Marissa Carmack Holland

So Close, but Still So Far: New World Immigrants as Minorities

In recent years, American immigration patterns have shifted becoming mainly fueled by the western hemisphere migrations. In contrast to the early American immigrants whose homes were much further away, these new world immigrants have faced issues of their own. What do you do when “home” is less than a few hundred miles away? Or in the Mexican American cases, the same piece of land in which you are currently residing? Do you feel the need to assimilate? Are you truly an immigrant or simply (or not so simply) a minority? Then there is the issue of race. Many Afro-Caribbean immigrants get lumped with the African American minority because of color coding: they have the same skin color but very different nationalities. These are questions that have plagued the hearts of many of these immigrants and seem to have lasting personal and cultural identity issues.

In her personal essay “Being Mexican American,” Sonia Guevara attempts to articulate what it means to be American but still feel patriotic about your home country. Unlike traditional immigrants who seem ambivalent to leave behind their past in favor of the new dominant culture, many Mexican Americans are skeptical of this assimilation. Guevara states, “I guess this is like many people’s story; our parents came for the American Dream in hopes that their children might someday live a better life than the one they lived. This may sound like a great thing to many people back in Mexico but I sometimes feel like it’s more of a burden than a good thing.” She continues to express how she feels as if she is neither fully American nor Mexican. In America, she is associated with Mexico by the dominant culture; however, in Mexico she is seen as the rich girl from the US. Where then is her home? “I’m stuck in a world where I really don’t fit in. It’s weird, I stick out when I go to Mexico. Over there I’m the foreigner. The weird American child who “has money.” But here, I’m also this weird child who has this weird accent and eats weird looking food. Where am I supposed to fit in? Did my parents ever think about that? I don’t think so.” What complicates the Mexican American immigrant status is that one could argue that they are not immigrants at all. Most of the bordering states were once Mexico and lost during the Mexican-American War. It brings to mind the idea that “I did not cross the borders, the borders crossed me.” Because of the issues, many Mexican Americans do not attempt to assimilate but instead create their own mini neighborhoods within the dominant culture. With such a high number of these types of citizens, it is easy to understand that such assimilation may be impossible. Like the father of famous Latino singer Selena states, “We have to be more Mexican than the Mexicans and more American than the Americans, both at the same time. It’s exhausting!”

In his short story “El Patron,” Nash Candelaria tells of a Mexican American father and son relationship that is feeling the strains of cultural ties and differences. As the father, Senor Martinez is furious with his son for trying to escape his responsibilities to the American military during a draft. He states, “The men in our family have never shirked their duty!” What complicates his stance is that Senor Martinez has ties to both the Mexican army and the American army having served or had family that served in both. Who is his son supposed to be loyal to? His heritage or his adopted country? His unsureness seems to be the cause of his reluctance to support the US battles. His son feels no call to duty. In an imaginary conversation, the narrator asserts that he may state, “So we could come back if we survived, to our jobs as busboys and ditch diggers: that’s why I have to go to college. I don’t want to go to the Middle East and fight and die for some oil company when you can’t even afford to own a car.” While he may be an American citizen, Mexico is not geographically far away and because of this he is still treated as a minority and not an immigrant. Why would one that is being subjected to the hardships of the minority status feel the need to defend a dominant culture that suppresses them? Much like Sonia, the son has not been able to identity as either American or Mexican. They are both forced by the dominant culture to exist somewhere in the margins.

            Although the reluctance to assimilate is most easily tied to the immigrants from closely surrounding countries, it is not limited to them. In the short story “In the American Society” by Gish Jen, Chinese American immigrants have achieved what is their version of the American dream. The father has opened and successfully run his own pancake house brining his family into a certain level of success. Although he tries desperately to assimilate to his new culture in a fiscal sense, he maintains cultural aspects that are more prevalent to China. His children and wife on the other hand are eager for their acceptance into the dominant culture personified by the symbol of the country club. East Asians, although not geographically close to America, are often seen as a minority, particularly the “model minority.” This in many ways victimizes these immigrants in the same sense as the New World immigrants. They may wish to assimilate, unlike the Mexican and Afro-Caribbean immigrants, but the dominant culture will not allow this. As East Asians they will always be expected to perform in a role that is consistent with the model minority doctrine: hard working, positive, successful. The success of the restaurant follows this script; however, the father has no interest in assimilating into all American ideals. The story states, “My father had no use for nice clothes, and would wear only ten-year-old shirts, with grease-spotted pants, to show how little he cared what anyone thought. Compared to the Old world immigrants who cared very much what the dominant culture thought of their dress, the father is outwardly manifesting his reluctance against the dominant culture. He may not be color coded or geographically labeled as a minority but the expectations put on his culture to perform in a certain way will keep him constrained to the minority status.

            Although we have determined that certain immigrant groups are labeled more as a minority for one reason or another, what happens when an immigrant is convinced they are assimilated but realize they are more of a minority in the dominant culture? This is the reality of Lucy, the main character in Mei Mei Evan’s short story “Gussuk.” As a Chinese American, Lucy travels to remote village of Kigiak where American Eskimos are the dominant culture. This story presents a very complicated view of culture. The American Indian, which is often treated as a minority, is the dominant culture that Lucy, representative of an immigrant culture, must now reside in although she herself feels assimilated to the traditional dominant culture of the continental United States. What this story highlights is that although each group may feel as if they are in control of their culture and their role within it, there is always a group larger than them that seems to control the ideals of the community. Lucy never is fully accepted into the culture although the fact that she closely resembles to natives does help her transition. The term “gussuk” is essential to Lucy’s identity. The reader is first introduced to the idea is the exchange between Lucy and her neighbor. “What does that mean, gussuk?’ ‘You know, white. Like those missionaries.’ ‘Well, I’m probably not like them.’ ‘No. You look Eskimo. Now you gotta act Eskimo.” Through the story, Lucy encounters many aspects of the Eskimo culture with which her own ideals and identities clash with. Against her attempts, she never assimilates to her new culture. “She was and always would be a gussuk. She didn’t belong here.” In this instance, color coding did not work. Although Lucy looked more like this story’s dominant culture, she was still more related to the model minority status with which the US dominant culture had placed her.

            The New World Immigrants face, in my opinion, greater challenges both culturally and personally than those of the Old World Immigrants. Color coding sometimes does not work in their favor as many wish to distance themselves from other minorities. Their home countries are often extremely close to their new homes not allowing them to feel some separation from their old culture. These issues lead to personal anguish much like that of Sylvia Guevara. How is one supposed to feel at home in a new culture when your old culture is geographically so close? How are you to assimilate to a dominant culture when the number of immigrants from your home country is so high? It seems only natural to create neighborhoods for your own people and to resist the assimilation to the dominant culture. This makes the American dream ideals obsolete. While the immigrant may be in search of more financial opportunity, they are not always in search of or met with the opportunity for a new culture. Immigration thus has created more minorities.