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LITR 5831 Seminar in
Multicultural Literature
American Immigrant Literature |
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Texts we're studying today are all immigrant narratives.
For example, opening of Sui Sin Far's "In the Land of the Free":
"See, Little one--the hills in the morning sun. There is thy home for years to come. It is very beautiful and thou wilt be very happy there. . . . there is where thy father is making a fortune for thee . . . "
Or opening pages of "In the American Society":
"When my father took over the pancake house, it was to send my little sister and me to college. . . . "Smart guys thinking in advance." . . . [Mother] didn't work at the supermarket, but she had made it to the rank of manager before she left, and this had giver her . . . new ideas about herself, and about America . . . ."
Certainly recognizable as the American Dream story--
FNF dialogue
welcome input on how to do these better, or if worth doing
problem of defining "nonfiction"
definitions of "creative nonfiction"
Reading discussion
open by opening floor to questions, comments, exclamations about any texts?
share new paperbacks
1. How do these stories exemplify the model minority or ideal immigrant narrative? Compare stories' endings to "Soap & Water" as Jewish-American model minority narrative.
2. Compare / contrast to minority texts by African Americans.
Default questions for every class:
1. Why does gender identity continually emerge as an issue in immigrant / multicultural studies? What forms of change? Consider tradition > modernity.
Objective 5. To observe and analyze the effects of
immigration and assimilation on
cultural units or identities:
o family: In traditional Old World, extended
families prevail. In modern New World, assimilated people live in
nuclear families (often divorced) or by themselves.
o gender: Old World gender identities tend
to be traditional, with clear divisions of power, labor, and expression. In New World, gender may be de-emphasized in favor of equality, merit, and
other gender-neutral concepts.
o community and laws: Old World culture is often
organized by traditional or family laws and a distant, autocratic state.
New World culture conforms to impersonal laws and a democratic,
regulated, but self-governing state.
o religion: In traditional societies of the Old
World, religion and political or cultural identity are closely related.
Modern cultures of the New World tend toward a secular state and private
religion. (Religion is often
the ethnic identity factor that resists assimilation the longest—but not
necessarily forever. Catholic, Islamic, or Hindu immigrants may
generally conform to mainstream dominant culture while resisting
conversion to the Protestant or Evangelical Christianity of the dominant
culture.)
o Population demographics:
Immigrants often come from
third-world, traditional, or subsistence societies that value high rates
of childbearing in the face of high infant mortality and short life
spans. In contrast, first-world cultures like blue-state America,
Canada, western Europe, and Japan limit numbers of children for the sake
of prolonging individual lives. The resulting differences in family
dynamics and education and income levels fuel many of the conflicts
between the dominant and immigrant cultures.
o Finally, how do immigrants change America?
Jen 158 father took over the pancake house > send little sister Mona and me to college
my father started to talk about his grandfather and the village he had reigned over in China
"Like that Godfather in the movie" . . . distributed paychecks . . . sometimes two envelopes
"Your father thnks this is China" . . . back to her mending
159 "But this here is the U-S-of-A!"
supermarket, rank of manager
new ideas about herself, and about America, and about what was what in general. She had opinions now . . . .
now interested in espadrilles, and wall paper . . . town country club
"Your father doesn't believe in joining the American society . . . He wants to have his own society."
in my father's mind, a family owed its head a / degree of loyalty that left no room for dissent
165 "What I need today is a son."
Sui Sin Far
5 You do not know--man--
Moon
13 only son of his parents, and as the eldest he should provide for family
Model Minority
Jen 158 father took over the pancake house > send little sister Mona and me to college
166 "sponsoring them to become permanent residents?" [cf Land of Free: both work system]
168 I dug out a book I had brought.
170 "I do not take orders like a servant."
"American Society" 161 my father conceived of laws as speed bumps rather than curbs.
