Stating the Obvious, The Immigrant Experience in America

These days we often speak of living in fear, nothing is certain, nothing is safe. Many times someone will remark that it wasn’t always like this; we didn’t always have to worry about terrorists or crazed gunmen. They point to the fifties or even the nineties as eras of tranquility in American history and we collectively long for those times. But were they really so idyllic? They were not; in fact no time in American history has been free from fear if you are anything other than a white European person. Every single other ethnic group has suffered through fears that have haunted their families for generations.

America started its history the way most other countries of that time were formed- by killing and relocating the Native Americans. Then they brought slaves with them which introduced a whole new level of racism and intolerance. Aside from these two horribly abused ethnic groups how did other cultural groups fare as they immigrated to America seeking a new life? Using fiction as a guide we can see quickly that fear, shame and unease are often central themes to the immigrant experience. Even when an ethnic group gains a strong foothold in the culture such as the Jews- fear lingers and unfortunately it stays because of terrible events such as the recent shooting of the security guard at the National Holocaust Museum. The official statements that we make as a society do not match the feelings of a majority of the citizens and how they treat their foreign born peers.

The first huge waves of immigrants were Germans and Irish. The Italians, Jewish, Greeks and other southern European countries came next. They were often ridiculed, abused and mistreated. Immigrants always seemed to settle in areas together –neighborhoods that tried to recreate villages from Germany or Ireland, Poland or Italy. These neighborhoods were almost always seen by the established whites as bad places, somehow not American. Some white families disowned or disapproved of their children for marrying “down.” Anne Tyler in her novels often focuses on the Polish American experience in Baltimore and in her book, The Amateur Marriage she writes of the “daring” love between an upper class Baltimore girl and a lower middle class Polish American boy. The book much like Richard Russo’s books shows a town divided. One part of the town is filled with larger homes, manicured lawns (a big symbol of America) wide sidewalks and old trees while another part of town is crammed with tiny shops, stuffy apartments, laundry hanging in the open, children playing in alleys and old ladies in black. In The Amateur Marriage the main characters, Pauline and Michael move up and away from the Polish neighborhood of St. Cassian to Elmview Acres a new postwar up and coming solid middle class suburban neighborhood.
The neighborhoods where immigrants lived were usually considered poor, dirty, hopeless and scary by the average white local. While the non immigrant or WASP neighborhoods were clean, rich, secure, prosperous and safe. The goal of most immigrants was to get to the nice side of town and move away from their old world roots. This is after all the basic formula for achieving the American dream. Make money, get educated and move away.
In Richard Russo’s latest book, Bridge of Sighs the main character, Lucy tells the reader his tale of childhood, of moving gradually from the West End- poor, to the East End- lower middle class, then finally when he is an adult he moves to the Borough- upper middle class and wealthy. When his Italian mother says that the war “which has made us all Americans first, Catholics or Protests or Italians or Irish second.” (pg. 65) she is referring to the loosening of those barriers between the first groups of immigrants. Lucy’s Irish father’s optimistic viewpoint was shared by many “Here, he reminded me proudly, anybody could become anything, and we ourselves were living examples of how America worked.” (pg. 63) But Lucy’s mother still felt the differences she said if you weren’t black you could move up but you could also move down. (pg. 65)
In other words unless you were born into great wealth you had to fight and keep fighting for everything you had.
Philip Roth and many other Jewish writes have explored the Jewish experience of rising up from making gloves or buttons or fabrics to owning companies and always stressing education in their children. In his classic novella Goodbye Columbus he explores this theme by using the experience of a summer romance between upper class, suburban, Ivy League educated Brenda and Newark based, working class, state educated Neil. Their pasts are so similar- Brenda’s father still runs his business in Newark but the one step of difference between their lifestyles means everything. All the hard work to get the family out of Newark means that the children must continue to move upwards and any commingling with the recent past is not taken seriously by Brenda or her family. This story illustrates the internal discrimination within the same ethnic group, why does the family that “made it” reject their own past and why does it make Neil feel as though he is in the same class as their African American maid Carlota?
Another group of immigrants that suffered greatly were the Chinese and Japanese and later the Koreans. The Chinese were never welcomed to this country and in fact they are the only ethnic group that had a law passed specifically against them, The Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. Many came during the California Gold Rush and stayed trying to become rich enough to go back home and be wealthy. Because of their obvious physical differences they received even worse treatment from the whites. Then after WWII they were harassed and tormented and threatened because of the red scare. No one wanted to be labeled a communist. This is the central issue that Lisa See addresses in her latest book, Shanghai Girls. She conveys the constant fear that many Chinese have about being in America every single day. Because of the law against the Chinese most were living illegally and their country was being torn apart by war leaving them in a lose-lose situation. But it’s the little snippets of daily life she shows that speak more about the average American’s attitude towards Asians in general at the time. One of her main characters, Pearl tries to get a job; she has a college degree from China and is told upon the interview “Oh I thought you were Italian.” Thus showing how far the Italians had assimilated into the culture at this point and how much farther the Chinese had to go. She ends up working in a windowless room and later selling mahjongg sets in her full Chinese regalia. The Japanese suffered even more because they were an official enemy during WWII and many were locked away in internment camps and then released with no apology from the US government.

