Ryan Smith

11 December 2012

Predictable Problems

            It takes time for learning to really set in. Whatever wrinkles foaming in the brain as we absorb information and make connections form slowly. We shouldn’t expect, either, that our memories will solidify if left alone; instead, we must reengage and rethink what we read, discuss, and write about if we expect any lasting value, or useful knowledge. To further complicate the process—sometimes, even given time and thoughtful analysis, learning doesn’t quite happen. When this occurs, the student must find or create a catalyst to shock brain cells and half-memories to life. For me, Juan Garcia’s final exam from 2010’s version of the course triggered the web of connections necessary to make meaning and value from a semester’s worth of reading and thinking-projects. I was reminded of the interconnectivity of all writing, and of the ever-gloomy presence of dominant culture command. Studying American Minority literature has, as any good literature will, illuminated places of ignorance, buttressed my understanding of the subject, and pushed me to make connections and examine minority writing from yet another set of perspectives.

http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/5731/models/finals/f10sp/f10spgarcia.htm

The essay, “Exploring the Power of Voice: Reimagining Identity through Multicultural Literature,” approached the idea of identity in American Minority literature somewhat generally, but a paragraph early on kept my attention and deposited a layer on to my still forming, submerged mind. Taking a few sentences from it—“Each cultural work is influenced by the ones previous…Each author builds their house of words on the past—a foundation usually built from the literature of the dominant culture.” Garcia makes two points worth noting here, and while these don’t present shocking or novel information, each serves to reinforce or refresh ways of thinking about minority literature—all literature, in a sense. The first is that all writing, “cultural work,” is influenced by previous works, an obvious statement, but one often taken for granted. Great writing tempts the reader to consider the writing original or unique, magical even; of course, all writing, save some of the very first, is not only influenced by previous writings historically and what the author has read, but is conditioned by them. It is too easy to think of great writers as timeless demigods, but more humble and merciful to remember their somewhat predictable humanity.

The second, closely related point, that writers establish their work upon past works, especially dominant culture writing, brings us back to American Minority literature. Not only, then, are writers inspired and inevitably influenced by writers they have read, they are bound to the literary history of the culture to which they are a part of. Most of the course texts work with this idea, but our early readings of slave narratives are especially telling. These writings simply could not have come into being without the medium of the dominant culture; in the case of Olaudah, English, as the new language of the captured slave, is this medium, but everything from Christianity to writing itself are all means through which his story is able to be told. The necessity for at least this much absorption of and assimilation to dominant culture values and practices shatters the illusion that minority cultures can remain pure or strictly traditional for long after marginalization; the power relationship is far too unbalanced for that. From another perspective, participating and engaging with dominate culture through writing can be empowering. Frederick Douglass escapes slavery, partly because he learns to read and write, and in his later life, he continues and advances his learning in a steadfast effort to resist the system from within. This struggle between fringe living, non-participation and subculture against dominant culture assimilation flavors much of my understanding—from one particular mode of thinking, anyway—of the course.

My own research into Native American culture, especially religious practices, faced similar difficulties. The more I read, the more I realized my search for something like purity in a culture, group of people, or traditional spirituality was fruitless. When cultures meet, there is simply too much clashing, forced integration and general blending for either culture to remain unchanged. There are both benefits to this unavoidable mixing as well as disastrous consequences. Minority writing—and speaking and activism, etc.—can sometimes temper and smooth the violent roughness of a culture as it interposes itself, however subtly or aggressively. These successes may be much rarer, or at least gradual, than the tragedies of contact zones and majority/minority hierarchies. The various Native American cultures I studied throughout the semester, for example, had a marginal influence on American culture—besides some misguided, if well-meaning, new age attempts at revitalization—while Indian cultures have all but been extinguished. Various Native American tribes, peoples and practices still exist, of course, but any wisdom they had to impart has been mostly lost on America’s dominant culture, which has made sure to impose every aspect of itself onto the subordinate Indian cultures.

I must resist the urge to paint an overly gloomy portrait, although political realities sometimes demand this. Considering the multiple effects of cultural absorption leaves one unsure whether to praise the empowerment minorities achieve through willing, and self-aware, assimilation, or lament the literal destruction of peoples and ways of thinking, being and interacting with the world. The courses readings each bring new tools and perspectives to the problem, but, faithful as they are to the ambiguity of reality, there are no easy answers.