Laura A. Moseley                                                                                                                              

18 April 2010

Literacy and Minority Cultures: Friend or Foe?

Literacy, in this sense, is not simply reading the word, but reading the world. And literacy also involves transforming the world; literacy "becomes a vehicle by which the oppressed are equipped with the necessary tools to reappropriate their history, culture, and language practices."  (Cutler, “Dismantling “The Master’s House”: Critical Literacy in Harriet Jacob’s Incident’s in the Life of a Slave Girl,”209)

Every minority in America has its own reason for learning to read and write English, and these reasons seem to be linked with how the minority arrives on American shores.  African Americans, Native Americans and Mexican Americans have had to decide to what extent they are going to assimilate into the American culture.  This extent of assimilation can be seen through how each minority has been given access to English language and literacy, and the level at which they have embraced these learning opportunities.  As we have learned in Objective 5c. of our course objectives, “literacy [as viewed by minorities] is the primary code of modern existence and a key or path to empowerment.”  I will also be examining objective three as it relates to each minority group discussed.  Each minority group will be examined individually beginning with the Africans who were brought to the States as slaves.  I will then look at Native Americans who were on North American land before the European settlers, and finally, I will discuss literacy and Mexican Americans who were both colonized like the Indians as well as immigrating like the Europeans.

Africans, who went on to produce African Americans, did not come to the States freely; they were abducted, chained and forced to cross the ocean in the filthy lower decks of cargo ships just like any other form of livestock.  African Americans were brought to America against their will but once they were arrived, they developed their own version of the American Dream. 

African Americans

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.)

The quest for the African American Dream is strongly correlated with the African American quest for literacy.  Out of the minority groups that have been mentioned; African Americans, Native Americans and Mexican Americans; African Americans have embraced literacy as a means of obtaining a voice to describe the horrors of slavery, the need to rise above this history, and to obtain dignity even though slavery and racism is, if not the most, one of the most dehumanizing acts ever conferred from one human onto another.  The African American grasp for literacy and education began when they, as Africans, were chained and put into the hold of a ship.  This grasp for literacy was born out of a unique need to learn to communicate not only with the dominant culture, but also with each other.  Unlike immigrants from other countries, native Africans did not share a common language and culture among themselves. Each tribe in Africa had unique customs and languages.   As noted by Olaudah Equiano, one of the few slaves who embraced literacy to the extent that he was able to write his own story,

From the time I left my own nation I always found somebody that understood me till I came to the sea coast. The languages of different nations did not totally differ, nor were they so copious as those of the Europeans, particularly the English. They were therefore easily learned; and, while I was journeying thus through Africa, I acquired two or three different tongues.  (Equiano, ch. 2, par. 12)

However, when these slaves found themselves crowded together in the hold of a slave ship or having to learn to work and survive on a plantation, it would not have been expedient for everyone to learn several different ways of communicating.  They had to find a common language and the most sensible one to adopt was the language of their masters, the language of the dominant culture.

          Slaves had very few opportunities to learn to read and write.  They had no time that was their own as they were either working for their master or working to take care of their own personal households.  However, around 1750 a Presbyterian minister by the name of Samuel Davies wanted to teach the slaves in Virginia how to read so that he could convert them to his form of Christianity:  “Davies as a Presbyterian believed that the attainment of true religion by anyone, bond or free, black or white, required extensive religious knowledge that came from not only hearing the word of God but also reading it.”  (Richards, 335)  Davies ran into many obstacles while trying to save souls and bring literacy to the slaves:  slave owners feared their slaves learning to read; he had limited resources in the form of books, especially level appropriate materials; Africans did not share a common language; and he had limited time to spend on teaching reading when he had seven meetings, or congregations, to preach to.

