America is a country like no other, where people come to find refuge from their own war torn or corrupt countries; countries that have been destroyed due to religious conflicts and other divisiveness. It is where dreams are made on just a dollar and where stars are born and legends are made.
Clearly no one as of yet at least, knows the answer to what makes a near perfect society or at least one that functions to equally benefit everyone. Many believe that diversity should be valued and maintain because it encourages innovation and cultural richness. Yet it is this diversity that highlights how different we are--- potentially driving us further apart from each other. Others believe that identifying with one culture encourages unity, solidarity and cooperation, though having one culture can be viewed as limited.
How do we truly see past the differences among us in order to advocate for each others interest and work in concert in achieving those interests? How important is it to get over who is what? Can there be one shared culture? Or are we just too torn to see our selves as one? And with the fast emerging bi-racial population, do they eventually create their own culture since they do not belong to just one?
Myself, I do not have a definitive answer for many of these questions. And as a mother of a bi-racial child I am sorting it all out. For now however, I am choosing to raise my daughter as an American, not part Irish or part Jamaican.
14 comments:
We keep talking about “interests” without pinpointing exactly what some of those interests are. What is this “common interest?” What should it be? Can one common interest ever exist? Surely we can say we are all interested in living in a safe environment where there are employment opportunities and sufficient resources. But these things are abstract; when they are broken down into specifics it becomes clear that we interpret preserving these interests differently. Each individual needs something different in order to feel safe, in order to feel secure in their job, etc.
There is this on-going battle: are we to overcome our differences or embrace our differences? I’m sure Oprah has advised us to do both at some point. I don’t think it is about being the same or different. It’s about being tolerant. I think Herb Sturz really drove this point home while he was addressing Darakshan’s question at the book event. We must be willing to look at a situation through the eyes of another, recognizing their value system and priorities. Divisiveness in and of itself is not really the problem; but rather our lack of tolerance for “other” groups.
Throughout class there were many questions that were raised. One of my greatest concerns with assimilation is that, how can we all just put aside our cultural roots when in many cases it forms our identities. In addition, I believe that it is a dream like solution only for the majority groups such as Anglo Saxon's and the wealthy class. Who is to decide what everyones common interests are when everyone is so dissimilar. For example, someone that has been incarcerated may have a completely different perception of what the "common good" may be for society or themselves. Another issue that I have thought of was, what if this idea of "common good" is actually the opposite. What if these majority groups think that slavery should still exist? Should we then assimilate to this common goal that society is forcing us to believe is right? This scenario might seem radical and might not seem like it could possibly occur again but what about how the majority groups in society become prejudice against Muslims after 9/11? It is our cultural backgrounds that allow us to appreciate and understand outside cultures. The American culture that the media perpetuates can often be stigmatizing and dangerous. Why should individuals leave aside their cultural roots just simply because they come to America. America is a land of opportunity not a dictatorship of how to properly live our lives.
I was watching the Marx brothers last night, laughing, but also looking at it critically. It was made in 1935, when my grandparents' parents were starting their new families in a new country. Italians living in the US were stereotyped in many of the ways Latinos/ Chicanos are, we are: day laborers, we lay brick, we have good food--but we are not Americans. (Which is very silly because Mexicans, like Canadians, Peruvians, and Brazilians are all American) It is clear that Chico Marx, who speaks with an over-the-top Italian accent, will never fit into the hi-brow society that he ruffles the feathers of. He just isn't smart enough.
As a result, Italians tried to pass a "real Americans".. they shed their language, customs to fit in. All that is left of Italy in my parents house are some catch phrases in a mangled Naples-dialect. (if you need a colander in our house, you say "scoola-macadoon". And you never never never put tomato sauce on macaroni, only "gravy")
I think we officially assimilated. Not only do we pass for real working/ middle class Americans, we are Americans. We don't know Italian, we've never been to Naples, we don't dry macaroni on the front lawn like my great grandma did (for real).
BUT..
