join

How?

literary expression of equality through reading, writing, exchange of ideas

"The Revolution that never stops."

But . . .

careful not to make everyone the same

(That is, a risk of equality is the assumption that just because you're equal, you share exactly the same values, goals, and practices.)

literacy and literature as the most advanced expressions of equality and difference

goal of a multicultural nation: equality and difference

 

But difference always risks translating to inequality

Only civil resolution: expression of difference, dialogue between voices

Learn what's right, unlearn what's wrong

 

To constitute this dialogue, this seminar focuses on identifying the alternative stories told by America's dominant culture and its minority cultures--

Identify stories (narratives) told by minority cultures

 

 

Dr. King & "The Dream" of African America

 

Objective 3

To compare and contrast the dominant “American Dream” narrative—which involves voluntary participation, forgetting the past, and privileging the individual—with alternative narratives of American minorities, which involve involuntary participation, connecting to the past, and traditional (extended) or alternative families.

  

3a. African American alternative narrative: “The Dream”

 

3b. Native American Indian alternative narrative: "Loss and Survival"

 

3c. Mexican American narrative: “The Ambivalent Minority”

 

Objective 3 continued

3a. African American alternative narrative: “The Dream”

("The Dream" resembles but is not identical to "The American Dream." Whereas the American Dream emphasizes immediate individual success, "the Dream" factors in setbacks, the need to rise again, and a quest for group dignity.)

 

Dr. King's Dream Speech

Purpose for course: This speech is the greatest expression of the African American “Dream” narrative, which, as he implies, is related to but distinct from “the American Dream” story. However, “the Dream” story reappears in many African American texts, both before and after King’s speech.

·        What is the relationship between “the Dream” and “the American Dream?” How do their narratives and values compare and contrast?

·        How does this relationship parallel the relationship between the African American people and the American people as a dominant culture?

Objective 3a. African American alternative narrative: “The Dream”

("The Dream" resembles but is not identical to "The American Dream." Whereas the American Dream emphasizes immediate individual success, "the Dream" factors in setbacks, the need to rise again, and group dignity.)

 

 

 

 

Instructor's answers to Quick discussion question(s): How is "the Dream" (of the African American people) both related to and different from "the American Dream" (of the USA's dominant culture)?

Related:

1. "deeply rooted in the American Dream"

2. Uses the same language of the American Dream from the Declaration of Independence

3. shares the same values of "equal" + "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness"

Different:

"one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed"

Especially "one day"

It hasn't happened before, and it hasn't happened today, but it should happen someday.

"the true meaning of [this nation's] creed" has not come true yet for African Americans?

(Scholars have compared King's development of this idea to preaching about the Millennium of Christ's Second Coming: it hasn't happened yet, it seems not to be happening today, but the hour approaches.)

 

emphasis on "demand" and "being owed"

"American Dream" of Declaration, Immigrants, and dominant culture tends not to emphasize what is owed; rather it emphasizes others just getting out of its way so that it can do for itself. 

History or the past tends to be forgotten or dismissed by the dominant culture, whereas the minority culture doesn't have that luxury.

 

 

also emphasis on "together"

--the "American Dream" story tends to be highly individualistic--you're out there on your own, looking out for number one

--minority stories tend to be more group-oriented--a black person can and should think of himself as an individual, but society will remind him that he's not just any person but a member of a special people > extended family vs. nuclear family

> American Dream's individualism vs. the Dream's group identity

 

 

 

 

3a. African American alternative narrative: “The Dream”

("The Dream" resembles but is not identical to "The American Dream." Whereas the American Dream emphasizes immediate individual success, "the Dream" factors in setbacks, the need to rise again, and a quest for group dignity.)