(Richards, 339)    

Arguably for Davies, the largest obstacle on the path of bringing literacy to the slaves, were the slave holders.  The fear of slave owners towards a literate slave population is consistently seen throughout slave literature.  As noted in Jeffery H. Richards work on Samuel Davies, “…why slaveholders thought literacy a dangerous practice: it threatened to spread beyond their control, and this breaking of slaves' metaphoric chains of wickedness potentially made human property more aware of the literal bondage to which they were subject,” (366) and as stated by Mary Cutler in her article on literacy as seen in the life of Harriet Jacobs, “…words fight the ideological system that condoned slavery, because writing challenges the notion that slaves are sub-human, animals or chattel to be traded.  To write is to move from object to subject…”  (Cutler, 210)  Slaveholders felt they would lose complete control of their property if this property were to learn to read and become more intolerant of their situation.  If, as a human, you could read and learn of ideas, careers, and pleasures of which you knew, no matter what you did or how hard you worked, you would never have access to because you did not even have free access to yourself, how would you be able to face the next day of jumping at another’s command?  This point is best expressed by Frederick Douglass, who, like Equiano, made his way to freedom and as a result of his relentless pursuit of learning to read and write, was able to leave for the generations that followed a narrative of his life as a slave and his escape to freedom.

The reading of these documents [various abolitionist papers] enabled me to utter my thoughts, and to meet the arguments brought forward to sustain slavery; but while they relieved me of one difficulty, they brought on another even more painful than the one of which I was relieved. The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest as well as the most wicked of men.  (Douglas, ch. 7, par. 9)

Davies, however, did not give much thought to this problem.  He was only concerned with saving the slaves soul and to be saved they must be able to read.

          The female slave and author Harriet Jacobs also encountered a negative aspect of being literate.  Jacobs’ literacy, which she valued highly, was used to torment and harass her by her master.  Jacobs’ owner, Dr. Flynt, had been making inappropriate sexual advances toward her and she had been pretending that she did not understand the meaning of his coarse and unwelcome innuendos.     

One day he caught me teaching myself to write. He frowned, as if he was not well pleased; but I suppose he came to the conclusion that such an accomplishment might help to advance his favorite scheme. Before long, notes were often slipped into my hand. I would return them, saying, "I can't read them, sir." "Can't you?" he replied; "then I must read them to you." He always finished the reading by asking, "Do you understand?"  (Jacobs, 28-29)

In this instance, the slaveholder actually used the fact that his property was literate to his advantage.  Yet for all the sexual harassment her reading ability brought on her, Jacobs was still thankful that she had been able to learn these skills, and she felt it was very important for her children to get an education as well.  The mistress who taught her had always intimated she would free Jacobs when she died, however, when the time actually came, Jacobs was not freed.  In fact it was as a result of this mistress’s death that Harriet ended up in the hands of Dr. Flynt who mentally abused and harassed her until his death.  Despite all of this, she still remembered this mistress fondly because, “While I was with her, she taught me to read and spell; and for this privilege, which so rarely falls to the lot of a slave, I bless her memory.”  (Jacobs, 11) 

          As the slaves became aware of Samuel Davies literacy program, they began to flock to him in numbers that he was not prepared for.  He had to rely on donations of books and materials to give to the slaves so they would have something to take back to their homes to learn from.  Davies thought that the slave holders should provide some materials because he felt the slaveholders should take some responsibility for the condition of the souls of their slaves.  When the slave owners did not help with materials, Davies eventually partnered with SPRK, Society for Promoting Religious Knowledge among the Poor, and,  “As long as the society provided books, he could carry on the campaign without the necessity of appealing to slaveowners for assistance.”  (360)  SPRK was in London and would send all of the books and materials  they could, but there was never enough and most of it was not on the elementary level needed by the slaves who knew nothing.  Davies needed rudimentary materials like spelling books, yet he was always appreciative of what he received.  SPRK continued to do and send what it could, ”Though it is certain that the Revolution closed the door to donations from the SPRK in London, the extent of the society's contributions to Virginia from 1765 to 1775 is not clear.”  (372)  Davies died around this time as well, so without an advocate and with the loss of donations of reading materials, the slave literacy program in Virginia ended.  It is even more interesting this program existed in the first place, since in most slave states it was illegal to teach a slave to read and write.