I grew up in a world of stereotypes, especially for anyone who did not pass. In a predominantly white suburb of Westchester, one's ability to 'pass' fell along race, class, and cultural lines. There was something not "really" American about the Jewish kids in my elementary school. (Christmas is very American)
Above all, everyone who did not live in the United States was subject to harsh criticism. I did not know the term "towel head" was pejorative growing up, nor did I know the people whom it was used to attack existed outside of the television.
The last thing I'll say is that assimilation isn't a melting pot philosophy, it's a majority-wins philosophy. My family was willing to give up Italy to come here, but not everyone in the US is here under the same circumstances.
The problem is that we were not taught to see past our differences. The mother of one of the two children killed by a van in Chinatown this past January appeared on the last night news. She made an appeal to people to join her on a rally in front of the DA's office. She wants to pursue the DA's office to prosecute the case. Police considered the incident an accident and that’s why the DA decided not to prosecute. The problem is that she is no longer seeking justice, she seeks revenge. If indeed this was just a tragic accident, why someone has to pay for it? If we don’t learn to compromise and be tolerant, as Amanda said, we can never unify.
Even is we choose assimilation as the answer to our problems, I don’t think that can ever be achieved. It can take a generation and more conflicts for us to learn to look past our differences. Even if we integrate from one perspective, we will still be different from another. Unity may be the ideal form but only if integration is made voluntary. Forced assimilation will always cause conflict. I think Yugoslavia is a good example in this case. Regardless of what system you are living in, the eagerness for supremacy will push people to identify more with what makes them different than with the things they have in common.
It is hard to get over who is what because this is what defines you. Even if you choose to become an American and embrace the language and the cultural beliefs, you are not going to give up your past. This is my case as well, I came here and I am willing to integrate. But, can I say I am only an American, when my whole family is back home and they are part of me?
I agree that coming to America is an opportunity for millions of people but I think we are forgetting what the real opportunity America presents for immigrants: a chance to be who they are without ever having to compromise. Events in recent history have evidenced this time and time again, that America provides a haven for persecuted minorities. While racism and prejudice does exist, I believe that America is doing a better job than most other countries. By assimilating into the American culture, we are losing the identifying factor of who we are and giving up on the opportunities that America grants.
Also, what American culture are we exactly conforming to? I agree with Amanda and Liz that it is nearly impossible to decide on a culture that satisfactorily represents each individual member of American society. Another reason why assimilating into a culture is that America itself creates barriers to claiming yourself as an American; in order to officially state that you are a citizen you need to become an American citizen on paper.
I think that the idea of assimilating might be appealing, once you look deeper into actually creating an American culture you realize that American culture is made up of all of the diverse cultures that come from immigrants. By giving up all of these outside influences, we are not left with an identity.
Kerryann and folks thank you for starting a great debate. The first thing I would like to draw attention to is the theme of "America the Great." I do believe that in comparison with other countires, the United States definitely has more to offer, which I view as attributed to America's educational system. Truly you will not find such an educational system anywhere else in the world. However, immigrants who come into this country make serious sacrifices. I think your comment on offering a better life is a bit misleading. There may be a better life for the second generation immigrants, meaning kids of individuals who come into this country. However, speak with immigrants who just came from their home countries and you may be shocked to find that a sanitation worker was a top tier attorney in his country or that a woman working at McDonald's worked as a professor. However, the hope of these individuals who do migrate to the United States is that their children may have the opportunities that they never had.
In addition, I also think that when you state that individuals run from warzones, please do not be under the impression that immigrants come to the United States and live in the richest neighborhoods. The case of refugees from Central America during the seventies and eighties demonstrates how they ran from violence in Central America only to find themselves in the heart of LA's gang wars. Therefore some individuals founded the MS-13 and M-18 gang for protection from rival gangs.
In response to having one culture. First of all I don't think you can ever have every individual happy with the situation. Rather than shifting the conversation to having one culture, I particularly think that what truly makes America beautiful is that there are so many cultures in the United States. It is truly rare to have individuals in front of you who come from exotic places and backgrounds. Part of having different cultures is learning tolerance and acceptance and seeing that despite language, ethnic and cultural difference, we do share a common ground. Just look at our own class. I always like to challenge the notion that regular people see each other differently. I believe such matters are truly political and not inherent. Many times we fail to see when we started noticing the differences, which are constructed and pointed to us by politicians or individuals with power.
