Meryl Bazaman

How Initiation Impacts the American Dream’s Outcomes: Realized Potentialities and Limitations of the Immigrant Narrative

            In his book Honey from the Rock, Jewish-American author Lawrence Kushner writes about the rite of wilderness initiation accordingly: “You are left alone each day with an immediacy that astonishes, chastises, and exults” (22). His description of loneliness, want, tribulation, and accomplishment is one that I believe can be directly applied to the Immigrant Narrative. However, the course’s texts demonstrate that his description not only excludes how initiation occurs within minority narratives but also denies the darker aspects of The American Dream or realities of the American Nightmare. In fact, Kushner’s depiction can be particularly problematic when discussing New World Immigrants because it does not take into account the varying effects of having a dual immigrant-minority identity. Yet, when one ignores the presumed successful final dream outcome and variations of adaptation, the theme of initiation as rite of passage appears to be a recurring fixture in American life. By demonstrating how Kushner’s descriptors converge and diverge in the Immigrant Narrative texts, both potentialities and limitations of the Immigrant Narrative can be understood and examined.

            So how does one understand scenarios where Kushner’s descriptions of the initiation theme give the semblance of application to the Immigrant Narrative? In my Midterm essay “Immigrant Land, America,” I discussed Andrew Carnegie’s dedication to learning as a demonstration of the nervous energy that fueled his ability to make the American Dream his American reality (1). I believe my initial assessment of Carnegie’s nervous energy can also be a consequence of his successful initiation through willful assimilation (Objective 2a and Objective 3c). As a result of finding his role within the dominant culture by assimilating, Carnegie reacts with mobility and enthusiasm. His ascension from immigrant peon to American mogul is possible because he has been astonished upon arrival, dealt with the emotional and physical chastisements of hard work, and exulted in the products of his American success and willful melting. 

            This American styled success through initiation is also demonstrated in the plight of Abraham Cahan’s greenhorn character Gitl. In “Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto,” Gitl’s psychological passage and successful initiation occurs during the finalization of her divorce, where she abandons the Old World extended family structure for the New World’s nuclear structure (Objective 6). She is described by the narrator poignantly: “For, indeed, at the bottom of her heart she felt herself far from desolate, being conscious of the existence of a man who was to take care of her and her child, and even relishing the prospect of the new life in store for her” (35-36). Although she is at first overwhelmed by her ex-husband’s assimilation and America’s cultural expectations where family structures no longer applies, Gitl succeeds by developing her non-familial associations that lead her to a new, American styled marriage. By finally severing the ties between her person and her Old World marriage, Gitl can now relish in her accomplishment of accepting a new, American communal form of order and new, American-style marriage. Also, in my second research post “The Immigrant and Cultural Narrative Origins of Sheila Broflovski,” Gitl’s acceptance of her new role consolidates her cultural narrative with the Immigrant Narrative. This consolidated congruency between the Immigrant narrative and her cultural narrative allows her not only to personify the assimilation process but gives her access to a successful American Dream outcome. Furthermore, as alluded to by Tanya Stanley’s essay, “Division to Diversity,” Gitl’s initation can now mirror that of the dominant culture. By choosing to selectively assimilate and selectively pass, Gitl’s transitional passage mirrors that of the dominant culture.    

            However, success like Carnegie and new marriage fulfillment similar to Gitl’s are not always the joyous consequences of initiation; rather, there are occasions when both marriage and success can result in misery and sensations of failure. As demonstrated in Eugene O’Neill’s autobiographical play “Long Day’s Journey into Night,” the wayward son Jaime recites the following lines from Rossetti to his land-owning, renowned actor father Tyrone: “Look in my face/ My name is Might-Have-Been; I am also called No More, Too Late, Farewell” (171). Although his tone is meant to be sarcastic, Jaime’s mockery stings his father Tyrone because it encapsulates his feelings of regret for what could have been had his success resulted in different outcomes. Remorseful that achieving the American Dream has cost him an orderly marriage and meaningful involvement with his family (Objective 6), Tyrone’s success diverges in that it brings him no joy or exultation—only yearning. His quest for the American Dream has resulted in his living nightmare (The American Nightmare) where the recurring pain of functional addiction and an unreachable son is the waking reality in which all hope is lost. . . .