Sui Sin Far
5 the law of the land
"America is a system of laws, not men." (i. e., it doesn't matter who you are; the system endures and operates regardless of birth, privilege, etc. Obviously this is only more or less true, but it's true enough to remain an operative myth.)
9 just common white man . . . smiling ironically [doesn’t take personally; cf. "Law of the land"]
10 the precious paper . . . right to possession of their own child
Hayslip
108 spirits guarding Safeway opened door with unseen hands
117 In America I was as big as my voice
124 vision of stag at lake
125 good and evil lie down together and peace blooms:
America
Starving now > great American banquet
J. Christine Moon, "'What Color would you Like, Ma'am?"
4
Thien admired his family for their hard work. . . . preferred admiring their
hard work at the shop from a distance. After all, he would be a college student
soon, and every single member of family counted on his future successes.
They would all dream and talk about him becoming Dr. Thien
Nguyen.
10
His parents worked hard, and he knew it was all for him.
12
felt ashamed around his American friends, whose parents were teachers, lawyers,
dentists, and real estate agents. . . .
Thien and his entire family, his parents, three sisters, two aunts, two uncles,
and four cousins shared a two-story duplex with one bathroom in each.
13 Thien’s job to successfully finish high school in the top ten and get into his dream university; go to medical school and become a doctor
18
opened his AP study books, and rummaged through his backpack for his calculator
and pencils.
20
he didn’t want his father to eat alone, so they sat together talking about
school and when his college applications were due.
4. What relationships do the Asian American characters have with other ethnic groups?
160 "not just the blacks don't believe in slavery"
162 "I know just how it is. It's a secret of course, but you know, my natural father was Jewish. Can you see it? Just look at my skin."
163 "some black family's been waiting so long, they're going to sue," I said.
163 drove our head cook, Fernando, crazy
167 a "bash" she was throwing for a friend of hers going to Greece"
"his wife left him and his daughter doesn't speak to him, and poor Jeremy just feels so unloved"
168 Jeremy Brothers, a slim well-proportioned man, Roman nose
Moon
2c. Stages of the Immigrant Narrative
Stage 1: Leave the Old World (“traditional
societies” in Europe, Asia, or Latin America).
Stage 2: Journey to the New World (here, the USA &
modern culture)
Stage 3: Shock, resistance, exploitation, and
discrimination (immigrant experience here overlaps with or resembles the
minority experience)
Stage 4:
Assimilation to
dominant American culture
and loss of ethnic identity (departs or differs from
minority experience)
Stage 5: Rediscovery or reassertion of ethnic
identity (usu. only partial)
Is the immigrant narrative comparable to a
conversion experience?
Hayslip 114-15 “leave them alone, or they’ll never become
independent”
[use question about what learn about dominant culture]
Moon 16 a young girl about his age. He instantly noticed her long, blonde hair swept back into a sleek ponytail, her blue eyes intense even behind the lightly tinted sunglasses she left on indoors. [dominant culture, Linda Deemer]
Gish Jen, "In the American Society," 158-171
1. His Own Society
158 father took over the pancake house > send little sister Mona and me to college
we got rich right away
my father started to talk about his grandfather and the village he had reigned over in China
"Like that Godfather in the movie" . . . distributed paychecks . . . sometimes two envelopes
"you people"
"Your father thnks this is China" . . . back to her mending
159 "But this here is the U-S-of-A!"
supermarket, rank of manager
new ideas about herself, and about America, and about what was what in general. She had opinions now . . . .
now interested in espadrilles, and wall paper . . . town country club
dad would have to weear a jacket
how little he cared what anyone thought
"Your father doesn't believe in joining the American society . . . He wants to have his own society."
"Who cares what he thinks?" But of course we all did care
in my father's mind, a family owed its head a / degree of loyalty that left no room for dissent
160 To embrace what he embraced was to love, and to embrace something else was to betray him.
demanded a similar sort of loyalty of his workers . . . more like servants
asked them to fix radiators and trim hedges, not only at the restaurant, but at our house.
