Marissa Holland

July 2, 2014

Do We Really Need the Analogy? Our Attempt to Simplify Our Complications

            When one begins their education in American history, it is inevitable that the student will be met with some sort of analogy to describe the mixture of the American identities: the melting pot, the salad bowl, the buffet table, or the mosaic painting. The rationale behind these comparisons is to somehow encompass what is a very diverse and unique makeup of a culture into one term that is easily recognized and translated but most importantly taught. Teaching students that the United States is a “melting pot” is much easier than stating we are a country of Crevecoeur’s “mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes” but this is also not true as we now have Eastern and Western Asians, Hispanics, and not to mention our minorities forced into our culture against their will. No, the “melting pot” is much simpler. But have we really done our youth and culture a justice by labeling our population in such limited analogies? What these limitations lead to and seem to cause are the misunderstandings between the different ethnic groups that have resided or are beginning to reside in the US. In his final exam, Carlos MArquina begins to ask a similar question. He states, “So if the melting pot is an inaccurate way of describing the immigrant narrative, how can it be described? Other alternatives have been offered such as the mosaic (Richey final), or the rags-to-riches idea made popular by Andrew Carnegie. These descriptions also fail to take into account the complexities, richness, and possibilities of the immigrant narrative as a vital part of the American narrative as a whole. In order to stick with the food theme, I’d like to propose the American immigrant narrative as a buffet table.” While he has hinted that the existing analogies are inadequate, I presume that all analogies have been and will be inappropriate. The analogies have taught us that there is a mixture of people but what it has left out is the histories and hardships individual groups have faced. These histories more so than the ethnicity itself have done more to shape our culture, so why are they eliminated from our language in schools? An American Immigrant class, specifically literature focused, allows for these personal histories to be taught in congruence with the nation’s factual histories. The analogy doctrine of American history education needs to be forgotten and replaced with a more comprehensive understanding of American Immigration as immigration to America will never truly be “history” as it is in a constant state of progression.

            The “melting pot” begins with the understanding of the American dream: the dream that one can leave their home country, come to America and obtain success for themselves and their families. This is most obviously exemplified to Andrew Carnegie’s autobiography. Carnegie touches on all the stages on what is known as the immigrant narrative: leaving one’s country, traveling to America, meeting opposition, and then returning to one’s culture. We get a glimpse of his relation to the American dream from the song his father would sing to the family, “To the West, to the West, to the land of the free, Where the mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea;

 Where a man is a man even though he must toil And the poorest may gather the fruits of the soil." This is the most quintessential idea of America: the land where even the poor may become rich. Carnegie proved to exemplify many characteristics of the average immigrant: a positive outlook backed by a hard work ethic. Carnegie describes his experience in his autobiography but it reads more like a literature story. The reader is able to not only get a sense of the historical aspects of his journey but also his emotional ties to his experiences. This is what is missing from the existing analogies we place on immigration within our history courses. Not one of the aforementioned analogies has the ability to take into account personal experience, only a literal existence. Literature is the bridge between these gaps meaning an immigration literature course teaches immigration in a more accurate and encompassing manner.

            The same ideas could be said about Anzia Yezierska’s short story “Soap and Water.” The narrator is an immigrant who has come to America in order to pursue her education. She views her education as a way to earn an outlet of self-expression- something she has never felt she possessed as an immigrant. Her story exemplifies the prejudices that the immigrants faced. Although she, much like Carnegie, was very determined and hard working in her education, the prejudices towards her appearance kept her from earning her degree. The narrator states, “She told me that my skin looked oily, my hair unkempt, and my finger-nails sadly neglected. She told me that I was utterly unmindful of the little niceties of the well-groomed lady. She pointed out that my collar did not set evenly; my belt was awry, and there was a lack of freshness in my dress. And she ended with: ‘Soap and water are cheap. Any one can be clean.” This is particularly aggravating for the narrator as the she is forced to work long hours in the laundry itself in order to afford her education. This is the irony found in many narratives of immigrants. Also like Carnegie, the narrator finds a way to assimilate to the dominant culture in order to obtain her goals. This assimilation is vital to the longevity of the immigrant. The new relationship that the narrator forms with a former teacher is her assimilation. She states, “I went out from Miss Van Ness’s office, singing a song of new life: “America! I found America.” Had this story been told in a history book, we would have lost the emotions behind the narrator’s frustrations. We would not understand why the narrator was having such a difficult time adjusting to the new culture. We would not have rejoiced with her when she found her own “America.” She would have been another ingredient in an inadequate analogy.