          Samuel Davies literacy ministry could be compared to that of a missionary in a foreign county.  More than one-third of the blacks in Davies’ program were African born; they were not African American.  These Africans probably came from an oral society and literacy as we think of it in America, reading and writing, would have been something totally foreign, magical and new to them.  As noted by Richards, “Literacy to people without it would have seemed strange on first encounter.  In their narratives, Olaudah Equiano and James Gronniosaw encounter the "talking book," a totem that conveys language by some secret, silent, magical means and spurs both of them to become literate, Equiano enough to write an eloquent book of his own.”  (344)  It is not clear in Richards’ article how this language barrier was overcome, but it was noted,

that more than three hundred potential students of his one thousand black parishioners had a native language that was not English or a creolized dialect. In the case of African learners who were adults? particularly those captured as adults and sold in Virginia? the "Progress" Davies mentioned must have come from the achievements of individual slaves who developed methods for reaching Africans.  (361-362)  

Richards also points out how Davies spent the majority of his time teaching church doctrine not teaching reading, “Because he believed that blacks' ability to become literate was equal to that of whites, he imagined that it was enough to get a few slaves started who would then become teachers of others.”  (361)  Having slaves teach other slaves not only freed Davies to focus on religious matters, but it possibly answers the ability of the native African slaves to become literate.  African and African American slaves working and living on the same plantation would have had to work out some form of understanding to be able to function as a work unit and to be able to survive the extreme hardships of slavery.

              Slaves themselves had various reasons for learning to read and write.  To some it was the mystery that kept them apart from the dominant culture, to some education seemed to be what was needed to gain freedom by either the ability to write one’s own pass or to be able to live as a free person.  As pointed out by Cutler, “Indeed literacy has been seen as one of the most essential components of the slave narrative genre and it has often been associated with freedom…”  (Cutler, 210)   When approached by Samuel Davies, the slaves in Virginia realized that, “However much slaves might have lost in their moves either from Tidewater or equatorial Africa, they did discover one thing that the new settled minister offered that they likely never had? the opportunity to decipher the written signs by which white people governed.”  (340-341)  The statement above shows how slaves viewed literacy as an equalizer with the dominant culture.  If they could attain an education they could possibly find a way out of their horrible condition.  If this was the language “by which white people governed,” then maybe the slaves could use it, too.  Maybe they could use it to their advantage. 

Frederick Douglass realized early in his life as a slave that the key to freedom was the ability to read and write.  From the time he realized he was a slave, Douglass knew when the time was right, he would try to escape to the north.  Douglass writes, “I looked forward to a time at which it would be safe for me to escape. I was too young to think of doing so immediately; besides, I wished to learn how to write, as I might have occasion to write my own pass.”  (Douglass, ch. 7, par. 11)  Douglass was very inventive in his way of reaching his goal of literacy.  He was frequently at a shipyard and he kept seeing the same letters on the sides of boxes and he practiced writing them and learning their meaning.  He then used a trick that he would employee throughout his education,

After that, when I met with any boy who I knew could write, I would tell him I could write as well as he. The next word would be, "I don't believe you. Let me see you try it." I would then make the letters which I had been so fortunate as to learn, and ask him to beat that. In this way I got a good many lessons in writing, which it is quite possible I should never have gotten in any other way.  (Douglass, ch. 7, par. 13)

Douglass became adept at tricking school age white boys into teaching him things and they did not even know that they were doing it.