I agree with the rich comments so far that one of the wonders of the US is its real diversity and theoretical tolerance of diversity. (I say theoretical because it often takes long, hard struggles to turn that theory into reality; there can be no denying, however, that this has been possible throughout the history of the country). I particularly agree with Darakshan about education as central to the promise of this country. When John Adams was writing the constitution for Massachusetts way back when, he wrote into that document (which is still the state's constitution and the model for many states' constitutions) the central role that education would play in realizing what was then literally just a dream of "America." It was true for him personally. Unlike many of the Founding Fathers and his own cousin, Sam Adams, John Adams was from humble circumstances financially and it was in getting himself to and through Harvard that he made his way in colonial Massachusetts. And George Washington, anticipating the divisions between North and South that would culminate in the Civil War, sought to avoid such conflict by insisting, almost obsessively, on a national university which would bring everyone together in the classroom. Washington, troubled by both the slavery and Native American questions, felt that public education was the best hope for figuring out the solution to these tough problems.
The question I'd like to pose to the blog is, even as we recognize our diversity, is there one thing that we can all agree on is truly "American"? It touched me to read Kerry-Ann's final sentence, that she was choosing to raise her child as American. That means many different things to each of us, but I'm curious to know if there is one thing that we all would agree that means (beyond legal citizenship)?
I will start off by being very contrarian and not answer Prof. Reitz's question. Hey, it's a free country! (This is also how my children respond when I tell them to clean up their rooms. Perhaps there is nothing more American than that inherent sense of entitlement to do what we want, consequences be damned.)
I am fascinated here by the shifting meanings of assimilation and accommodation: are these just ways of "disappearing" into the majority, hoping no one will notice? Are they, alternately, ways of forcing the majority culture around you to adopt and absorb your own culture's uniqueness, which then becomes “Americanized”? Or is the latter neither assimilation nor accommodation, just appropriation (a nicer way of saying theft)? There is no doubt that we blend, although each cultural wave does it a bit differently. And it is always a matter of great complexity.
I have been reading a great book for a class I am teaching “Sex, Race, and Music”. The book is about both the assimilation and appropriation of African American music in the United States. In a chapter on the relationship between Jews and African-Americans in the music industry from the turn of the century through the 1930s, I have been introduced to a level of complexity that I never imagined. Of course, I knew that Jews, not being allowed in most industries, become entrepreneurs in the music business and subsequently capitalized on the even more marginalized African American population by “cleaning up” their music (desensualizing it) for resale to “white” Americans (Jews were not considered white at that time), in the meantime taking both the financial profit and the creative credit. I was surprised to find out, though, that sometimes Jewish songwriters were stealing songs from famous Black entertainers that, it turned out, had actually been written by an earlier wave of Jews (circa 1880s), although-just to add another layer-these Jews, too new to America to know how to “Americanize” the music properly, often hired African American musicians to help them with the finished product. After the Leo Frank case (the only Jew lynched in the United States, following charges of having raped and murdered a thirteen year old), Jews-like Blacks-came to be seen as sexually dangerous and other, white (non-Jewish) entrepreneurs had to become go betweens in selling the musical products to Americans. So, there was horrific theft, collegial hybridization, unavoidable interdependency…a whole range of things going on in this process of two very different groups trying to get a piece of the American Dream.
It seems not to be so simple as deciding what we want to do, even if it is a “free” country.
I agrre with Darakshan. So many people came here to pursue a better life, but they've found impossible to continue their education. This is due, in part, to the necessity to make ends meet and to a language barrier. Some of us are lucky to live in NY, were a strong accent is tolerated, but in other parts of the country immigrants are judged because they have an accent and because they cannot be completely assimilated by the American culture. It is hard to see past these differences, when you cannot reach the same goals as others like you, with the same drive and knowledge, only due to a language barrier. Americans think that everyone should learn their language, but they have never been pressured to learn and master a foreign language just to get a better life.