            What, though, complicates the analogy doctrine even further? Yes, it eliminates individuality, but it also eliminates entire groups. A common factor between Carnegie and the narrator of “Soap and Water” is that they were white immigrants. While they faced their own persecutions, they did not face the same persecutions of an immigrant who physically looked drastically different than the dominant culture. An understood characteristic of a melting pot or salad bowl is that while the parts go in different, their end result is the same: a stew or a salad. This is not true of immigration at all. Some groups will never and could never achieve a true assimilation: they will never have the same end result.

            In Chitra Divakaruni’s short story “Silver Pavements, Golden Roofs” the main character Jayanti tells of her coming to America. Jayanti is from India and coming to America to also pursue her education. She has the same journey as Carnegie in that they were both very hopeful about their future in America and believed in the ideals of the “American Dream.” Within history, South Asian immigrants are known as a “model minority” meaning they exemplify all the qualities that America likes in its immigrants: hard working, positive, and will eventually achieve a higher level of success than even the average American. This presents two problems for Jayanti. She will endure the hardships of the immigrant but will also endure the hardships of the minority which have their own histories. Jayanti is faced with her first act of discrimination when she and her aunt meet a group of young boys in the street. The boys begin to yell racial remarks towards the two women. Jayanti states, “Now the others take up the word, chanting it in high singson voices that have not broken yet, nigger, nigger, until I want to scream, or weep. Or laugh, because can’t they see that I’m not black at all but an Indian girl of good family?” This is where the average immigrant patterns begin to mix. Because Jayanti will be associated with the minority status, her ability to assimilate in the same sense of Carnegie and the other narrator is severely hindered. While she may be able to associate within American culture and share American ideals, she will always be a different race and therefore subjected to the minority status. Where do these types of relationships come into play within existing analogies? In simple terms, they do not: they are omitted completely. If one was only studying immigration from a historical view point and was not being exposed to literature that also speaks on the same issues, they have missed the point that Jayanti is being exposed to two set of ideals that are going to affect her assimilation.

            If Jayanti was experiencing discrimination as a minority but was more literally an immigrant, what are the differences between her and a person who truly is from a minority culture? American Indians and African Americans are the two largest groups that do not fit the traditional molds of American immigrants. American Indians most obviously are not immigrants at all: they were here before any settling European. African Americans were brought to America against their will and were forced into slavery. They hold very little connection to the norms of an immigrant narrative because they did not immigrant voluntarily. The cultures make up a large percentage of the American population but where is their history in the traditional “melting pot” type analogies? Many of these citizens hold very little connection to the American dream and do not wish to assimilate in any form. For those that do however, they will often hit a brick wall that will cease their true assimilation. In the short story “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara, the narrator Sylvia, an African American child, is faced with the realization that her assimilation and acceptance into the dominant culture will be more difficult because of her race. Her teacher Miss Moore brings Sylvia and her classmates to the expensive toy store for a “lesson.” Whether this lesson is about finances, goals, and unequal wealth distribution is not clear. However, what Sylvia is faced with is her own revelations about the culture in which she has grown. She herself is not a first generation citizen of the country but she is still within the minority. She never states whether she is aware of her minority status during her life but she is definitely aware by the time they reach home after the outing. She states, “Something weird is goin on, I can feel it in my chest…ain’t nobody gonna beat me at nothing.” Sylvia has become aware that she will have to work harder and longer than the traditional immigrant in order to assimilate into the culture. She will not easily be an ingredient in a “melting pot.” Once again, our existing analogies fail in encompassing our true histories. These histories become better understood through such minority literature, not our history classes.

            I have also fallen victim to the misconceptions of the inadequate analogies. In my first research post, I looked at the histories of the gypsy immigration and assimilation. While my research fell short, my real short coming was I was trying to force the gypsy culture into the “melting pot” analogy: I was even trying to lump them together with other minorities. What I needed to ask myself was “Did the gypsies care about an analogy? No, then why do I?” Like the American Indian, the gypsies were very concerned with maintaining their own culture with very little interaction with the dominant culture. But unlike African Americans, it does not seem that they are ever concerned with assimilation. They do not even compare with Andrew Carnegie. Although they are volunteer immigrants, they did not come in search of the American dream, they came out of necessity. The gypsy finances depend on trade. America was a place with booming trade opportunity. My own reliance on an analogy led me to research into incorrect questions. These analogies need to be abandoned in our doctrines in favor of literature based education. Literature gives not only facts and histories but also emotions and mindsets. These transcend analogies or even history itself.