Carrie C. Scott

June 19, 2012

Reading Between the Lines of the American Dream

          The cultural narrative of the United States is enabled by several subsets of narratives, including immigrant and minority narratives. If the U.S. is to be the “melting pot” we claim, these stories offer an important underlying thread in the greater American narrative. The “American Dream” figures heavily in both immigrant and minority narratives, though it does not function in the same way or always serve the same purposes. The American Dream is best defined by the man who coined the phrase, James Truslow Adams. “But there has been also the American dream, that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement” (Adams 404). This directly echoes the Declaration of Independence’s (U.S. 1776) “certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This influences the rags to riches aspect of the American Dream even more strongly if you take into account that these rights are borrowed from Locke, who stated them as “life, liberty, and property.”  According to E. Kirby,

The American Dream is complex and multi-faceted, so there is variety in even its simplest statements. The underdog comes out of nowhere to do the impossible. The hero of humble origins achieves his/her dreams through a combination of inherent ability, hard work, sacrifice, and a touch of luck. The good guys triumph against all odds, and Cinderella marries the Prince. It’s a story that has been told many times, with many, many variations.

          The Immigrant Narrative can be broken down into a series of stages as illustrated by Objective 2c. Narratives may not contain all five stages (the majority of the stories we have covered to date only deal with stages one through three,) but still follow a chronological and predictable path, “leaving the Old World, Journeying to the New World, shock resistance, exploitation and discrimination, assimilation to dominant culture and loss of ethnic identity, and rediscovery or partial reassertion of ethnic identity” (White 12).

          I would assert that the minority narrative has similar (and sometimes parallel) stages to the immigrant narrative. These stages would be: loss of homeland, alienation from/ rejection of dominant culture, acculturation and appropriation from dominant culture, and continued (if limited) successful operation without assimilation. These stages are apparent in minority narratives we have read to date.

          In immigrant narratives, the leaving of the old world is often accompanied by reasons grounded in the American Dream. Characters leave their country of origin because of some desirable characteristic it does not offer, be it financial opportunity or social freedom. In A Wife’s Story, Panna is in the United States pursuing a PhD in Special Education. This opportunity seems both social and financial. Similarly, in Silver Pavements Golden Roofs, Jayanti travels to the U.S. to attend college.

          The immigrant journey to the new world is full of anticipation of aspects of the American Dream. In Silver Pavements Golden Roofs, Jayanti anticipates a life of sweetness, “I slip it into my purse, and then take it out, laughing at my silliness. I am going to the land of Almond Rocas, I remind myself” (Divakaruni 71). Jayanti anticipates being far more indulgent and “sweeter” than they actually are. In In the Land of the Free, Lae Choo tells her son of America, that “There is thy home for years to come. It is very beautiful and thou wilt be very happy there,” and “there is where thy father is making a fortune for thee.”  (Far 3). These statements are all grounded in the mythos of the American Dream, that anyone can succeed and that everyone is accorded the same rights and freedoms.

          Juxtaposed against the leaving of homeland, and journey to the New World for immigrants, is the minority concept of loss of homeland. Whether the minority we speak of is African-Americans or Native Americans, a loss of homeland colors the narrative. In the case of African-Americans, they were forcibly removed from their homelands and in the case of Native Americans, their homeland was invaded by white settlers. Their respective cultures, previously “dominant” are now marginalized, and “minority.” 

          The third, and in my opinion, most prominent stage in immigrant narrative is” shock, resistance, exploitation and discrimination. According to Dana Kato,  

One trait which might be found in both the immigrant narrative and the minority narrative is that of resistance to assimilation (Obj. 2). With the immigrant narrative there seems to be a game of tug- of-war going on in terms of dealing with the dominant culture. On the one hand, the immigrant wants to be seen as an American, but on the other, he resents the loss of his own culture. This is especially true for the first and second generations.

Illustrations of this stage have figured heavily in the stories we have studied. In Silver Pavements Golden Roofs, Jayanti is shocked by the realities of life in Chicago and the attack on her and her aunt. In In the American Society, Mr. Chang resists certain aspects of the dominant culture as her sees them as unnecessary. In In the Land of the Free,  the family is milked for as much money as possible to get the child back only to face missionary women who think he is better off with them than with his own parents.

