LITR 5831 World / Multicultural Literature: American Immigrant Model Assignments  2016  model research post 1 (assignment)

Umaymah Shahid

15 June 2016

Religious Preservation v. Cultural Assimilation

Hector St. Jean de Crevecoeur states in his Letters from an American Farmer, “He is an American, who leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds” (3.6). From this passage it is understood that to be an American one must let go of his past, including his culture and religion, to adopt the culture and religion of the new America, which was a culture of white ethnicity and Protestant Christianity. Although America today has changed since Crevecoeur’s time, the question still remains, what if one’s religion does not allow for him to completely assimilate and makes him externally different from what others consider being American? 21^st century America is religiously diverse with varying sects of Christianity and religions such as Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism, to name a few. Each of the religious groups might assimilate to the values of the dominate culture of independence, free will, tolerance, and democracy and the external aspects such as food, clothing, and behavior, but every religion maintains certain aspects that do not conform to the American culture and thus creates a culture of its own. In this research post I explore the difference between religion and culture to grasp the expectation of immigrants to not only assimilate to a new culture but to reconstruct their religion in order to look and behave American. This research question stems from personal experiences as a practicing Muslim. People look at me as a foreigner because of my hijab or headscarf, but I embody most of the American culture unless it conflicts with my religion. People see me and assume I practice a foreign and oppressive culture by wearing my hijab and approach me to take it off because I am in America, land of the free. They do not realize that I identify as American, not Pakistani, and I do not wear the hijab out of cultural necessity but because of my religion which guides many aspects of my life. Thus one asks him- or herself: can a person who adheres to their religion, even though there are extrinsic differences from mainstream culture, be a true American? Does assimilation mean one must sacrifice the practices of their religion to become uniform with the country they have immigrated to? To answer these questions I look into what defines the terms culture and religion as well as what America initially saw as assimilation.

The average American often times uses culture and religion interchangeably because one’s religion is not necessarily expected to be outwardly apparent; thus, it is important to first clarify the difference between culture and religion. Religion, according to Christopher Dawson, is “based on the recognition of a superhuman Reality of which man is somehow conscious and towards which he must in some way orientate his life” (18). It is the belief in a Divine Being and a prescribed way of life that transcends ethnic culture. Culture, on the other hand, “is the way of life of a society” which “consist[s] of prescribed ways of behaving or norms of conduct, beliefs, values, and skills” (Gordon 32). Food, entertainment, music, dress, social values, and language, among many characteristics, formulate culture. An example of the difference between assimilating culture and religion is of a woman from Pakistan who wears shalwar kameez, the traditional outfit, and changes her dressing to pants and shirts after immigrating to America. However, if the same woman is wearing a headscarf due to her religious belief, she will not take it off when assimilating to the American culture because her religion has not changed.

Religion can be a part of a certain culture because a people's belief system also contributes in the genesis of their culture, but outside factors change a religious culture to a national culture that is more accommodating to various beliefs and ethnicities. Immigration of various religions, Christian denominations, and ethnicities to the United States forced and continue to force culture to change while not changing the dominant religion. Religion has played a crucial part in shaping American culture. History shows that different denominations of Christianity established different cultures depending on where they were located. For example, the Puritans had stern interpretations of gender roles in society and thus established a culture of “patriarchal religious authority” and restricted women from religious and political involvement (Porterfield 81). According to Mark David Hall, although it is debatable that America’s Founders were practicing Christians, it is known that Orthodox Christianity significantly influenced them in the political and economical spheres. Legislations were made with the moral standards laid down by God, leaders had to be Christian, religious language and prayer were allowed in public spaces, and laws on contraception and marriage were made by the church. In the twenty-first century, however, American Catholics and other Christians pulled away from associating with specific Churches and began to seek and attend Churches that fit their own personal interpretation of the religion (Porterfield 84). Today, women are allowed to work, homosexuals can lawfully marry, and birth control and condoms are readily available by the government. All these changes create a new American culture but do not change the Christian religion.

Thus we go back to the question, does assimilating or acculturating to the culture of America consist of conforming one’s religion to the American values and beliefs? According to Milton Gordon, acculturation results when “groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact, with subsequent changes in the original cultural patterns of either or both groups” (62). Therefore there is a taking of the host culture but retaining of one’s original culture as well, but the exchange causes a rift in the original culture that immigrants come to the country with. Assimilation on the other hand is “the name given to the process or processes by which peoples of diverse racial origins and different cultural heritages, occupying a common territory, achieve a cultural solidarity . . . to sustain a national existence” (Gordon 63). Assimilation is the fusion of multiple cultures to a dominant culture; in this case other cultures take on the American dominant culture. When immigrants come to the United States the expectation is that, eventually, the foreign cultural differences will disappear and they will take on “less tangible items such as values, memories, sentiments, ideas, and attitudes” (Gordon 65). Founded on the basis of religious freedom, early Americans preached tolerance, but it did not entail immigrants or those of non-Protestant faiths to participate and be included in society’s affairs. Thus, when tolerated religious groups such as Catholics and Jews pressed for inclusion, pluralism, which once meant only toleration, became equal participation (Hutchison 35). Behavior became a criterion on determining whether one was actually American for both those who resembled “the American majority in ethnic origins and class distribution,” such as Mormons, and those who were ethnically different (Hutchison 37). As William Hutchison states, even inclusion was done on the dominant culture and ethnic group’s terms; thus, the “model for inclusion was thoroughly assimilative,” where “acceptance and recognition came on someone else’s terms; and those terms for the most part involved subordination, or the sacrifice of individual and group identity” (42). America became a “transmuting pot” instead of a “melting pot” because immigrants were assimilated to an “idealized Anglo-Saxon” model (43). Therefore, 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.

Immigrants come to the United States with a variety of cultural and religious traditions, but society expects them to leave it all and assimilate to the larger American culture. The expectation is not for everyone to be of one faith but for everyone to externally look the same and keep religion within one’s private life. That is why when someone sees me in my hijab, I am not American to them because I have not completely assimilated. Islam requires a particular outfit, which does not coincide with the American cultural dress, and so, although fellow Americans would tolerate my beliefs and include me in every aspect of American society, there would be doubt of my status as American, even if I have taken on American values such as independence, freedom of speech, tolerance, and democracy. From my research I have come to the conclusion that there is no neat answer to the question: if a person who adheres to their religion, even though it is extrinsically different from mainstream, is a complete American? To answer that question, I need to further explore what religion the immigrant brings to the host country and how well it can assimilate to the dominant culture.

Works Cited

Dawson, Christopher. Religion and Culture. Washington: The Catholic University of American Press, 2013. Print.

Gordon, Milton M. Assimilation in American Life. Cary: Oxford UP, 1964. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 12 June 2016.

Hall, Mark David. “Did America Have a Christian Founding?” The Heritage Foundation, 7 Jun. 2011. Web. 15 Jun. 2016. http://www.heritage.org/research/lecture/2011/06/did-america-have-a-christian-founding#_ftn11

Hutchison, William R. “Diversity and the Pluralist Ideal.” Perspectives on American Religion and Culture. Ed. Peter W. Williams. Malden: Blackwell Publishers Inc, 1999. 34-47. Print.

Porterfield, Amanda. “The Puritan Legacy in American Religion and Culture.” Perspectives on American Religion and Culture. Ed. Peter W. Williams. Malden: Blackwell Publishers Inc, 1999. 80-91. Print.