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LITR
5831 World / Multicultural Literature: |
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Jessica Myers
July
9, 2016
Multicultural Education
I teach at Dawson High School where the student body is considered a
“melting pot.” It reflects a diverse number of cultures including African
American, Hispanic, Asian, and Caucasian. The student body also reveals a mixing
of these cultures. This past year I had a student whose father was Hispanic and
whose mother was Indian. She expressed her frustration to me about being
ostracized by her classmates because she didn’t fit into any of the
“traditional” classifications for ethnicity or culture. Because my students come
from a multitude of backgrounds, it is my responsibility as an instructor to
create a safe environment where they can discuss their differences in a
productive and educational manner. As a true representative of the dominant
culture, my understanding of my students’ schema enables me to better appreciate
their life experiences, beliefs, and lenses through which they view the
education they are receiving.
In my experience, the students who face many obstacles in the educational
system are African American students who are from a low socio-economic
background. They can be perceived as unmotivated and resistant to bettering
themselves through education. Educators are told that this student group doesn’t
have support from home due to absent working parents or broken families. Despite
their negative home life, these students seem to have an innate resistance to
education. One would think they would want to educate themselves so that they
will be able to obtain higher paying jobs to help pull their families out of
poverty. Yet, something in their culture resists being assimilated into the
dominant culture and being pulled away from their roots. This resistance can be
seen in the short story, “The Lesson.” The narrator, Sylvia, complains that
their teacher, Miss Moore, is “boring us silly about what things cost and what
our parents make and how much goes for rent and how money ain’t divided up right
in this country” (Bambara 146). Sylvia would rather “snatch Sugar and go to the
Sunset and terrorize the West Indian kids and take their hair ribbons and their
money too” (Bambara 146). Education is viewed as a waste of time, but there is
also a feeling of betrayal. Becoming educated and joining the dominant culture
would be a betrayal of the past and the oppression African Americans faced.
Education is perceived as assimilation with the dominant culture that enslaved
and oppressed their predecessors for hundreds of years. It becomes difficult to
value something such as education when it is associated with others’ suffering.
Similarly, Hispanics struggle in school. Sometimes there is a language
barrier that prevents support from home, or parents are working multiple jobs
and are not home to reinforce positive study habits. Yet, the Hispanic culture
does value education. Hispanics do not see education as a betrayal of their
predecessors but as a stepping stone to a better life. In the excerpt from
The Distance Between Us, the
narrator’s brother, Carlos, says, “I could get a job, too. I’m old enough.”
Immediately her Papi responds, “No! … You need to go to school. All of you need
to stay in school, you hear?” (Grande 90). Education is valued because Papi
understands his children will need an education to be successful in
El Otro Lado. Hispanics value hard
work and are willing to work hard to better their circumstances. In a school
environment, this is specifically true of English Language Learners who must
work to adapt to new social customs, a new language, and a new living
environment. However, sometimes higher education can be viewed as a betrayal of
the immediate family. For example, in “El Patron” the father had “quarreled
about Tito going to college instead of working full-time” but eventually “the
old man had grudgingly come around to seeing the wisdom of it” (Candelaria 222).
Hispanic culture puts great emphasis on obeying a specific hierarchy of “Dios,
El Papa, y el patron. It is to these that mere mortals bow” (Candelaria 221).
This hierarchy is perceived as being disregarded when the second generation
attempts to more closely assimilate with the dominant culture. Hispanic culture
resists complete assimilation because they place great value on their heritage.
Since they are a “border people,” it is more challenging to sever the ties to
the Old World. Hispanic culture complicates the immigrant narrative because
Hispanics come to America to better their lives but are unwilling to completely
disconnect themselves from their previous culture.
In contrast to my African American and Hispanic students, my “model
minority” Asian students come to me with tears in their eyes when they feel they
are unsuccessful on an assignment. In their eyes failure is receiving a “B”
instead of an “A.” Their families put a large amount of pressure on them to be
successful in school by being in the top ten percent of students, becoming
involved in multiple extracurricular activities, and taking additional courses
outside of school to learn the language and customs of their home culture. In
the excerpt from Monsoon Diary: A Memoir
with Recipes Shoba Narayan expresses that “At twenty, I was a tabula rasa,
eager to learn” (220). She is an example of a South Asian immigrant who took
advantage of the opportunities provided to her by going to Mount Holyoke as a
Foreign Fellow. I have taught many students who hunger for knowledge and desire
a quality education. But, there are others who have crumbled under the pressure
to succeed and have resorted to cheating to maintain their high GPAs under the
demands of rigorous coursework. There are many other examples of Asian Americans
who fulfill this stereotype, yet there are those who truly struggle in school.
They are frustrated by the pressure to excel placed on them because they are
considered the “good minority that seeks advancement
through quiet diligence in study and work and by not making waves” (Lewin).
These students want to be judged based on their individual merits and not based
on the expectations placed on their ethnicity. They want to avoid being “marked”
by the dominant culture as underachieving because they don’t meet the high
standards set for their ethnicity.
Caucasian immigrants are more difficult to distinguish because they pass
as “unmarked” by dominant culture unless they do something to physically set
themselves apart. It is challenging to identify an Irish, Scotch-Irish, or even
a Jewish immigrant because they blend into the melting pot of “whiteness.” They
have intermarried into other cultures which makes it more challenging to
differentiate them. Until this course, I honestly didn’t know that these
cultural groups were still discernable. One of the defining features of the
Irish and the Jews is their religious beliefs. The Irish are Catholic which sets
them apart from the Protestant Puritans that originally came to settle in
America. For example, the Tyrone’s in
Long Day’s Journey into Night consider themselves Catholic even though they
don’t attend mass regularly. Tyrone tells his son Jamie, “You’ve both flouted
the faith you were born and brought up in – the one true faith of the Catholic
Church – and your denial has brought nothing but self-destruction!” (O’Neill
79). Tyrone’s faith in the Catholic Church “marks” him as Irish because the
majority of white immigrants had previously come from a Protestant background.
In her
article, “Religious Preservation v. Cultural Assimilation,” Umaymah Shahid
concludes that “to be an American one had to assimilate one’s
religion as well as their culture because if their religion had an injunction
that externally did not assimilate to
American culture, it would be looked upon as non-American.” Fortunately, for the
Irish there are no external markers that one is a practicing Catholic. However,
this is not true of Orthodox Jews. In
Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto, Jake works to make himself look as
American as possible. From the outside he does not want others to be able to
determine whether he is a Jew or a Gentile. This sentiment creates issues when
his wife arrives from Russia. When he saw her,
“his heart
had sunk at the sight of his wife's uncouth and un-American appearance. She was
slovenly dressed in a brown jacket and skirt of grotesque cut, and her hair was
concealed under a voluminous wig of a pitch-black hue” (Cahan 4.2). Gitl’s
attire “marked” her as an outsider who had not yet assimilated to the dominant
culture. Jake pushes her to “blink at the wickedness” of conforming her outward
appearance to that of a Gentile woman (Cahan 4.2). Despite their efforts to pass
as “unmarked,” Caucasian immigrants can still connect with their roots through
religion and cultural values.
Having an increased appreciation for multiculturalism helps me better
support and connect with my students. Literature opens up other people’s
experiences that allows members of the dominant culture and other cultures to
become more aware of others’ traditions, religious beliefs, and values. I have a
broader understanding of how my students may have been raised which makes my
ability to connect with them stronger. My hope is to exhort them to not only
acculturate to American culture but also to appreciate other cultures that bring
value to the “melting pot” of America.
