Jennifer Tapp

Essay 1:

To Dream the Impossible Dream…

The American Dream, equality for all, golden gates, streets of silver, the land of milk and honey, the white picket fence with 2.5 children—a thousand and one euphemisms to describe the benefits and joys of becoming and being an American.  The American dream, like the rags to riches dream which Andrew Carnegie wrote about in his autobiography, has led to the nigh-on constant influx of immigrants to these glorious shores.  The actual truth of the American Dream, however, often causes shock and a sense of betrayal to the many people seeking America’s freedom…yet the immigrant narratives often reflect a continued sense of hope.

For example, in Sui Sin Far’s In the Land of the Free, the characters are grieved and distressed by the laws of American Immigration.  Hom Hing and his wife Lae Choo, never considered the necessity to file papers for their son’s entrance into America.  America is a land of freedom and prosperity,   where they had lived for several years. Why would they concern themselves with immigration policy?—they were already residents. For Hom Hing and Lae Choo, the immigration laws reflected the less idyllic aspects of Immigration.  This first negative shock about the reality of living in America, followed by the subsequent disappointments of being unable to resolve the issue of their child, leads Hom Hing and Lae Choo to grow resentful of America, as seen when the lawyer asked for money to speed up the bureaucratic process. Lae Choo accuses the lawyer of being ‘American’ because he wants to help solely for monetary gain.  Yet there remains a bit of hope in the characters that they can still find happiness in their new country if they are willing to sacrifice enough.

Not everyone can find the streets of gold and picket fences which are supposed to make up America. It is possible, however, to find joy in the little benefits of American life, in the subtle differences.  In Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s work, “Restroom,” the main character finds a sense of relief and ‘blessing’ in the airport lavatory. The bright lights and cold porcelain may cause disorientation, as they are different, but they also bring a sense of reprieve from the bustle which awaits the main character in her new life in America.  In Leslie Marmon Silko’s, “The Man to Send Rain Clouds”, the two cultures found a way to blend their individual traditions to find comfort during a time of mourning. Although something tragic has happened, in both stories, the characters find small aspects of their world comforting and positive.

For many minorities, achieving the American Dream is doubly difficult as they did not initially wish to be part of American society, so they struggled against assimilation and resisted the dominant culture.  The minority group is also often hampered by the dominant culture, as the dominant culture assumes the minority group is resisting assimilation because of civilization or education instead of the desire not to conform and potentially losing who they are.  The African Americans are a good example as seen in the poem “Blonde White Women” by Patricia Smith.  The character in the poem tries to conform to the dominate culture, because she thinks she is supposed to want to be part of that world, even if it means damaging herself as when she “rubbed the waxy stick across the back of [her]hand until the skin broke”(line 24-25). The ideal was to become a part of the dominant culture, but she found greater joy, eventually, in embracing who she was born to be.

Often in the immigrant stories, there are expressions of the American dream in the words used, and symbolically in some of the environments of the stories.  In “Soap and Water” by Anzia Yezierska,  “Silver Pavements, Golden Roofs” by Chitra Divakaruni, and “Blonde White Women” by Patricia Smith, there are repeated mentions of cold and white, snow and ice which are reflective of the dominate culture of America, the White Europeans.  The colors of cold things such as snow and ice align with the skin tone of white Europeans, while the element of cold could refer to the affectation of the fully assimilated American, separate from the immigrants and not emotionally tied to their struggle.

Even character names, appearances and behaviors can be a symbolic representation of the dominate culture and the immigrant experience.  In “Blonde White Women” by Patricia Smith, the speaker uses names and such as Donna and Madonna to reflect the dominate culture of white Europeans  as Donna is a shortened version of Madonna and Madonna is a Christian religious icon almost always painted as a classic white beauty.  In “Soap and Water” by Anzia Yezierska, the dean of the women’s college is Miss Whiteside- representing the Dominate American culture- while the only teacher the narrator liked and got along with was Miss Van Ness—a name most likely to be associated to a recent immigrant, perhaps second generation.  The “big, fat policeman with a club” represents the forceful nature of the assimilation process being thrust upon the narrator, the push to become American and achieve the American Dream.

Ultimately, it seems the immigrant narratives have many commonalities in the way they view the dominant white culture of America—cold, white, distant, clean—and have a similar inexhaustible hope for a better existence in America, then their country of origin. 

Essay 2:

Immigrant & Minority

Immigrant narratives and Minority narratives are often discussed together as immigration literature. There are many commonalities between the two, such as the transition of a person from one location to another and the assimilation of the narrator to a different culture, but there is one major difference and that is the intent of the narrator: whether the relocation was voluntary or forced, whether the narrator changes naturally, wants to change, is required to change, or just refuses to change. 

For Immigrants, the narratives are often about finding a new home, voluntarily changing who they are to adapt to their new environment. For example in Anzia Yezierska’s “Soap and Water”, the main character discusses the desire to escape her country of origin.  She had left her native Russia “aflame with dreams of America" (Yezierska, par28). It was her choice to go and gain the freedoms and opportunity, which she believed to be part of the American world. She was a refugee, but she wanted to go to America.