          Samuel Davies was just one unique individual who wanted to give the gift of literacy to the slaves in the guise of saving their souls, yet there were so few lives were touched.  Even without an advocate like Davies, slaves like Equiano, Douglass, and Jacobs found their own path to becoming literate and, “to decipher the signs by which white people governed.”  Henry Louis Gates, Jr. ponders in the introduction to The Classic Slave Narratives, “Have there ever been more curious origins of a literary tradition, especially when we recall that the slave narrative arose as a response to, and refutiation of, claims that blacks could not write?”  (3)  We are fortunate the slaves did strive for literacy and freedom so we are able to learn from their stories today, and to be reminded how we should never take our own freedoms and choices for granted.

          Unlike African Americans who were forced to come to America, Native Americans did not come to America, they were already here.  They were here before Columbus discovered this continent and then they were forced off their land, and out of their culture and into a more European one.             

Native Americans

3b. Native American Indian alternative narrative: "Loss and Survival"
(Whereas immigrants define themselves by leaving the past behind in order to get America, the Indians once had America but lost it along with many of their people. Yet they defy the myth of "the vanishing Indian," instead choosing to "survive," sometimes in faith that the dominant culture will eventually destroy itself, and the forests and buffalo will return.)

          Like African Americans, Native Americans are an involuntary minority as defined by Katherine Hayes.  Hayes contends, “Involuntary minorities include members of a minority group who have suffered slavery or colonization and who have later been denied true assimilation. Examples include American Indians, African-Americans, native Hawaiians, and Mexican-Americans. Generally speaking, involuntary minorities usually experience greater difficulty in school adjustment and demonstrate more academic failure than do voluntary minorities.”  (252)  Course objective 3b deals with the Native American Indian alternative narrative of “Loss and Survival.”  This alternative narrative can clearly be seen in the way that Native Americans have grappled with the dominant culture’s idea of literacy.  The early education of Native Americans by the dominant culture was through contract schools that were mostly lead by religious organizations.  An example of a contract school was The Morris School as seen in Wilbert H. Ahern’s article “Indian Education and Bureaucracy:  The School at Morris, 1887-1909.”  Today, after many failed models of Indian education, it is interesting that the model is moving back to contract schools, but with a different flavor.  In their article “Changing the Culture of Schooling:  Navajo and Yup’ik Cases,” Jerry Lipka and Teresa McCarty examine the current movement in Native American education, “…new federal, tribal, and community initiatives are dramatically transforming schooling in many indigenous settings. These initiatives include community-controlled contract and grant schools, increased local control over state-sponsored schools, and independent "freedom" and cultural survival schools.”  From a literary fiction perspective, this struggle for the loss and survival of the Indian can best be shown through the characters of Lipsha Morrissey, Lyman Lamartine, and King Junior (Howard) Kashpaw in the book Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich.    

As observed with African Americans, religious organizations played a very important role in the literacy of Native Americans:  “In 1887 the various religious denominations still managed 35 percent of the Indian boarding schools through contracts with the federal government. The Roman Catholic church educated more Indian students than any other denomination and was responsible for all federally sponsored Indian schools in Minnesota.”   (Ahern, 84)  These schools, such as the Morris School, drawn below, were not on the reservations so the children had to travel

  (Ahern, 85)

to them.  The idea of having the Indian children as boarders was as a means of indoctrinating them into the dominant culture.  Ahern points out the popularly held thought that, "The schools should be located in the midst of a farming community, remote from reservations, and in the vicinity of railroads and some thriving village or city. The students would thus be free from the great downpull of the camp, and be able to mingle with the civilized people that surround them, and to participate in their civilization. . . .”  (Ahern, 86)  The longer the children were away from their native culture, the easier it would be to educate them in the ways of the dominant culture as, ‘“They would be taught the meaning of citizenship, the importance of work, diligence, and thrift, and the value of Christian civilization, as well as the academic studies "ordinarily pursued in similar white schools."’  (86)  Evidence of this form of education and its problems is also pointed out in Lipka and McCarty’s piece, “Prior to the founding of the Rough Rock Demonstration School in 1966, most students attended mission or federal boarding schools. Stories abound of the psychological and physical abuse inflicted on children at federal schools, as well as the alienation of parents from all aspects of school life.”  (268)  The Federal Government did not necessarily want Native Americans to assimilate into the dominant culture, but they wanted them to be easier to handle and the easiest way to change a culture is to start with its youngest members.  Eventually the federal government abandoned this type of school structure and began building schools directly on the reservations. These schools were fashioned after regular city schools, only they were built on the reservations so all of the children attending were Indians, yet the curriculum and the teachers were of the dominant culture.  This form of education, however, did not and does not work well for the children because they were and are still being taught by and about the dominant culture.  Their native ways and their native culture are ignored for the more standard curriculum taught in non-reservation American schools.