            . . . [T]ales of African Americans migrating from southern U.S states to northern U.S cities further complicate the initiation theme of the Immigrant Narrative. In Toni Cade Bambara’s short story “The Lesson,” the southern U.S born narrator Sylvia finds herself far from exulted when her instructor Miss Moore takes her and her peers to the F.A.O Schwartz toy store. Sylvia’s thoughts in fact reveal her annoyance and confusion blatantly: “But it don’t necessarily have to be that way, she adds then waits for somebody to say that poor people have to wake up and demand their share of the pie and don’t none of us know what kind of pie she talkin about in the first damn place” (151). Not grasping the significance of Miss Moore’s contradictory communal message (Objective 8a), Sylvia’s arrival at the luxurious store catering to those who achieve the American Dream is marked by resistance, a theme that is prevalent in minority narratives. Uncertain of what the pie is and skeptical as to why it is considered so desirable, Bambara’s Sylvia’s momentary astonishment mirrors the Immigrant Narrative’s theme of initiation but offers the alternative conclusion where a questioning defiance is an appropriate final outcome. The importance of her initiation into the world of resistance is one where explanation by the Immigrant Narrative alone is insufficient. It is in this vortex of resistance that the Immigrant Narrative and minority narratives began diverging (Objective 3c) and Kushner’s descriptions for characters like Sylvia that also can be read through the minority narrative are most unreliable and irrelevant.

            Furthermore, Bambara’s resistant Sylvia plays the role of the trickster, a role that both complicates analyzing adherence to the American Dream and offers to challenge that dream. As referenced in my first research post “Trickster Immigrant Resistance or Immigrant Assimilator,” I identified a critical problem with the trickster was that its role of resistance is central to minority narrative. In “The Lesson,” Sylvia’s thoughts and actions blatantly question American Dream values in addition to Kushner’s descriptors. Operating as an exterior voice in opposition to the unmarked voices, trickster Sylvia’s simple act of questioning unravels the American Dream and redefines initiation by making it contingent upon the ability of an individual to question. Her exultation is not in accomplishing what the dominant culture determines is success. Her method for escaping and passing through the American Nightmare is by learning to question, think, and analyze why things are the way they are. Even though Bambara’s character herself doesn’t full understand why she questions or why she is filled with an angry deference, Sylvia is a character on the verge of sense-making. She is close to awakening from her American Nightmare and coming to a different initiation conclusion. 

             Yet, despite its myriad of outcomes, the Immigrant Narrative’s rite of passage initiation maintains a degree of universality. In her essay “Immigrant Narrative as Cultural Narrative,” Katie Vitek refers to the immigrant narrative’s collaborative applicability overtly: “The pattern of the immigrant narrative demonstrates its potential as a cultural narrative because it corresponds to that of a coming-of-age story” (1). Although limiting her perspective to cohesion between cultural narrative and the Immigrant Narrative, Vitek identifies the unifying factor as the rite of passage in her use of the terminology “coming of age.” Although she does not extend upon how the theme is affected by minority narratives, Vitek begins a train of thought that could leave one to conclude that the process of passage articulated in the Immigrant Narrative has universal appeal regardless of its ambiguous outcomes. 

            Still, regardless of this ambiguity, the Immigrant Narrative remains a useful tool for demonstrating how the American Dream and American Nightmare converges and diverges within the Immigrant Narrative, New World Immigrant Narratives, and minority narrative. Exploring how the American Dream is accomplished or not accomplished based on Kushner’s descriptors offers exemplary narratives that provide readers with ways to understand a theme that unifies all Americans.