"not just the blacks don't believe in slavery"
"They want to be robots."
kept on like a horse in his ways
service was as bad as the food
an entire side of fries slaloming down a lady's massif centrale
stuffing comments box
161 Skip, a skinny busboy (fired)
Chinese guy named Booker
on the lam from deportation authorities
pro-KMT (Kuomintang, Chinese People's Nationalist Party)
phony social security card
"I do not think, anyway, that it is against law to hire me, only to be me."
my father conceived of laws as speed bumps rather than curbs.
162 My father didn't tell my mother about Booker, and my mother didn't tell my father about the country club.
"you people"
"I know just how it is. It's a secret of course, but you know, my natural father was Jewish. Can you see it? Just look at my skin."
"Chinese have a saying . . . To do nothing is better than to overdo."
Callie
163 "some black family's been waiting so long, they're going to sue," I said.
Booker . . . a model worker
reliable even in sickness
Ronald, Lynn, Dirk, and Cedric
problems with their legal status
shou hou--skinny monkeys
cigarettes
drove our head cook, Fernando, crazy
Operation Identification
164 huge tattooed fist, ass frying on grill
immigration investigator
165 refused lunch on the house
called our neighbor's law student son
illegal for aliens to work, but it wasn't to hire them
"I like to talking to the judge" (traditional society as personal, x-professional)
"This is not China"
"I'm not give him money unless he wants it."
"the province comes before the town, the town comes before the family"
"A restaurant is not a town"
"What I need today is a son."
166 judge's clerk, compliments and offers of free pancakes
"sponsoring them to become permanent residents?" [cf Land of Free: both work system]
instead of moving South, he had moved to the basement
2. In the American Society
167 a "bash" she was throwing for a friend of hers going to Greece"
"his wife left him and his daughter doesn't speak to him, and poor Jeremy just feels so unloved"
"a pair of little princesses"
shopping for a suit
refused to remove the price tag
168 entire cupful of Mrs. Lardner's magic punch
I dug out a book I had brought.
Jeremy Brothers, a slim well-proportioned man, Roman nose
169 "not my man, not my man at all"
"Do you speak Chinese?" x
"Who are you?"
Ralph Chang
She straightened the collar . . .
"seen drunks before. You must have them in China."
170 "never" x 5 (Lear)
"I'll help you off with your coat."
"I do not take orders like a servant."
171 hurled the coat into the pool too
"That was great, Dad" . . .
gleam of his white shirt . . .
left those keys in my jacket pocket
Sui Sin Far, "Land of the Free"
3 See . . . hills in the morning sun,
very beautiful . . . you will be happy [American Dream, orientalized?]
3 Thy father is making a fortune [American Dream]
assimilation and resistance
11 tried to hide
himself in the folds of the white woman’s skirt
cf. Erdrich story on American Indian
child taken by papers
but child is on way in: Christianized,
identification with whites
5 the law of the land
"America is a system of laws, not men." (i. e., it doesn't matter who you are; the system endures and operates regardless of birth, privilege, etc. Obviously this is only more or less true, but it's true enough to remain an operative myth.)
9 just common white man . . . smiling ironically [doesn’t take personally; cf. "Law of the land"]
10 the precious paper . . . right to possession of their own child
(cf. Chrystos poem on "papers")
"American Society" 161 my father conceived of laws as speed bumps rather than curbs.
Far 5 wife cares for parents in law
Jen 165 "A restaurant is not a town," said my mother.
165 "What I need today is a son."
166 Booker and Cedric hailed [my father]
as their savior, their Buddha incarnate. He was like a father to them, they said
. . . .
Asian American immigration
Chinese Immigrant Literature & Film (UCLA)
Chinese-American labor on Transcontinental Railroad
Scots Irish review
add absence of voice or identifiable literary tradition, distrust of institutions as minority
Scots-Irish deny ethnicity: "We're just Americans. Why can't everyone just be an American?"--i.e., an American like me!