The next groups to pass through the hazing rituals of immigration were the Hispanics, Filipinos, Indians, Koreans and other East Asians. The Hispanic populations seemed to have a better system of insulation against white American culture by sticking together, refusing to disown their heritage and preserving traditions. Perhaps because of this they have influenced American popular culture more than the other groups, musical tastes, clothing, slang terms all have become assimilated in small doses. But they have experienced the same fears of other immigrant groups. They tend to do the most menial work for the least pay and most families live with the fear that at least someone they know and love could be caught as an illegal immigrant and deported at some point. Junot Diaz’ great book, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao describes some of the ideals of the “Dominican male”, macho, a ladies man, smooth, dancer, baseball player and of course his main character is none of these. But the fact is that this male archetype is respected in the community and is also one that white Americans can admire and respect to a certain extent. Diaz’ book also contains the central theme of the outsider in America-the need to go back to where you came from- whether you were born there or not, you must go back and you must confront the culture in a direct way that somehow fundamentally changes you. Those that choose to stay without the pilgrimage home are seen as turning their backs on their symbolic parents-the home country. In the motherland there is always some hidden heritage or symbol of strength that the character takes back with them and is therefore able to submit to the assimilation process without so much pain. In Shanghai Girls Pearl’s touchstone is her mothers jade bracelet.

In the sixties and seventies some of the larger immigrant groups were highly educated Indians, Asians and Middle Easterners. They came to America for better paying jobs and more specifically to insure that their children were educated at Ivy League schools thus assuring them of certain success in the world. The parents who made the move were often doing it for their children’s sake and some went back to India after their children settled into their upper class American lives. Jhumpa Lahiri addresses these themes extensively in her fiction and explores the growing distances between the generations as well as the erroneous assumption that a good education will always ensure a prosperous and happy life. In her latest collection of stories, Unaccustomed Earth, a father says “ The more the children grew, the less they had seemed to resemble either parent-they spoke differently, dressed differently, seemed foreign in every way, from the texture of their hair to the shapes of their feet and hands.” (pg 54) These groups had the “right” education, lived in the “right” neighborhoods and played by the rules but still the racism, the shame and self doubt plague them and their children. The parents seemed resigned to the racism and they usually tried to hide their cultural traditions but the children who felt more American than Indian, Iranian or Korean often dated or married white Americans and no matter how comfortable it all seems the underlying feeling is one of alienation and disconnection.

Obviously the two immigrant groups that are living with the most day to day fear presently are anyone from a Muslim country because of the constant fear of terrorism and Mexicans due to the issues of illegal immigration.

It is easy to state that if you work hard and don’t do anything wrong you will make it in America but it is impossible to match that statement up with the truth. The truth is that America is an ugly place unless you happen to be white and middle class or above. If you look or act differently in any major way you will feel the sting of racism in your life and you will remember it and that will pass through you down through your children and become an accepted part of your cultural heritage. One in which an old grandmother says “Oh well, it was so different in those days you know…not like now. You have so many more choices.” Not like now? Has anything really changed? Have we really changed? Our laws, our politically correct attitudes and constant apologies over “accidental” racist or ethnic comments don’t prove anything except that the racism now is less obvious and therefore even more dangerous. The real question is how can we as a society honestly face the facts and begin to move forward in a way that celebrates differences? But we have to move forward in an authentic way, we cannot pretend to understand their unique experiences and that is ok. We don’t have to. All that we have to do is give them their own space, freedom and confidence to figure out how they want to be accepted in America.

