America: Dream or Delusion - Research Paper Example

28 August America: Dream or Delusion, and the Men behind It The American Dream in the twentieth century conjures images of wealth, equal access to opportunities, and a solid college education. Migrants to the United States often fled from social inequality and prosecution in their countries. They came to America to realize the American Dream for themselves and their families. My grandparents came from Naples, Italy and started a family in the U.S. Like other migrant families, they struggled to start anew, but they remained driven in making a decent living, while assimilating an American identity, without necessarily forgetting their cultural identities. Cristina Garcia's Dreaming in Cuban and Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers are two novels about migration, nostalgia, and the American Dream. Its female characters want to find happiness in a nation, where social status and gender are flexible concepts. Unfortunately, the greatest hindrances in their lives are their male family members. Both novels, Bread Givers and Dreaming in Cuban, depict that many women immigrants in America struggle in finding happiness through the fulfillment of their dreams because of the ongoing conflict with Old World men in their lives. This essay describes the characters and settings of these novels first. The women of Dreaming in Cuban are Celia, Lourdes, Felicia and Pilar. Celia is the grandmother and matriarch of the family in Cuba. Lourdes is her firstborn, who brought sadness and anger to her, because she leaves Cuba. Felicia is the daughter, who became “insane.” Pilar is the exiled daughter of Lourdes, who felt her grandmother’s presence all her life. The women of Bread Givers are Mrs. Smolinsky, Bessie, Mashah, Fania, and Sara. Mrs. Smolinsky is the mother and a good example of the submissive wife. She is also the “bread winner” of the family. Bessie, Mashah, and Fania are the older daughters, who settled for living an unhappy married life. Sara is the youngest, and she is energetic and outspoken. The men of these novels affected these women’s identities, experiences, and destinies. The men of Dreaming in Cuban are Jorge, Gustavo, Rufino and Hugo. Jorge is the husband of Celia, who leaves her behind, while they still lived in Cuba. Gustavo is Celia’s first unrequited love. Rufino is Lourdes’ lazy husband and Pilar’s cheating father. Hugo is Felicia’s hateful first husband. The men of Bread Givers are Reb Smolinsky, Berel, Jacob, Morris and Hugo. Reb Smolinsky is the religious non-working husband and father of the Smolinsky family. Berel, Jacob and Morris are the men, who initially wanted to marry the older daughters, but were scared away by their father. The setting of Dreaming in Cuban is in Cuba, and it spans pre, during, and post-Cuban Revolution. New York City in the 1920s is also the time frame for Bread Givers, while it is the 1970s for Dreaming in Cuban. The idea of the American Dream attracts migrants to America because it promises social equality and material wealth. America signifies freedom and choice, freedom of religion, and education for everyone, including women. My grandfather worked hard to provide for his seven children. Many of my uncles and aunts finished college, because they know that a college education is critical to their success in the New World. For the female characters of Bread Givers and Dreaming in Cuban, they dream of escaping their social status through “upward mobility” too (Renny 80). They are aware that education is key to their success, although not all of the female characters finished college. America also offers the opportunity to attain freedom from poverty. Hunger for food is one of the dominant motifs in Bread Givers. Sara complains about her stomach, as she works hard to improve her socioeconomic conditions: “I hated my stomach. It was like some clawing animal in me that I had to stop to feed always” (Yezierska 173). This feeling of hunger is not a physiological kind of hunger alone, however, but more of an inner sense of hunger. Sara wants nothing more than to achieve her full potential, which she knows that she can attain through a college education. The structure of Bread Givers itself follows the journey of Sara and her family in the New World, as they pursue different avenues of the American Dream. Book I “Hester Street” is set already in in the U.S., but it showcases conditions that reflect Old World beliefs and traditions. This chapter outlines the lives of the working-class and the clash between an Old-World father and his New-World daughters. Book II focuses on Sara with its title “Between Two Worlds.” She struggles for upward mobility, as she works during the