However, Scots-Irish / Red-State culture increasingly plays ethnicity game of victimization and grievance: "Take Back America!"
If Red State culture becomes ethnic instead of "just American," part of its rhetorical and symbolic power diminishes.
Le Ly Hayslip, from Child of War, Woman of Peace (IV2 105-125)
Hayslip (b. 1949)
105 farmers, village
communist lookout > arrest, torture, rape by SVN
housekeeper pregnant by employer
black market
Ed Munro > San Diego
1970s-81 Vietnamese refugees
under-educated, rural refugees
106 husband and extended family for acculturation
NGO > humanitarian x trauma
memoir > film by Oliver Stone
first grocery-shopping trip
107 stern moral upbringing
tunic worn by VN ladies since ancient times
Ed's huffy tone (fnf)
young but not stupid or without experience (fnf)
dressed for beach--or bedroom
local Safeway (nonfiction; fiction wouldn't have said "local")
108 housewives and schoolgirls = sleaziest nightclubs (nonfiction: direct reporting + reference to shared reality outside text)
if women = tramps, men = bums
war zone: temptation = provocation (fnf)
spirits guarding Safeway opened door with unseen hands
American markets x-smell (disease, markets)
canned, packaged, wrapped
Freon or cleanser or cardboard
"fruit hotel" as if (fnf)
108 too many choices
109 rice vs steak and potatoes, thick sandwiches
Greens, rice, noodle soup
Dozen names for rice
Uncle Ben’s = trusted friend
110 old reflexes > resale on black market
Male clerk, nasty stare = Vietnamese in Danang
Warrior’s look: hate and fear and sorrow all mixed
So fed up with the war they hated anyone who reminded
them of it
110 Never
really hated American soldiers fnf
limited flashback
Didn’t take it personally
Americans’ funny racial differences: big noses, round
eyes, long faces
111 take it personally . . . booby traps as 12-year-old
conscript for Viet Cong
War and “real life” now opposite as night and day
War
guilt (cf. Jews in Holocaust, survivors’ guilt)
fnf
refugee
People can reason . . . but when condemned for their
race, they react like cornered rats
Ancestral spirits, father’s spirit
More than a stranger in a strange new land . . . stranger
to myself
112 check > how Americans eat so much
Congratulate Ed on his beautiful young wife; cf. TV or
lawn mower
Pouring tea, looking pretty, caring for my children
Urchins
Wondered what these “wise” Americans new about life and
living, let alone death and survival
113 cozy homes, bulging refrigerators, big fast cars,
noisy TV sets
X back-breaking labor, bone-grinding poverty,
death’s-edge starvation
TV war > imagine wailing villagers, unseen by camera
How many lifetimes we villagers crammed into our first 20
years on earth
“lovely young bride” = old lady
114 Erma: her dream world
Family concluded . . . a streetwalker
Working longer and harder than anyone
Handling [children[ . . . to learn love and affection
114-15 “leave them alone, or they’ll never become
independent”
[use question about what learn about dominant culture]
115 instant gratification and miracle conveniences
x-spontaneous show of love through labor of heart and
hands
being married to “my father”
unable
to communicate with anyone in the ways I knew, felt like stone in bottom of sea
fnf
war
news from VN
fnf
116 TV news = ghosts of a hundred relatives, family
friends, playmates
[Baby
Jessica!]
fnf
The enemy x one of them
Our
war
But I
didn’t know the words, even in Vietnamese [fnf
, irony]
117 blood relations
Holding my little boy like a prize
Big desolate America swallowed us up
Vietnam delicate teacup > America banquet platter
Inviting hungry immigrants
Dreams > 121
Greedy Republicans
In America I was as big as my voice
118 episode omittable, reality pressure
Las Vegas
119 baby sitter
119-20 leave my child with stranger
120 cf. casino and market
$10 in Danang
121 Vietnam Veterans; cf. Monkey Bridge
Ed’s
sons fnf
See
each other as people; cf. long-lost cousin
fnf
[fiction dependent on family relation or courtship;
memoir accepts contingency of relations]
All orphans of the same shattered dream > 117
Funny white dust
122 snow
It burn!