American man circa 2009

Ever since Homer Simpson said his first “duoh!” Americans have cheerfully applauded the rise of simplistic, stupid male heroes. We love to laugh at Michael from the Office who remains constantly oblivious to his own shortcomings and gallantly waves his quixotic sword at windmills. We adore the family guy who makes no excuse for his behavior and openly embraces his bad habits including even hating his own daughter. Of course this love of clowns, caricatures and buffoons is what gave us the long, long reign of George W. Bush who embodies all of these qualities in the position of running the country! But George W. couldn’t have come onto the scene without some prepping of the country’s’ subconscious first. So when exactly did this idea of the American and British white male as being clueless, self absorbed and somehow deeply unhappy despite the laughs – start?
Perhaps it began back in the days during World War II when the men were truly men off fighting a real and bloody war that everyone was a part of, the women stayed home but for the first time they worked- Rosie the Riveter was born and females gained a small amount of openly visible power. In the past days of history women still held power and were often just as ambitious as the men plotting and scheming behind the scenes to make everything work the way they envisioned but never before had they been acknowledged of this kind of power or skill. It did not matter what happened behind closed doors only that the men ran the puppet show and the audience liked it that way.
During WWII women wanted to help and they did- working in factories making weapons, working in offices and at skilled trades generally keeping the country running until their husbands, brothers and sons came home. But when they did come home after all the hugs and kisses and the great baby boom had begun these same men realized that something had happened, a shift, a change that wouldn’t go away- after all everyone knows that once you’ve tasted freedom even the most comfortable prison is just that a prison. During the fifties women made a good show of going back to the old days, they stayed home, raised families and made sure dinner was on the table at 6pm but underneath the surface all kinds of exciting things were happening the seeds had been planted and roots were spreading – women’s rights, civil rights and the very beginning of a new way of life had begun poking out from the soil unfurling its tiny new leaves. The 1950’s was a decade of secrets- husbands cheated on their wives with other women and sometimes men, women longed for something to call their own separate from family, African Americans decided that they had had enough, children began listening to rock and roll and experimenting with drugs but all of this was kept quiet – no one spoke of the wife who took valium to keep her sanity, the husband who worked late every night because he was at his girlfriend’s house, the daughter who got pregnant was sent away to stay with relatives for a year, all of these things were private issues that were not allowed to cause a ripple over the surface of the bright blue backyard pools springing up in suburbs all across the country.
And then came the 60’s- that great decade of hope, unrest and danger mixed with an excitement the country had not known since the days of the civil war. The 1960’s don’t need much explaining – everyone knows the story- it’s been repeated so much that to those of us born a generation too late it has the flavor of mythology- and nothing can ever live up to those glory days- ever. So try as we might and we have believe me- nothing we can do will ever live up to the standard set then. The fallout from the 60’s is still happening largely because those irrepressible baby boomers just won’t shut up! Each life stage must be examined and learned from in great depth, every nuance of their lives is somehow more important than any other generations- books must be written, plays and movies made to capture forever that brief period in our history that ushered in the world as we know it.
One of the results of this fallout was the white American (and British) male persona in our culture. He went suddenly from being the man of the house, the provider, the protector of the weak, (his family) the center of the universe to being a subject of derision and ridicule. Literature from the 60’s repeatedly points this out in characters such as the father in The Graduate who is oblivious to his son’s personal journey of self discovery, Willie Lowman in Death of a Salesman who pretends to have it all figured out but alas he doesn’t at all, in Love Story, Portnoys Complaint, and many more the father is a distant and uncommunicative person who is a as far removed from his child’s struggles as a relative in the old country. Or he is a blowhard who stubbornly refuses to grow with the times- the Archie Bunker archetype. The son has figured out that it’s all a game and furthermore that it’s a game he doesn’t want to play at least not by the old rules. And so the son sets off on his great adventure of the soul- desperately determined to find his bliss. On the Road, Easy Rider etc.
But as always happens the son must grow up into a man and these same bright young men who were so determined to prove their fathers wrong eventually turned into them. Not exactly of course- they joined the rat race and had the families and did what was expected of them but they did it in a different way- they made choices, they didn’t mind if their wives worked not that they had a choice since women were on their own voyage of self discovery, they talked to their children and respected their rebellious teenage choices, they listened and they guided their children instead of ordering them and setting rigid expectations. But somehow their masculinity suffered in an irreparable way.
Author Richard Russo tackles this issues repeatedly throughout his books as he portrays the father as a blue collar man who has earned his masculinity through his hands and his genuine appeal with other rough and bawdy men while the son is nearly always college educated and a professor- someone who has found his masculinity through his mind and thoughts and is often cut off from authentic relationships with his male colleagues. They are dominated quite happily by their educated and beautiful wives who just smile at their childish antics while the father figure has often been thrown out of his own home for these same behaviors by a strong but unyielding woman who expects “more” from her husband.
There seems to be something in the masculine experience which he must face and overcome –a hero’s journey of some sort must occur for the man to feel truly at home within his sphere and without this tension he is not truly a man to himself or to others. Many baby boomers tried to recreate their father’s WWII war experiences which no one can argue really did make them come back as men, with spiritual journeys, activism, drugs, rock and roll and although some did fight in Vietnam they came back even more damaged in spirit because they were not respected for undergoing a genuinely difficult and life changing experience by their peers. But the non Vietnam soldiers- the ones who ultimately ended up running the corporate world and the yuppie universe as we know it- their adventures didn’t quite work so they retreated even further into the mind through technology-touting it as the last frontier- but sadly it was settled by geeks not cowboys. Hard lessons about life and death were not learned. Relying only on oneself to survive was not even a part of this world which was all about interconnectedness!
The topic of technology and gender deserves its own essay so I will not address it any further here but will say that it has just helped push the stereotype of the stupid white male even further and what’s more the white males seem to enjoy it! They love the Simpson’s, The Family Guy, The Office etc. They rarely care if their wives make more money than they do. Perhaps they feel it’s all in fun and it doesn’t really mean anything…but it does.
It means that today’s white males undervalue themselves and their experiences and they have chosen to sit back and passively watch as society reforms itself under new management- our new president is African American, women are increasing their power everywhere, everyone knows it is only a matter of time before Indians, Hispanics and Asians sweep the job markets in specialized fields. The white American male needs to integrate his fathers’ experiences with his own and understand that a balance must be achieved through these two extremes. He must listen but also demand, set high expectations but also encourage discussion, and most importantly he must send his sons away from home when they reach adulthood and force them to find their way back. There should be no safety nets allowed.