There are no easy answers to these questions, however, it seems that we all agree "tolerance" would help to alleviate issues revolving around race, culture, religion, etc. Therefore, I want to focus on why people are intolerant, and what can prevent/change this.
Intolerance has many roots; it can be taught by parents, result from a personal experience, it can be read in books, expressed in the media, the list is endless. Growing up, I had relatives that would make “intolerant” statements around me. In my head, I would question these biases. However, not all children will.
On the other hand, there are ways (I believe) to undo intolerance (and in turn, promote pluralism). Of course, education is a part of this, but in a country as unique as the U.S. (where there are many portions that are still not culturally diverse), more needs to be done. Personally, I think that the media is the propagator of much of this intolerance, for what else can explain racist attitudes amongst people with little or no contact with other races/cultures.
I googled the definition of “tolerance” and the meaning ranges everywhere from “a permissible difference; allowing some freedom to move within limits” to a “willingness to recognize and respect the beliefs and practices of others”. As we can see, a great difference exists between the two. Going by the first definition, America would be considered a “tolerant” country; going by the latter, America falls short.
This subject matter has surely hit a nerve among many of you, and rightfully so. The discussion of race, culture, religion and gender can sometimes elicit strong emotions, both positive and negative; yet, it is a necessary discussion to have because they are what divide us as a society.
I am a strong advocate for tolerance of others and their differences; after all, there must be some mechanism in place while we go forward in finding solutions for an array of societal problems. America is not perfect, this we can all agree, but it is far better than many countries around the world. Having the Vera Institute of Justice is one example as to how people can work in concert to create a more fair and just society in order to enable equal opportunity. Though this is not always the case, since there are many who come to America, yet their commitment and loyalty lies from which they came outside of America.
We may not be able to agree definitively what constitute being an American, but we may all agree that America has strong founding principles: generosity, service, courage and resilience. Believing that out of many we are one may be one of the first steps to realizing that we have more in common than we are different----though it takes everyone to believe this.
It seems as though some of the most unifying and important values to ‘Americans’ are our negative rights (free speech, private property, freedom of religion etc.). These rights were arguably put in place to guarantee protection from persecution and promote some level of governmental tolerance. Although in reality these freedoms are not always met, it is comforting knowing that our country was founded on such important principles.
The importance of education has been mentioned several times. Before coming to John Jay, I always attended private schools, but many of my friends who went to Public Schools in NYC express appreciation for the diversity of cultures they were exposed to. Focusing on this positive right (to a decent, available education), schools seem like an optimal place to teach young Americans tolerance and cultural diversity.
To some extent all of history is an example of cultural, racial and ethnic tensions. I don’t expect any major changes in this, but we can work to protect our fundamental rights and embrace at least tolerance, if not diversity.
Another great discussion. I’d like to add another lens to consider the issues brought up in the blog and that complements the fascinating history described by Professor Stein.
I mentioned the article I published in a journal Transforming Anthropology (which we’ll post on the blog). The central question is: “Are Latinos Becoming “White” Folk? And What That Still Says about Race in America” which is also the title of the article. Issues of assimilation, pluralism (multiculturalism), acculturation, unity, diversity and interests are addressed in this piece, either explicitly or implicitly, by examining the changing status of a historically marginalized and heterogeneous ethnic group (Latinos) within a society that operates in a black/white racial binary. Here’s an edited excerpt from the article; I hope it offers some food for thought:
Historian George J. Sanchez outlines two camps among scholars envisioning the end of race in America, now that mestizaje (being mixed) seems to muddle things. Writing that each camp is looking to “a time in which race does not determine social conditions as much as it does today,” Sanchez suggests the end goal is only partial. One group believes that “mixing” itself will undo racial categorization, and that the very embodiment of mixed-race people will destroy the black/white binary. The other group sees race as racism, a system of exploitation tied to the distribution of privilege, power, and wealth, a position I subscribe to.