More American magic
Buddhist heaven and hell
Atone for sins of many past lives x deathbed confession
123 [humor]
Atoning for a lot of bad karma
124 vision of stag at lake
Buddha compassion [cf. M H Kingston novel, imposition of
old myths on new land; cf. Pilgrims]
125 good and evil lie down together and peace blooms:
America
Starving now > great American banquet
J. Christine Moon, "'What Color would you Like, Ma'am?"
1 basketball and Play Station
late nights with friends and not thinking about anything else but having fun [fiction]
2 throwing his backpack on the kitchen floor [fiction]
3 his mother yelling, “Get up! Get up! Tanya not come to shop today. I need you come in.”
the family business: Lavish Nails
nail polish and toe separators [realistic detail] was embarrassing, and surely, as a man, he would feel [fnf]
4
Thien admired his family for their hard work. . . . preferred admiring their
hard work at the shop from a distance. After all, he would be a college student
soon, and every single member of family counted on his future successes.
They would all dream and talk about him becoming Dr. Thien
Nguyen.
7 helping women soak their feet, turning on the back massager, stripping off their old nail polish with acetone.
7
Thien often wondered what it would be like to do household chores for allowance
like all the white kids at his school.
8 Some of his friends received money for their grades. Even his friend Brandon . . .
all the A’s received in his honors classes
They always preached to him how difficult it was to escape Vietnam as refugees
and come to the United States with nothing.
9 often felt guilty for not helping more at the nail salon. Every penny his parents made meant so much to them. Even though they didn’t have much, Thien had always felt that his parents did their best to give him the things he needed without hesitation
large two-story homes with garages holding multiple cars . . . family vacations for weeks at a time
parents were able to take off work—and able to afford the expense.
10 fantasizing of what it would be like to have friends come over and eat pizza and watch a movie. He could never do that since his home barely had enough space for the people already living there
His parents worked hard, and he knew it was all for him.
12 felt ashamed around his American friends, whose parents were teachers, lawyers, dentists, and real estate agents.
Thien and his entire family, his parents, three sisters, two aunts, two uncles,
and four cousins shared a two-story duplex with one bathroom in each.
13 only son of his parents, and as the eldest he should provide for family
13 Thien’s job to successfully finish high school in the top ten and get into his dream university.
go to medical school and become a doctor
As a doctor, he could medically help his family as well. His parents had gone without medical insurance for nearly twenty
years.
14 Everyone looked up from their working stations and started speaking in Vietnamese all at once. His aunt Thao pointed with her rubber gloves who was next for a pedicure, and who needed a French tip manicure.
15 dialogue
16 snip away her cuticles, exfoliate her calves, and massage her feet and ankles firmly
16 a young girl about his age. He instantly noticed her long, blonde hair swept back into a sleek ponytail, her blue eyes intense even behind the lightly tinted sunglasses she left on indoors. [dominant culture, Linda Deemer]
17 background . . . everyone chattering in Vietnamese
could see his mother’s intense concentration. His father was working the front desk
thick Vietnamese accent
18 His phone said he missed three calls from friends
His mother and sister were heading home to get dinner started for the family, while his father would go down the street to the convenience store to work the evening shift.
18
opened his AP study books, and rummaged through his backpack for his calculator
and pencils.
20 set the table for his father’s late dinner and looked over his sisters’ homework assignments
His small living room could barely hold all their furniture, but the pieces were all unique and separate from one another. . . . garage sales
he didn’t want his father to eat alone, so they sat together talking about
school and when his college applications were due.
25
images from his AP study book swarmed through his head, and he joyfully thought
about fun ahead with basketball and video games.