          In the minority narrative, alienation from and rejection of the dominant culture is integral as well. In American Horse Vicki Koob says she wants to “salvage” Buddy. Whites thinking they know better than other groups figures heavily into both immigrant and minority literature. In Blonde White Women, Patricia Smith rejects the dominant cultural aesthetic to which she does not have the ability to assimilate. In Gussuk, the village of Kigiak as a whole is derisive about white culture and uses the word “Gussuk” to describe meddlesome white missionaries. The poem, I Have Not Signed a Treaty with the United States Government, is exemplary of defiance and rejection.

          Assimilation to dominant culture and loss of ethnic identity is one factor that distinguishes immigrant narrative from minority narrative. In the immigrant narrative, the characters (immigrants) eventually assimilate and become just Americans, thus losing cultural identity of the homeland. In minority narratives however, the homeland and cultural identity is retained resulting in hyphenated-Americans.

          An aspect inherent in minority literature that occurs rather than assimilation, is acculturation and appropriation. The minority groups obtain and adapt aspects of the dominant culture to their own uses, but do not as a whole assimilate to the dominant culture. Examples would be the Levis in both Gussuk and The Man to Send Rainclouds.  The prominence of Pepsi, cigarettes and several other objects, while maintaining the mistrust for white culture in general is present in Gussuk as well. The minority group picks and chooses what aspects of the dominant culture they find useful and discards the rest.

          In immigrant populations, the rediscovery or partial reassertion of ethnic identity can occur after a few generations (it is rarely achieved within the first generation.)  For example, my cousin, who is half white (Scots-Irish) and half Mexican was raised speaking English only. Her father (Mexican) insisted, as a second generation American, that no good could come from her knowing Spanish and that if you wanted to be a success in America “English only” was the way to go. My cousin rebelled in college and took three years of Spanish. She is a legal assistant for a large corporate law firm in the Pacific Northwest and has been tremendously successful due to her ability to converse with and discern the needs of Spanish speaking clients. She saw learning Spanish as reclamation of cultural identity.

          Minority narratives depend on continued rejection of and operation outside of the dominant culture. If minorities were to fully assimilate and homogenize they would simply no longer be minorities. The American Dream plays heavily into both immigrant and minority literatures. In Immigrant literature it is often at first thought to be true but proven at the very least flawed if not false. Minority literature’s treatment of the American Dream works from the assumption that the American Dream is flawed or false and therefore not to be desired. Minority acknowledgements of the fallacies of the American dream form a poignant counterpoint to the hopeful naiveté of immigrant literature.

Works Cited

Adams, James Truslow. The Epic of America,. Boston: Blue Ribbon Books, 1931.

Chrystos. "I Have Not Signed a Treaty with the United States Government." N.p., n.d. Web. 19 June 2012. <http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec /texts/ Amerind /indianpoems/chrysto>.

Divakaruni, Chitra. "Silver Pavements, Golden Roofs." Imagining America: Stories from the Promised Land. By Wesley Brown and Amy Ling. New York: Persea, 2002. 70-83. Print.

Erdrich, Louise. "American Horse." Imagining America: Stories from the Promised Land. By Wesley Brown and Amy Ling. New York: Persea, 2002. 210-20. Print.

Evans, Mei Mei. “Gussuk.” Imagining America: Stories from the Promised Land. By Wesley Brown and Amy Ling. New York: Persea, 2002. 237-51. Print.

Far, Sui Sin. "In the Land of the Free." Imagining America: Stories from the Promised Land. By Wesley Brown and Amy Ling. New York: Persea, 2002. 3-11. Print.

Jen, Gish. "In the American Society." Imagining America: Stories from the Promised Land. By Wesley Brown and Amy Ling. New York: Persea, 2002. 158-71. Print.

Kato, Dana. "Chasing the American Dream, Living the “American Nightmare”: Defining the Immigrant and Minority Narrative." LITR 5731 Seminar in American Multicultural Literature: Immigrant. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 June 2012.           <http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/4333/models/20085731/mid>.

Kirby, Ellen. "Immigrant Narratives: Writing the Tension Between American Dream and American Reality." LITR 5731 Seminar in Multicultural Literature: American Immigrant: Model Assignments. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 June 2012.           <http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/5731im/models/mt/mt10/mt1...>.

Silko, Leslie Marmon. “The Man to Send Rainclouds.” Imagining America: Stories from the Promised Land. By Wesley Brown and Amy Ling. New York: Persea, 2002. 203-09. Print.