However, there is hope.  Educators are beginning to see, because of high incidents of students dropping out, that maybe the way and the material being taught to indigenous populations needs to change.  Lipka and McCarty’s article deals with a new form of minority culture education, a form of education where the language and the culture of the minority is taken into consideration. 

The experimental school at Rough Rock departed radically from these experiences. Originated through an unprecedented contract between the community, a tribal trustee board, and the federal government, Rough Rock became the first to elect an all-Indian governing board and the first to teach in and about the native language and culture. School founders describe Rough Rock's philosophy as a "both-and" approach, in which children are "exposed to important values and customs of both Navajo culture and the dominant society, [and] not forced to make an 'either-or' choice.  (268)

The two experimental schools that they focus on are on a Navajo reservation in Rough Rock, Arizona and a Yup’ik area in Alaska.  These two education systems were based on “the Hawaii-based Kame-hameha Early Education Program ( KEEP)” that, “nurtured further pedagogical changes that encouraged bilingual teachers to view themselves as essential change agents within the school.”  (269)  The students were to be taught by teachers who were part of their community and the curriculum included their native languages and cultures.  Lipka and McCarty observe, “An example of such an adaptation is a recent theme study on wind, in which third-grade students examined local and regional climatology, geography, and Navajo directional symbolism and oral narratives while maintaining journals and other written records of their work in Navajo and English.”  (270)  If anyone is to learn anything, they must understand and connect with the person teaching them and with what they are being taught.  There must be a frame of reference and commonality before new material and ideas can be introduced.  If the children can learn to read and write through materials that are familiar to them, then they can go on to learn main stream ideas of the dominant culture as well as anything else they want to know because they will possess the skills necessary to read and learn for themselves.     

Perhaps if Lipsha Morrissey had been able to attend a reservation school similar to the one described above in the community of Rough Rock, a school where his heritage and unique talents were respected and encouraged, he may have stayed in school and learned what he needed from both cultures, but instead he had to make the best choice for him.  Lipsha was telling his father, Gerry Nanapush, the story of his life, “I told him all the things about me which I owned up to:  how I had quit school for the betterment of my mental powers, and learned on my own;…”  (364)  Lipsha felt  he could not get the knowledge he needed from the education of the government school.  He knew he had the gift of the “touch” and no amount of learning to read and write was going to teach him what he felt was important to his life.  There is more than one form of literacy and that is what the dominant culture needs to realize.  As described in Objective 3b, Lipsha does not want to lose any more of his culture than he has to.  He wants to be able to pursue and nurture the gift given to him by his ancestors.

Lyman Lamartine, on the other hand took what he could from the government school.  He had a very different view of literacy from the view of Lipsha Morrissey.  Lyman felt he was able to better the plight of his people due to the fact he had accepted literacy as defined by the dominant culture and only through this definition could Native Americans prosper.  Literacy as defined by the dominant culture is to be proficient in reading and writing the English language.  The dominant culture has enough problems accepting individuals who look different than they do, but a minority is totally outcast if they also act differently.  Lyman looked back at all of the things that the dominant culture had done to him and his people and one of his thoughts was, “They took your kids away and stuffed the English language in their mouth,” but if he had not been able to read, if he had not known the English language, if he had not been taken away to school, he would not have been educated enough to know about how to use laws to the advantage of his people.  (Erdrich, 326)  Lyman felt it was, “…high past time the Indians smartened up and started using the only leverage they had—federal law.”  (326)  The use of the law would, of course, cause the Native Americans to be assimilated into the dominant culture, but Lyman thought assimilating was the way to get back at the White People.  In other words, beat them at their own game.

