Sheila Morris

My Mother’s Immigrant Story

I never thought that taking a class on Immigrant literature would help me get closer to my mother, but it has.  In fact, before this class, I had never even thought of my mother as an immigrant.  But, as a British war bride who came over in 1952, she was one of nearly 70,000 British women who came to the U.S. from 1942 to 1952 to begin a new life with an American soldier husband.  Although my mother never shied away from talking about her past, as with many things, time has faded her memory.  It was not easy to gain insight to what she went through in her journey to the United States.  However, after reading several narratives on immigration, it is easier to imagine what it might have been like.  It is easier to get a glimpse of what it may have been like for my mother as she left her family and everything she knew to begin a new life in a country that was foreign to her.  Obviously, there are as many narratives as there are immigrants.  Yet, they all have one single theme threading them together –coming to America to seek a better life, to live the American Dream.  Unfortunately, as with most dreams, they do not always come true. 

In Ellen Kirby’s mid term paper Between American Dream and American Reality, she writes, “By examining the Immigrant Narrative and its stages, it is possible to shed light on the tension between the American Dream and the realities of the American experience.”

In Anzia Yezierska’s story Soap and Water, a Russian shop girl desires to be educated and to break free of her surroundings only to find that she is denied her dream because she does not conform to the dominant culture’s idea of cleanliness.  This is ironic because she is working hard in a laundry to put herself through school.  This story can be called the quintessential cultural narrative because it includes several patterns, themes, and features seen throughout immigrant literature such as cleanliness, the need for education, and finding one’s voice. 

Another form of the immigrant narrative is the rags to riches story.  The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie tells of a man that came from poverty, worked very hard to become successful and then gave back to his community.  This story is very readable and uplifting.  It is the typical American Dream story of leaving poverty behind, coming to America, getting an education, working very hard, and then giving some of that hard earned money back to the community.  Unfortunately, this autobiography can leave the reader wondering how much truth there is to the narrative and how much has been embellished.

In Gregory Djanikian’s poem, In the Elementary School Choir, the reader is reminded of young love.  This narrative is joyful in the way that it plays with song lyrics from a boy’s perspective.  The young boy compares the lyrics of Meet Me in St. Louis to his homeland in Egypt.  He sings happily about things he has never seen such as cornfields while watching the love of his 5th grade life, Linda Deemer.  The poem describes his homeland with mule carts and bicycles, all the while reminding us that we are not so different after all as so many of us have experienced those elementary school crushes at one time or another.

Usually immigrants assimilate after three or four generations.  The sooner they assimilate and become a part of the dominant culture, the easier it is for them and their families.  Model minorities are minority groups (through ethnicity, religion, or race) that are more successful than the average population.  These groups generally have higher incomes and better education than most, and because of this, they keep some of their traditions longer than other groups.  Asian groups are usually considered a model minority.

In Sin Sin Far’s “In the land of the free,” the couple in this story are successful.  Hom Hing has been doing business in the U.S. for a while when his wife, Lae Choo, gets pregnant and he sends her back to China to have the baby and then take care of ailing parents.  As Lae Choo and her son are coming into the U.S., the baby does not have the necessary paperwork and is forced to stay in a convent until the necessary signatures are obtained.  This is yet another narrative that readers can identify with.  Who would not ache at the thought of being separated from their child?  Who would not be angered at the lawyer who took advantage of this couple?  This narrative elements many immigrant themes such as cleanliness, paperwork, hard work, etc.

In Gish Jen’s In the American Society, again the model minority is again featured as an Asian family with a successful pancake restaurant as they struggle with class themes.  The family is educated, works hard, and has adapted for the most part, to the dominant culture’s standards.  Yet, they cannot break away from the color code.  The father  has a harder time breaking away from tradition when he  treats his employees as servants and wonders why they do not agree with doing things outside of their job description.  Although he is not a stingy or mean man (in fact, he can be quite generous with his employees in need).  Yet, the father cannot understand why the Americans do not work the same way as in his country.  What happens when the family is invited to a party in consolation for not being chosen for country club membership is funny and sad at the same time.  This is a look at a cultural narrative of the model minority that did not fit in even though they did everything they thought they should.