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Craig White's Literature Courses Immigrant compare / constrast minority |
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Below the rainbow-line are complete Detailed Objectives from LITR 4340 American Immigrant Literature, but first are major points for identifying the immigrant identity or cultural narrative in contrast with either minorities or the USA's dominant / "settler" culture.
Immigrants voluntarily choose to join the American culture, thereby
signing the American social contract of
assimilation to the
dominant culture's
standards and values.
Immigrants may suffer exploitation and discrimination like
minorities (see Obj. 2c, stage 3 below) but
usually assimilate in a generation or more, at which
point they are no longer regarded as
minorities. (Examples: Irish-Americans,
Italian-Americans, Jewish-Americans—who now regards these groups as
minorities?
Immigrants do not invariably assimilate
successfully to the
dominant culture. Some immigrants like
Afro-Caribbeans or Dominican-Americans are associated with minorities
by the color code. Any immigrant may
"negatively assimilate" to socially and personally destructive aspects of
American culture, e.g. family breakdown; hyper-individualism or selfishness;
freedom from traditional constraints; escapism through drugs (incl. alcohol),
gambling, get-rich-quick scams, etc.
Immigrants may not know what they're getting into when they immigrate. They may
assume they'll live like before in their Old World, only they'll be richer. In fact, the
American way of life including personal freedom, individual equality, and desire
for wealth and status can undermine traditional family structures and gender
codes, esp. women's assumed subordination or inferiority.
The immigrant narrative is the central story of the American experience, one whose norms define the variations in our multicultural landscape, even when the immigrant narrative is not operative as with minority groups like Native Americans, African Americans, and (to some degree) Mexican Americans.
The immigrant narrative differs most from the minority narrative in the former's voluntary nature. In brief, minority ethnic groups like Native American Indians and African Americans (and Mexican Americans in the U.S. Southwest) come into contact with the USA's dominant culture involuntarily, making them resist assimilating to the culture that conquered, kidnapped, or otherwise exploited them. In contrast, immigrant groups by voluntarily coming to the USA implicitly subscribe to assimilation to its dominant culture.
from American
Immigrant Literature: Objective 2. Dynamics, variations, and
stages of the immigrant narrative.
Background:
o No single text tells the whole story of
immigration, but the larger narrative is always implicit.
o Most Americans are broadly conscious of the
immigrant narrative’s prominent features and values.
o Examples with variations are provided by any
ethnic group whose people write about move and adapting to America:
Irish, Italians, Chinese, Salvadorans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans,
Filipinos, Japanese, Ukrainians, modern Nigerians, Vietnamese, Germans,
Hindu, Pakistani . . . a list too numerous and growing ever to complete!
o Two ethnic groups do not fit the
immigrant story: African Americans and Native Americans. (obj. 4 on
minority)
2a. Essential terms:
Assimilation, melting pot, and
"model minority"
Assimilation and the melting pot:
o To assimilate means to become similar. The term
loosely describes a process by which immigrants "become American."
o Ethnic or cultural differences diminish or disappear through
intermarriage, use of a common language, and shared institutions,
opportunity, or ideology.
o Assimilation can work both ways: the dominant
culture sometimes absorbs practices and products brought by immigrants
or other ethnic groups, such as values, language, food, etc.
o The primary metaphor for assimilation has been "the melting pot." That is, the American experience of public schools, intermarriage, common language and ideology mix and "melt" our differences as in a great cooking vessel. The product of the melting pot is "the new American" who bears no marks of ethnic or tribal identification.
Warnings:
o The melting pot
metaphor may be limited where racial
minorities are considered, leading to alternative
metaphors like “the rainbow,”
“quilt,”
2b. The “Model Minority”
label is often applied to an ascendant immigrant group that
exemplifies ideals
implicit in the immigrant narrative.
o A century ago Jewish immigrants were the “model
minority” immigrant group, as their children became well-educated
professionals. Asian Americans now fit this pattern.
o These “ideal immigrants” take advantage of
economic and educational opportunities (often associated with music,
math, and medicine).
o Assimilation? Such groups may assimilate
economically and educationally while maintaining ethnic identity in
religion and ethnic customs (helping family stability). Such resistance to assimilation imitates the dominant
culture (obj. 4).
o “Model minorities” are often contrasted with true
minority groups like African and Native Americans—so-called “problem
minorities”
o An identifying distinction between
immigrants and
minorities is that
immigrants will often resist identification with true
minorities, identifying instead with the dominant culture.
2c. Basic stages of the Immigrant Narrative
Stage 1: Leave the Old World (“traditional
societies” in Europe, Asia, or Latin America).
Stage 2: Journey to the New World (here, the USA &
modern culture)
Stage 3: Shock, resistance, exploitation, and
discrimination (immigrant experience here overlaps with or resembles the
minority experience)
Stage 4: Assimilation to
dominant American culture
and loss of ethnic identity (departs or differs from
minority experience)
Stage 5: Rediscovery or reassertion of ethnic
identity (usu. only partial)
Is the immigrant narrative comparable to a
conversion experience?
2d. Character by generation. What are standard
identities for distinct generation? (These numbers aren’t
fixed—variations occur in every family’s story)
first-generation: “heroic” but “clueless”
second-generation: “divided” between traditional
identities of homeland or ethnic group and modern identity of
assimilated American; bi-cultural and bi-lingual
third generation: “assimilated” (Maria becomes
Kristen, Jiang becomes Kevin [most popular Chinese-American boy's name])
2e. Narrator or viewpoint: Who writes the immigrant
narrative?
o First-generation? (rare, except among
English-speaking peoples)
o Second-generation? (standard: children of
immigrants learn English, usually in public schools, and use the
language to explore conflicts between ethnic and mainstream identities)
2f. Setting(s): Where does the immigrant narrative
take place?
o Homeland? Journey? America? Return to homeland?
2g. How much does the Immigrant Narrative overlap or
align with the American Dream narrative? Are they one and the same, or
simply co-formal? In what ways are they potentially distinct from each
other? What values (such as individualism, aspiration, modernization) do
they share?
