A.Regina Ponce

English

Annotated Bibliography

The Traps of a One-Sided Cultural Assimilation

Cultural identity is a function of our environment. It is exactly because human beings are an open system that we are able to learn new social skills, assimilate, adapt, especially if the reward is to be accepted. This annotated bibliography is an attempt to explore the consequences of assimilation for people leaving their countries and recreating their lives in a new society. In the case of immigrants, for instance, often, the unspoken, and sometimes spoken, rule governing their lives in a new country is �When in Greece, do as the Greeks,� as they saying goes. The list of benefits promised to those who come to a new society, learn the language, understand the rules, and assimilate, is often long and usually runs from educational gains to economic status. But there is another side to this successful story. Many newcomers may suffer a great deal emotionally when trying, blindly, to fit in, to belong to a new culture. A consequence of this one-sided-assimilation is that cultures are ideologies and when one immigrant subscribes to a new culture with no regards for the original one, hatred and prejudices against oneself may be also internalized. In the below suggested sources, we see new immigrants, or first generations, breaking down families, rejecting their lovers, mistreating their friends as a consequence of disregarding their original culture as a part of their own cultural selves. But there is, as some of the sources point out, an alternative to this �assimilate- the- new-and- reject- the- old� type of model. It may take harder work by newcomers and even to make different choices then what traditionally many immigrants did but it also may be much healthier. It is possible to belong to more than one culture without having to sacrifice economic opportunities and cultural identity. In fact, this may be a good rule to make the new global man who must coexist pacifically with people different from himself. Global societies will need global people who believe that radical identification with just one culture is a thing of the past.

Cahan, Abraham. YEKL and the Imported Bridegroom and the Other Stories of Yiddish New York. New York: Dover, 1970.

In Cahan�s above book, two stories are central to the theme of cultural assimilation. First, �Yekl. A Tale of the New York Ghetto� (1-89 ) is about the journey of Yekl, a young Jewish immigrant who moves to America and from the very beginning starts idealizing the Anglo-Saxon race as superior to his own. Obsessed with becoming a Yankee and burying his past and cultural identity, he is ashamed of his Jewish friends and rejects his son and wife and their peasant ways. In the second story, �The Imported Bridegroom� (94-162 ), the main character is Flora, the daughter of an upper-class immigrant who was raised according to Jewish family tradition. Yet, Flora�s values are full of prejudices which she internalized from the dominant American culture. Flora�s major goal is to marry a Dr. and not some guy with a broken-English, as she explains. So when she falls in love with a Jewish young, bright, kind, young man, her goal is to turn him into the American gentleman she had always dreamed about. Her goal turns into obsession and breaks-down her relationship.

Cisneros, Sandra. Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. New York: Random House,1992

Cisneros shows us the life of Cleofilas, a young Mexican woman living in a backward town in Mexico who dreams about finding an American, or Americanized man, who will rescue her form her uneventful life, treat her as a princess, and take her to America. But Cleofila�s life turns out very different and while she marries a Mexican man who lives in U.S., she is far from a princess and has to deal with daily abuse and brutality from her man. It is only once Cleofilas relies on her own strength and the support of her own family that she finds courage to create alternatives to her nightmare which was partly created by the her prejudice about men from Mexico as well as the idealization of the Anglo culture.

Crutcher, Chris. Whale talk. New York : Random House Children�s Books, 2001.

Crutcher looks at the journey of several teenagers whose emotional pain and alienation are mainly consequences of being considered outsiders at a high-school in a small town. Once, however, they work with a caring coach, not only did their confidence increase but also their ability to win a swim championship.

Erdrich, Louise. Tracks. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1989.

This source deals with the consequences of colonization and assimilation taking place in Indian tribes at the North of Dakota. Many of the characters have assimilated the white culture while viewing their Indian background as inferior and shameful. In the case of the character Pauline, she wants to hide any trace of Indian blood. �I wanted to be like my mother,� she says, �who shows her half-white. I wanted to be like my grandfather, pure Canadian,� (p. 14). The text also shows us that there is an alternative to the usual approach of assimilating the new culture and rejecting the original one, and that is conveyed by the experience of Nanapush, a respected Indian man who retained hir roots while successfully dealing with the white world.

Far, Sui San. �In the Land of the Free.� BOLD WORDS. A Century of Asian American Writing. Ed.Rajini Srikanth and Esther Y. Iwanaga. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2001. 5-442

This story portrays the life of a Chinese couple whose baby arrives with the mother to America without legal papers. Their days are involved in dealing with the bureaucracy of U.S. customs and the opportunism of lawyers.

Galo, Donnald R. First Crossing. Stories about teen immigrants. Massachusetts: CANDLEWICK PRESS, 2004.

This book is particularly meaningful for dealing with the cost of assimilation, immigration and prejudice for children. It shows teenagers having to overcome cultural shock, to fight prejudices and to navigate in a world they know little about.

Hughes, Langston. A Collection of Poems. Texas: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1998.

This collection is a sample of some of Hughes�s greatest poems and a must read to understand some of his contribution during the creative Harlem Renaissance era. The poems are artistic, political, historical and sometimes musical and plain fun, though they expose the sometimes painful experiences of African-Americans in U.S.

Lee, Chang-Rae. The Faintest Echo of Our language. .� BOLD WORDS. A Century of Asian American Writing. Ed.Rajini Srikanth and Esther Y. Iwanaga. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2001. 5-442

New York: RIVERHEAD BOOKS, 1995.

Korean author looks at the complexities of a mother and a son who do not speak the same language. On one hand, the bond between them is unbreakable, on the other, the mother dependency on the son to communicate becomes a burden.

Reed, Ismael. Blues City: A WALK IN OAKLAND. New York: CROWN PUBLISHERS, 2003.

Reed�s writing is both, his overcoming emotional struggles as a Black man in addition to a very refreshing way to look at Oakland City. Breaking down with the general held view that Oakland is a troubled place, he introduces to us the heroic people who live there, the historical role the place has played and the multicultural lesson it can teach us. Overall, we learn that there is crime but there is also Whites, Chinese, Native Americans, Mexicans and Blacks who together lead peaceful lives.

Sharif, Solmaz. �My Father�s Shoes.� World Between: Poems, Short Stories and Essays by Iranian-American. New York: GeorgeBraziller, 1999. A woman looks at her father�s shoes as a metaphor for his hard life as an immigrant.