The ultimate form of assimilation in Love Medicine can be seen in the character of King Kashpaw, Junior.  King Junior, who spent limited time on the reservation and lived in the city, was already able to read when he entered school.   In fact, “The teacher had said to his mother, ‘”Your boy is very bright, Mrs. Kashpaw.  Did you teach him how to read?”  “I don’t know how he learned it,’ his mother had said.  ‘Unless from that TV program.”’  And that is indeed how little King Junior had learned to read, from watching Sesame Street on television.  Unless it is McDonalds, there is probably nothing more American than Big Bird, Oscar and the gang.  Many American children, including myself, learned a tremendous amount from watching Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers during their formative years.  Also, when given the option, King Junior did not even want to be called by his legacy, Indian name.  The first day of class the teacher asked, “‘King Howard Kashpaw, Junior,’ said his new teacher.  ‘Which of those names would you like to be called?’  He had never thought about it.  ‘Howard,’ he was surprised to hear himself answer.  It was that simple.  After that he was Howard at school.”  (330)  By virtue of the fact Howard was light-skinned, from his mother, and his being educated through the propaganda of the dominant culture as seen on television, Howard became part of the dominant culture.  King Junior had no interest in his Indian heritage if he ever realized that he possessed it to begin with.

          Native Americans were on this ground long before Europeans even knew the ground existed, yet they have been forced to relinquish their way of life to fit into the dominant culture.  As seen in Love Medicine and the articles by Ahern, and Lipka and McCarty, the method by which the dominant culture has chosen to educate them has played a major role in this loss of their culture.

          As we shift to looking at literacy in the Mexican American culture, we will see that they are a mix of having already been here like the Indians and choosing to come here like the Europeans immigrants.  As a result of this mix, Mexican Americans can be thought of as “The Ambivalent Minority” as seen in class objective 3 c. below.

Mexican Americans

3c. Mexican American narrative: “The Ambivalent Minority”
("Ambivalent" means having "mixed feelings" or contradictory attitudes. Mexican Americans may exemplify immigrant culture as individuals or families who come to America for economic gain but suffer social dislocation. On the other hand, much of Mexico's historic experience with the USA resembles the experience of the Native Americans: much of the United States, including Texas, was once Mexico. Does a Mexican who moves from Juarez to El Paso truly immigrate?)

          Some Mexican Americans are similar to Indians in that they were on American soil first because it was not American soil yet.  States like Texas, New Mexico, and California were all part of Mexico before they were taken over by the United States.  The Mexican nationals that lived on this land did not choose to come to America; they were forced to either move off their land, which was no longer Mexico, or learn to become part of the dominant culture.  While other Mexican Americans chose, usually because of economic circumstances, to cross the border into the United States to chase the American Dream like traditional immigrant cultures.  In her critical work “Attitudes toward Education:  Voluntary and Involuntary Immigrants from the Same Families,” Katherine G. Hayes raises a very interesting question, “When does a Mexican become a Mexican-American? When does a voluntary minority become an involuntary minority?”  (254)  The character of Antonio Luna Marez in Rudolfo Anaya’s novel Bless Me, Ultima is a good example of these unique Mexican American literacy issues.        