Scholars of ethnic studies in the U.S. have long entertained the possibility that Latinos will become white just as the Irish, Jews, Italians, and other European groups have done before them. In addition to a “Latino as white ethnic” future scenario, [some scholars] posit two additional possibilities: The racially heterogeneous Latinos will follow different paths as a function of skin color, human and social capital whereby lighter-skinned Latinos . . . will ‘disappear,’ becoming de facto, sociologically white . . . while darker-skinned Latinos . . . will disappear in the other direction, joining the black side of the U.S. ‘color line,’” or they will “finally break the black-white binary mold.” Coatsworth is not inclined towards the “white ethnic” scenario since “intergenerational assimilation” and “upward mobility” among Latinos has not happened, at least according to the data he reviews. The “break the binary mold” scenario seems to capture the hope of many writers, artists, and scholars. Rodriguez tempers his optimism that the binary mold shall be broken, yet it shows through in his words: “Brown bleeds through the straight line, unstaunchable—the line separating black from white. . . . brown confuses” (2002:xi–xiii). Still, he dismisses a friend’s prediction that Latinos will become America’s “new Italians” since this forecast fails to address the influence of hispanidad on the American psyche.
I suggest a fourth scenario, a variation of the “different paths by race” prediction that melds with the “Latino as white ethnic” sequence. In this version, the path will have less to do with phenotype, ascriptive appearance or skin color even though there are correlates to phenotype, especially at the outliers (of very light or very dark-skinned, for example). Within the whole continuum of “brown” Latinos, there will be those who move into whiteness (joining the elites among them, most of whom may already be there) and others of the same hue who will not.
There are several indicators that point to the fourth scenario, including extant intra-Latino class differences, the growing importance of Latinos to the American political scene as well as to the consumer marketplace, results of the 2000 U.S. Census, the growing xenophobia against new Latino immigrants, especially those indÃgenos coming across the southwest border, and the enduring power of the American dream.
As Latinos become American and become more Americanized, it is likely that more among them will become white, and we will see an ever-growing distancing from blackness as well as from the indÃgenos, the new immigrants to come.
However well meaning those in the first camp may be, I believe their dream of mestizaje will not bring about the goal. Hispanidad, and even forms of mestizaje, are becoming mainstream, personified by dark-haired, full-bodied sirens like Jennifer Lopez. Unlike Margarita Cansino, who masked her Mexican heritage by becoming Rita Hayworth in the 1940s, Jennifer Lopez can keep her name and her complexion and still be the “ethereal all-American girl.” Just as being Jewish became a way of being American, so is being Latina/o becoming a new form of white Americanness.
The dream of mestizaje will not bring about the end of race since racism has proven itself capable of manipulating biology, not truly resting on it. Let me repeat here after Barbara Fields that “Once everyone understands that African descent is not race and that African ancestry differs from others only in the racism with which Euro-America has stigmatized it, the problem changes: what is needed is not a more varied set of words and categories to represent racism but a politics to uproot it” (2003: par 21). As things now stand, we should not expect the end of racism with multiracialism but anticipate a racialized dimension in the mobilization of indigenous Latino immigrant labor.
There are signs pointing to this development. More undocumented, indigenous immigrants are now crossing the border from Mexico and Central America, driven into the “not-white,” racially segregated, and occupationally segmented, low-wage labor force. Alongside this migration flow, anti-immigrant sentiment is surging, supported by legislation like California’s Proposition 187 in 1994….....Discrimination and exploitation, reflections of “the possessive investment in whiteness” (Lipsitz 1998), always require distancing from racialized others. In this way, if and when Latinos enter into whiteness, racism will live on in the service of an American construct of class.
Another great discussion. I’d like to add another lens to consider the issues brought up in the blog and that complements the fascinating history described by Professor Stein.
I mentioned the article I published in a journal Transforming Anthropology (which we’ll post on the blog). The central question is: “Are Latinos Becoming “White” Folk? And What That Still Says about Race in America” which is also the title of the article. Issues of assimilation, pluralism (multiculturalism), acculturation, unity, diversity and interests are addressed in this piece, either explicitly or implicitly, by examining the changing status of a historically marginalized and heterogeneous ethnic group (Latinos) within a society that operates in a black/white racial binary. Here’s an edited excerpt from the article; I hope it offers some food for thought:
Historian George J. Sanchez outlines two camps among scholars envisioning the end of race in America, now that mestizaje (being mixed) seems to muddle things. Writing that each camp is looking to “a time in which race does not determine social conditions as much as it does today,” Sanchez suggests the end goal is only partial. One group believes that “mixing” itself will undo racial categorization, and that the very embodiment of mixed-race people will destroy the black/white binary. The other group sees race as racism, a system of exploitation tied to the distribution of privilege, power, and wealth, a position I subscribe to.
