LITR 5731: Seminar in American Minority Literature

Sample Student Final Exam Submission, spring 2006

Danielle Lynch

Spring 2006

Individualized study and experiences in the course

Introduction

My individualized study in the course has introduced several new concepts to me that I believe as integral to learning. While doing my undergraduate work, I took several ethnic-centered literature courses, which I assumed would give me a strong framework for this course and its objectives, however; this wasn’t the case. I initially found myself put off by the course objectives, accusing them of being stereotypical, particularly the definitions of each alternative minority narrative. I considered them cliché and able to be broken down. This theory came unraveled as current events sideswiped my study this semester.

The debate on immigration and the interest it’s sparked in the Mexican community is mind-blowing. The dominant culture’s response is just as appalling. As the Minutemen kick off a 12-city tour this week, these course objectives are being applied right under our noses. No doubt, art imitates life, so it’s not hard to believe that current events fit nicely into the discussion of the course texts. Further, I think we would be remiss in not touching on some of these issues and examining how they fit together.

Native American literature

The role immigration played in Native American literature is great. While it was not this minority group who was immigrating, the impact was enough to change the face of history. Native American literature is based upon the alternate narrative of loss and survival, choose to survive rather than become “the vanishing Indian.”

In Black Elk Speaks, the contemporary immigration of Europeans to their land caused them to be expelled from their land and expunged of their culture. Losing their land to white settlers, Black Elk, an Ogalala Lakota Sioux, tried to flee from the effects of immigration. Continuing the move West away from these settlers, Native Americans also became voiceless and their actions, choiceless. Black Elk attempts to give voice to the Native Americans after having a vision foretelling the fall of the Sioux. This offers strong commentary on the concepts of immigration.

While Europeans settlers were moving West in search of a better live after immigrating to the United States, they were slowly bleeding the Native Americans of their culture, changing those native to these lands into the “minority” fairly quickly. With many Native Americans dying at the hands of the Wasichus, immigration proved to be deadly.

This is not the case in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. However, the characters in this collection die in other ways. Their ability only to “survive” rather than thrive fulfills the Native American minority native concept. Taking place long after the atrocities were committed with the Sioux, Sherman Alexie seems to comment more on the Native Americans assimilation into the dominant culture and how the past has affected modern situations.

Still disapproving of white people in this story, these characters have come to accept the situation and deal with it on their own terms. That is, crumbling. This assimilation also brings alcoholism, poverty and despair.

While the myth of “the vanishing Indian” exists metaphorically in this story more than literally in Black Elk Speaks, Alexie maintains that what’s happened to Native Americans in the past has caused this mere survival. Oppressed and ambitionless, the Indians on this reservation seem even more powerless than those being slaughtered in Black Elk Speaks.

I believe that the mission and dream of the Native Americans is never truly realized. Their minority status taken into account, dominant culture seems to aid in Native Americans becoming imminent within their situation.

Mexican American literature

The Mexican American alternate minority narrative centers on ambivalence. Struggling between holding on to their culture and assimilating into their new environments, the characters in both Bless Me, Ultima and Woman Hollering Creek exemplify this conundrum.

Tony is a perfect example of ambivalence in Ultima. Much like his culture, he is often torn between two options: his mother’s wishes versus his father’s wishes for him and his father’s natural draw toward the country life of the vaquero and his mother’s upbringing as a farmer in the city, for example. There is also great ambivalence within his family. His mother wanted him to become a Catholic priest while the presence of Ultima, and her magic cause him to question otherwise. 

In Woman Hollering Creek, the ambivalent alternate minority narrative shows up in more contemporary ways. Many of the characters Cisneros’ writes on remain unsure of who they are. Her writing style spliced with italicized words in Spanish, the reader feels a sense of being torn between two cultures, never knowing in which direction to go. When Cisneros’ goes as far as calling one group of people in the story “Mericans,” we see how the contradictory cultures are even grouped into one word, illustrating the confusion often felt.

There are many contradictory feelings, thoughts and attitudes in Mexican American Literature that cause this minority group to struggle to maintain their culture, traditions and language while pondering assimilation to make life easier.

Personal reflections

I have always felt that being of European descent robbed me of a cultural identity. Sure, as half Irish and half Italian, I have some pretty strong cultural ties, but not the way minority groups in the United States do. Over the course of this class, I felt closest to Mexican American literature, the idea of compromising who you are for a smoother transition in life. But I think it’s impossible to completely surrender yourself to whatever the dominant culture is – ethnicity or otherwise.

Conclusion

Many argue now that "Immigrants who have worked hard, paid taxes and demonstrated good moral character, deserve the opportunity to obtain permanent residence and reunite with their families,” as postcards distributed during this week’s immigration protests read. But as we can see in the classroom texts, whether the minorities are the immigrants or those imposed upon by the immigrants, there is still a great deal of loss involved. In both Native and Mexican American Literature, the minority cultures lost something, be it the surrender of lives, ambition or the giving up of core cultural beliefs that form who you are in favor of modernity and integration.