          Many Mexican American children are raised with Spanish being the primary language spoken in their households.  As pointed out by Hayes, “Majority group children come to school equipped with the language, culture, and values of the school, and minority group children do not. This has a direct and often negative impact on minority children's school success.”  (Hayes, 251)  In Bless Me, Ultima, Spanish is spoken in the home and Tony and his siblings do not learn English until they go to school.  Tony speaking of his sister Deborah observes, “She had been to school two years and she spoke only English.  She was teaching Theresa and half the time I didn’t understand what they were saying.”  (11)  As a first grade student, it is overwhelming enough to walk into a school room with so many other children you do not know, but to not know the language spoken by the majority of the other children and of the teacher would multiply the initial anxiety enormously.  Also, as observed by Tony’s household, after Mexican American children reach a certain age, they may no longer be able to communicate effectively with others in their own home.

          Hayes deals with the Ogbu model for minority education in her article.  This model was developed by John Ogbu and,

According to the Ogbu model, an important factor in determining the school adjustment and academic performance of minority children is their minority type, voluntary or involuntary.  Voluntary minorities come from those groups who have moved to the United States in search of greater economic and educational opportunities.”  (252)

Anthony Marez is an example of both a voluntary and an involuntary immigrant.  His family is originally from Mexico, but moves just across the border to the city because his mother wants her children to have the advantages she thinks the city can offer, like education.  Tony’s father, however, was happier in Mexico riding the range and living a less settled life.  Tony’s mother, a Luna, comes from a very stable family of farmers who are rooted deep into the soil they work.  She has visions of Tony following in her family’s ways and becoming the next leader of their family and their community while Tony’s father lives with the dream of heading west to California.  So, part of Tony, the Luna part, is a voluntary immigrant is being pushed to get an education and become a scholar; and the other part, the Marez part, wonders if the old ways are the right ways and should be upheld.  What happens in the case of older children who are forced to migrate because it is their parents desire to move to America?  Are these young adults voluntary or involuntary immigrants?  What happens to them if they do not want to assimilate?  And in all fairness, they would have the hardest time assimilating because their formative years would have been spent in another language and another culture.  It has to be hard for these individuals to get their bearings in their new home.

          An often overlooked group when dealing with the issue of literacy is the adults who immigrate to create a better life for their family.  These individuals may not have been able to read and write in Spanish because they were too poor to go to school and they had to work to survive.  The plight of these adults is shown most eloquently in Pat Mora’s poem, “Senora X No More.”

          my hand and tongue knot, but she guides

          and I dig the tip of my pen into that white.

          I carve my crooked name, and again at night

          until my hand and arm are sore,

          I carve my crooked name,

          my name.  (lines 20-25)

As a member of the dominant culture it is hard for me to understand how a person can live until adulthood and be unable to write their own name.

          Some minorities try to uphold and value the ways of the culture they came from.  As described by Hayes, “Primary cultural differences are those that existed before any two specific cultural groups came into contact. Voluntary minorities often continue to practice and maintain their own customs even after contact.”  (253)  Holding onto the old culture can be seen with Tony through the story of the golden carp.  The day school ended for the summer break, Tony was walking home and he ran into Samuel, a classmate.  Samuel asked Tony to go fishing.  While they were fishing, Samuel told Tony an old Indian story about the golden carp which was considered a god to the Indians.  The story was very old and had been handed down to Samuel as a story told orally just as he was telling it to Tony.  The story was of “the people” who lived in the valley and were told by their gods they could eat anything but the carp.  These people became hungry and there was nothing left to eat but the carp, so they ate it and the gods punished them by turning them into the forbidden fish.  One of the gods felt for his people and wanted to be with them so he was turned into the golden carp and was said to still live in the waters to that very day.  Tony was confused by this story because it pitted his two worlds against each other, the Catholic world which is learned through catechism lessons or school, and the world of the golden carp and the old ways which are passed down from generation to generation orally.  This confusion of his two worlds continues when Tony finally gets home and tells his mother he has been promoted two grades and will be in third grade the next year.  Tony’s mother is very happy, “Grande, Deborah, Theresa!  Come quick!  Tony had been promoted two grades!  Oh I knew he would be a man of learning, maybe a priest”  she crossed herself and sobbed as she held me tightly.”  Tony also notes, “Ultima was very happy too.  “This one learns as much in one day as most do in a year,” she smiled.  I wondered if she knew about the golden carp.”  (81)  As a member of the dominant culture it is fun and interesting to learn about other cultures, but we can always take what we want and walk away.  If you are the member of a minority culture, you cannot walk away, you have to learn to reconcile and deal with both.  The Mexican American school child is locked between his or her culture at home which might consist of multiple generations, and with Spanish being the only language spoken; and the dominant culture where he or she may not be able to communicate because of the language barrier.  How does this child, at the age of five, leave the only environment he or she has ever known to enter an environment where they are not the dominant culture?  These children have to start at that moment reconciling between the ways of the loving family they trust and the stranger who they share little in common with, not the least of which is the language.