Scholars of ethnic studies in the U.S. have long entertained the possibility that Latinos will become white just as the Irish, Jews, Italians, and other European groups have done before them. In addition to a “Latino as white ethnic” future scenario, [some scholars] posit two additional possibilities: The racially heterogeneous Latinos will follow different paths as a function of skin color, human and social capital whereby lighter-skinned Latinos . . . will ‘disappear,’ becoming de facto, sociologically white . . . while darker-skinned Latinos . . . will disappear in the other direction, joining the black side of the U.S. ‘color line,’” or they will “finally break the black-white binary mold.” Coatsworth is not inclined towards the “white ethnic” scenario since “intergenerational assimilation” and “upward mobility” among Latinos has not happened, at least according to the data he reviews. The “break the binary mold” scenario seems to capture the hope of many writers, artists, and scholars. Rodriguez tempers his optimism that the binary mold shall be broken, yet it shows through in his words: “Brown bleeds through the straight line, unstaunchable—the line separating black from white. . . . brown confuses” (2002:xi–xiii). Still, he dismisses a friend’s prediction that Latinos will become America’s “new Italians” since this forecast fails to address the influence of hispanidad on the American psyche.
I suggest a fourth scenario, a variation of the “different paths by race” prediction that melds with the “Latino as white ethnic” sequence. In this version, the path will have less to do with phenotype, ascriptive appearance or skin color even though there are correlates to phenotype, especially at the outliers (of very light or very dark-skinned, for example). Within the whole continuum of “brown” Latinos, there will be those who move into whiteness (joining the elites among them, most of whom may already be there) and others of the same hue who will not.
There are several indicators that point to the fourth scenario, including extant intra-Latino class differences, the growing importance of Latinos to the American political scene as well as to the consumer marketplace, results of the 2000 U.S. Census, the growing xenophobia against new Latino immigrants, especially those indÃgenos coming across the southwest border, and the enduring power of the American dream.
As Latinos become American and become more Americanized, it is likely that more among them will become white, and we will see an ever-growing distancing from blackness as well as from the indÃgenos, the new immigrants to come.
However well meaning those in the first camp may be, I believe their dream of mestizaje will not bring about the goal. Hispanidad, and even forms of mestizaje, are becoming mainstream, personified by dark-haired, full-bodied sirens like Jennifer Lopez. Unlike Margarita Cansino, who masked her Mexican heritage by becoming Rita Hayworth in the 1940s, Jennifer Lopez can keep her name and her complexion and still be the “ethereal all-American girl.” Just as being Jewish became a way of being American, so is being Latina/o becoming a new form of white Americanness.
The dream of mestizaje will not bring about the end of race since racism has proven itself capable of manipulating biology, not truly resting on it. Let me repeat here after Barbara Fields that “Once everyone understands that African descent is not race and that African ancestry differs from others only in the racism with which Euro-America has stigmatized it, the problem changes: what is needed is not a more varied set of words and categories to represent racism but a politics to uproot it” (2003: par 21). As things now stand, we should not expect the end of racism with multiracialism but anticipate a racialized dimension in the mobilization of indigenous Latino immigrant labor.
There are signs pointing to this development. More undocumented, indigenous immigrants are now crossing the border from Mexico and Central America, driven into the “not-white,” racially segregated, and occupationally segmented, low-wage labor force. Alongside this migration flow, anti-immigrant sentiment is surging, supported by legislation like California’s Proposition 187 in 1994….....Discrimination and exploitation, reflections of “the possessive investment in whiteness” (Lipsitz 1998), always require distancing from racialized others. In this way, if and when Latinos enter into whiteness, racism will live on in the service of an American construct of class.
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