day and studies at night. Book III “The NewWorld” shows the successful Sara, although she is alone on top, since her father successfully pressured his daughters to marry seemingly rich men, who turned out to be scoundrels. In Dreaming in Cuban, Lourdes chooses to flee Cuba and to live in New York. She opens a Yankee Doodle Bakery, which Pilar at first denigrates: “She bought a second bakery and plans to sell tricolor cupcakes and Uncle Sam marzipan. Apple pies, too. She's convinced she can fight Communism from behind her bakery counter” (Garcia 136). In the end, after Pilar sees Cuba for herself, “she appears to become independent of her previous ideas” (Davis 61). She lies to her grandmother, when the latter asked about Ivanito's departure, unreservedly agreeing to his defection. She understands what it means being an American and being free, which Cubans in her time did not attain yet. Women immigrants aim to find the perfect love and “happily ever after” in the New World that pledges gender and racial equality. Sara wants to find happiness and success in her own terms. She lives an independent life, even when loneliness sometimes suffocates her. Indeed, she endures even her mother’s loss in her life. She continues with her solitary living and does not visit her mother for six years. In “Rags to Riches to Suicide: Unhappy Narratives of Upward Mobility,” Renny explores the consequences of upward mobility for the working-class. He knows that not all of the working class attain upward development, and those who do are often forced to leave their friends and family behind. Happiness, however, is not always about the American Dream, but also about the attainment of one’s ethnic dreams. In “Dreaming as Cultural Work in Donald Duk and Dreaming in Cuban,” Leonard asserts that dreaming enables their characters to relate to their cultural identities in emotional and corporeal ways (182). She argues that dreaming can also be seen as a form of “historiography,” as it recollects history through personal memories (182). Pilar dreams of her grandmother and her life in Cuba, and this helps her find her happiness that being an American alone cannot provide her. Somehow, cultural nostalgia haunts Pilar, who says: “Shit. I’m only twenty-one years old. How can I be nostalgic for my youth?” (Garcia 131). In “The Global Baggage of Nostalgia in Cristina Garcia's Dreaming in Cuban,” Saez explores nostalgia after migration and the limitations of dreaming in Cuban for people like Pilar, who did not grow up in Cuba. Saez further analyzes the positive view of travelling as providing a means for transatlantic communication and connection (130). For her, traveling back to Cuba is not simply about going back to one’s ethnic roots, but more about promoting cultural production and creativity in an international setting (Saez 131). Hence, these women struggle to unearth what happiness means for themselves in America, which does not always neatly fit with the notions of the American Dream. Old-World men represent the barriers that halt and often destroy women immigrant’s dreams. Relationships are forced upon couples because of Old World beliefs about marriage and the relationship between men and women. Sara’s father symbolizes the Old World that Sara wanted to leave behind. In “The Making of an American: Counternarration in Louis Adamic's Laughing in the Jungle and Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers,” Piper does not believe that Bread Givers promulgates the assimilation of ethnic minorities. For him, the novel is a a “counternarrative” that has no black-and-white interpretation of Sara’s transformation into a New World woman (102). All of Sara’s sisters marry men that their father forced on them. He also sent Sara a suitor. At first, she almost gives in to him because, for her, even a solitary island wants to be loved: “My one need of needs stronger than my life was my love to be loved” (Yezierska 198). She realizes, however, that the suitor is highly materialistic and embodies a “talking roll of dollar bills” (Yezierska 199). Her father goes to her and criticizes her superior self-image: “Why do you hold yourself better than the whole world?” (Yezierska 206). This is an ironic statement for a man who does not even try to make a living because he believes that being a scholar is better than an earning man. Also, he does not even remember that he struggled with his wife in renting out one of their rooms in the house that he specifically uses for his study. They are already very poor, and yet he holds his studies higher than his family’s own basic sustenance. In addition, men who are unfaithful cause lasting hurt and anger. Rufino is an example of an unfaithful husband who scarred Lourdes’ as a woman and as a human being. As a woman, her status as a wife is questioned by her husband’s infidelity. As a human being, her self-image is undercut through a series of unfaithfulness. Hence, these men with Old World values and attitudes regarding life and women derail female immigrants from reaching their dreams and happiness. Moreover, some women can find the strength to fight and to overcome the barriers to their self-development. In “The Love of Colour in Me: Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers and the Space of White Racial Manufacture,” Simpson discusses the meaning of mobility for migrant women. For Sara, she did not only migrate physically, but also socially, culturally, and emotionally. Simpson argues that Yezierska’s heroine represents “the prototypical pre-white immigrant whose movements within and beyond fictional New York tell much about the desires and psychic processes that abetted the spatialization of race” (94). Bread Givers stand for women who make the bread or make a living for their families. Throughout their lives, they journey from being a working-class immigrant girl to a white American femininity (Simpson 94). In the beginning, Sara uses commodities to signify her transition to the New World. She has the perfect room and she can buy the best clothes. However, she also understands the importance of companionship, as she makes her way to the top alone. In “Cultural Mediation and the Immigrant's Daughter: Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers,” Wilentz explores the process of cultural mediation for Sara and her family. He argues that Yezierska describes the predicament of the Jewish immigrant woman, whose divergence between living her life as an American and preserving the strength and nourishment she gets from her Jewish community, is made worse by her need for independence (Wilentz 32). In Bread Givers, it is through the protagonist's turbulent relationship with her Old World father that Yezierska embodies the “dialectics of mediation for the Jewish woman and gives us special insight into these immigrant daughters for whom the quest for identity entails both gender and cultural consideration” (Wilentz 32). The idea is to find something that connects the new and old world identities. The same can be said for Pilar. She also realizes the strengths of her mother and grandmother through acknowledging their weaknesses as human beings. Her maternal and motherland discourse allowed her to develop her sense of self without leaving her heritage or her New World identity. The dreams of women immigrants can be brought to reality with perseverance. Women can be the driving force that lays the strong foundation, which will overcome the obstacles to their dreams. Bread Givers and Dreaming in Cuban give examples of women immigrants who started from the bottom of the social class and climbed their way up. They interpreted the American Dream through their own goals and aspirations in life. With their own efforts and perseverance, their happiness and dreams will no longer be a form of a delusion, but a lived happiness as they continue to struggle finding and strengthening their multicultural identities. Works Cited Davis, Rocio G. “Back to the Future: Mothers, Languages, and Homes in Cristina Garcia's Dreaming in Cuban.” World Literature Today 74.1 (2000); 60-68. JSTOR. Web. 20 Aug. 2012. Garcia, Cristina. Dreaming in Cuban. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992. Print. Leonard, Suzanne. “Dreaming as Cultural Work in Donald Duk and Dreaming in Cuban.” MELUS 29.2 (2004): 181-203. Print. Academic Search Complete. Web. 25 Aug. 2012. Piper, Kevin. “The Making of an American: Counternarration in Louis Adamic's Laughing in the Jungle and Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers.” MELUS 35.1 (2010): 99-118. Academic Search Complete. Web. 25 Aug. 2012. Renny, Christopher. “Rags to Riches to Suicide: Unhappy Narratives of Upward Mobility: Martin Eden, Bread Givers, Delia's Song, and Hunger of Memory.” College Literature 29.4 (2002): 79-108. JSTOR. Web. 20 Aug. 2012. Saez, Elena Machado. “The Global Baggage of Nostalgia in Cristina Garcia's Dreaming in Cuban.” MELUS 30.4 (2005): 129-147. Academic Search Complete. Web. 25 Aug. 2012. Simpson, II, Tyrone R. “The Love of Colour in Me: Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers and the Space of White Racial Manufacture.” MELUS 34.3 (2009): 93-114. Academic Search Complete. Web. 25 Aug. 2012. Wilentz, Gay. “Cultural Mediation and the Immigrant's Daughter: Anzia Yezierska's Bread Givers.” MELUS 17.3 (1991): 33-41. Academic Search Complete. Web. 25 Aug. 2012. Yezierska, Anzia. Bread Givers. 1925. New York: Persea Books, 1975. Print. Read More