          Katherine Hayes followed a group of Mexican American students who were caught between these two worlds for a period of time to see how they performed in school.  She interviewed and observed these students and their parents and noted how the parents did believe in the “power of education to improve one’s station in life,” and, “They expressed those beliefs to their children.”  (258)  It is very important for any parent, not just a minority parent, to emphasize the importance of learning to their children.  It is important for parents to create a welcome, learning environment at home.  Tony’s mother understands the importance of education and wants him to learn, but for her own reasons, not for his.  His mother begins from his very first day of school preparing him to become a scholar and a priest.  Tony’s mother exclaims, “An education will make him a scholar, like—like the old Luna priest.”  And his father retorts, “A scholar already, on his first day of school!”  His mother asserts back, “Yes!”…“You know the signs at his birth were good.  You remember, Grande, you offered him all the objects of life when he was just a baby, and what did he choose, the pen and the paper—“  (54)  His mother’s lofty expectations only add to Tony’s confusion about what is the right way with the world.  He realizes as soon as he enters the school the old ways cannot help him there, and yet he still makes the choice to work hard and excel.

          All people should strive for some form of communication with each other.  People should also strive to respect each other’s cultures and values.  This is especially true for the dominant American culture, because we were, and to some extent still are, the New World that others look at as the land flowing with milk and honey.  We who are members of the dominant culture need to respect the differences in the minorities around us instead of assuming that everyone should conform to the way we live.  Minority groups should be given the ability to learn the basics of literacy by whatever method is best for them and minority cultures should be celebrated and recognized by all.        

Works Cited

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Anaya, Rudolfo. Bless Me, Ultima.  New York:  Grand Central Publishing, 1972.

Cutler, Martha J. “Dismantling "The Master's House": Critical Literacy in Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.”  The Johns Hopkins University Press 19.1 (Winter, 1996):  209-225.

Douglass, Frederick. Selections from, Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass an American Slave; Written by Himself. Boston: The Anti-Slavery Office, 1845.  http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/texts/AfAm/slavenarrs/Douglassed.htm

Equaiano, Olaudah. Selections from, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. London, 1789.  http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/texts/AfAm/slavenarrs/equianonarr.htm

Erdrich, Louise.  Love Medicine.  New York:  Harper Perennial, 1993.

Gates, Jr., Henry Louis, ed.  The Classic Slave Narritives.  New York:  Signet Classics, 2002.

Hayes, Katherine G.  “Attitudes toward Education:  Voluntary and Involuntary Immigrants from the Same Families.”  Anthropology & Education Quarterly 23.3 (September, 1992):  250-267.

Lipka, Jerry and Teresa L. McCarty.  “Changing the Culture of Schooling:  Navajo and Yup’ik Cases.”  Anthropology & Education Quarterly 25.3 (September, 1994):  266-284.

Mora, Pat. Senora X No More.  Online.  http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/texts/Mexhisp/poems/MoraPSenoraX.htm

Richards, Jeffrey H. “Samuel Davies and the Transatlantic Campaign for Slave Literacy in Virginia.”  The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 111.4 (2003):  333-378.