But for Minorities, the narratives often show being forced into new environments, being required to adapt to a different culture or area. For example, in “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano . . . the African”, the main character does not initially choose to travel to other countries to find a new home, but is the victim of a kidnapping before being sold into slavery.  He adapts to the changing world around him not by his own choice, by because of his fear and need to survive.  An example Olaudah adapting for survival is seen in the following quote, “I determined to make every exertion to obtain my freedom... For this purpose I thought a knowledge of navigation might be of use to me… though I did not intend to run away unless I should be ill used (Equiano, 6.5).”  He was not learning navigation to be a better sailor, but to be able to escape successfully if he needed to. 

Minority groups are also defined as groups who are not part of the dominant culture, but have always been in a country, like the Native Americans.  The Native Americans are a minority group.  They are not part of the dominant culture and they did not necessarily choose to be part of the American country, but they are here and were pushed to assimilate. 

In Shelia Morris’s midterm essay entitled “The Minority Struggle”, she discusses another variant which appears in some of the course texts.  She compared the stories of “American Horse” by Louise Erdich and “In the land of the free” by Sin Sin Far. Both stories discuss a child being separated from his mother by the dominant culture, and yet in the immigrant story by SinSin Far, there is a sense of hope while in the minority story by Erdich there is only despair and fear.   This difference may show how the two groups view the dominant culture.  One in a more positive light then the other.

The dominant culture affects change in the minority groups, sometimes through force, such as making the minority group speak or dress a certain way, or through more of an osmosis system, where the minority group gradually takes on characteristics of the dominant group in an effort to prosper, socially or financially. In readings such as “Blonde White Women”, by Patricia Smith, the narrator feels the necessity to adapt to the dominant culture around her.  She is not told, specifically, that she needs to change, but feels the need to emulate the white women around her, to be part of the larger society she sees in them, to share in their lives equally. Not only is the narrator outnumbered by the white women, she feels less than them, as though they are better than her, so she wants to be them. She adapts to prosper, but in the end she discards the false appearance she has created and embraces the cultural norms of her childhood and family.

One of the main differences in the minority narrative and the immigrant narrative seems to be the reaction to the pressure to assimilate.  The immigrant stories often end in the partial or even complete assimilation to the dominant culture and seeing that assimilation with a sense of joy and lightness. Anzia Yezierska may have described it best in her “Soap and Water” when the narrator expresses her assimilation “unbound and freed me and suffused me with light.  I felt the …I was changed and the world was changed. My past was the forgotten night. Sunrise was all around me… singing a song of new life: “America! I found America.”

In many minority narratives, if assimilation occurs is a reaction to fear or an almost grudging necessity.  The most joy and hope in the minority stories comes not from assimilation, but from recognizing the value of who they already are, even if that is separate from the dominate culture around them.  In “Blonde White Women”, by Patricia Smith, the speaker rejects assimilation to the white community while embracing herself stating, “I could not have been blacker than I was at that moment. My name is Patricia Ann… I can find no color darker, more beautiful, than I am”.   The Native Americans do the same in  “The Man to Send Rain Clouds”, by Leslie Marmon Silko, when they maintain their cultural traditions.

For both immigrant and minority narratives, the push to assimilate seems to be the same, but the reactions of the groups can be very different, either accepting the change, or fighting against it to remain true to their origins.  

However, often in both minority and immigrant narratives, the main character develops a somewhat hybrid culture of both American and their culture of origin, either through forced means or a gradual shift over the years.  The characters in “The Man to Send Rain Clouds”, by Leslie Marmon Silko, show this type of hybrid culture.  The characters, upon the death of one of their elders, prepare the body with a feather and a painted face, a Native American tradition, yet they do not dress the elder in traditional garb, but in Levi jeans and a button down shirt.  They perform the traditional burial ceremony with corn meal and yet still have a Franciscan priest sprinkle holy water over the grave.   The Native Americans in the story have adopted some of the customs of the dominant culture, but does not change all of their beliefs, it is more as though they pick and choose what is most convenient to change, which change will benefit them, or which change will not cause them to stray too far from their roots. 

This story actually has some interesting aspects as the reader can also see how the dominate culture affects a minority I the Franciscan priest.  Father Paul is part of the dominant culture of Americans, however he lives surrounded by a different culture.  The Native Americans ask him to sprinkle holy water on Teofilo’s grave as part of the funeral rights.  As a priest, the proper procedure is to say last rights, have a memorial mass and the final stage would be the holy water on the grave.  Father Paul adapted to the majority culture around him and provided the holy water without the remaining standard ‘last rights’ traditions. So, even as a member of the dominant culture of the country, the priest adjusted to conform to the dominant culture of the town.

There are differences and similarities between the immigrant and minority narratives.  Similarities and differences like having the same push to assimilate and their individual reactions. As well as the forced journey or thought out decision of their becoming Americans. In many ways, they seem to be two sides of a coin, heads and tails… but ultimately, they are both coins.