Selective Greatness

I find it interesting how America is portrayed in the different novels we’ve read. Typically, we read of America as the promised land; the place where people come for an open and opportunistic environment. (Basically) throughout history, the United States has been known to be a welcoming environment for all of those who seek religious and political freedom. The country was, and is continued to be seen as, a kaleidoscope of ethnic and cultural groups. Most immigrants choose to come to America for various reasons, including religious freedom, an escape from poverty, and to make better lives for themselves and their children. America is seen as one of the best places to receive a quality education, housing most of the top universities in the world. Some immigrants also come to the US for the better employment opportunities. Overall, the overarching reason that people come to America is for prosperity. The economic growth has easily surpassed population growth, giving the people who live in the US more potential for prosperity. As immigrants migrate to the US, the economic growth increases as they become invested in the US economy. So, knowing all of this, why do Baldwin, Diaz, and Lahiri all depict America in a darker light?

In Baldwin’s stories, he depicted a man who couldn’t get the respect he deserved as a human being because of the color of his skin. He is constantly being kicked out of apartments, even though he pays the rent (or someone does it for him). In this particular story, “Previous Condition”, Peter is constantly being forced to settle for less in pretty much every aspect of his life. He can’t get the parts he wants to perform, hang out with the people he wants to hang out with, and live in a place he wants to live in. His American “opportunities” are limited because of the color of his skin. Living in America has put Peter in this cage in which he is unable to escape from. He can’t go a day without being judged by the color of his skin. So much for opportunistic freedom, right?

But this isn’t the only Baldwin story that exploits the dark side of America. In “This Morning, This Evening, So Soon”, we see how the narrator’s life changed, for the better, once he LEFT America. He moves to Paris where he doesn’t have to constantly be aware of how he should act around a white person. Typically, while in America, he tried to tow the line between being respectful without losing dignity when speaking to white people. When going through customs, he needed to know how to act so he wouldn’t be searched or beaten. While, in Paris, he can be free. He is able to thrive in his career, have a white wife along with a mixed son, and ultimately doesn’t have to be paranoid, constantly on his toes so he doesn’t say something wrong to a white person. But, knowing how much of a pain it was to live in America, the narrator knows that he must return for his career. He worries because, even if America provides him with opportunity and prosperity, his wife and kid will probably go through a lot of ridicule in the community. At the time, Americans were not accustomed (and all around didn’t accept) a white woman being married to a black man, let alone having a kid with the guy. The wife may be ostracized and the kid may be bullied, even if the narrator is popular. Now, this is just speculation because, since at the end of the story, we don’t know what happened once the narrator returned to America with his family. But, throughout his life in the states, he went through immense psychologically (along with physical) torture, constantly having to play the role of the subservient, yet not too weak, black person living in a white man’s world. And now, he will be bring his family to America, and they will assumably have to endure the same thing. So, even though we can’t be sure, assumably, from his past experiences, we can infer that life in America may not be a pleasant experience for possibly him or his family.

Another author who discusses the erroneousness of the “American Dream” is Junot Diaz, specifically in his story “Negocios”. In this story, Junior’s father travels to America in order to make a life for himself and his family. Even though he comes to the States alone, he does this in order to work hard to be able to support himself and his family once he is able to bring them over. But, even though Ramon is a hardworking man, he finds it hard to prosper in America. He has a language barrier and so he isn’t initially able to find very many jobs because they require him to be fluent in the American English language. But, even with this, Ramon pushes forward and works two jobs, determined to make it. And even though he is working overtime at some of these jobs, he is unable to pay rent on his own. Ramon finds himself thrashing to stay afloat, but ultimately drowning, and so he needs some help supporting himself. He first has roommates, but that doesn’t work out when one of his roommates refuses to pay because he is the only one in the group who has a car. So, Ramon tries to get a wife, one who can help him pay rent until he can save up and bring his family over. A business deal of sorts. But he ends up getting scammed and without a wife. So, finally, he meets Nilda, whom he half marries because he needs her help, financially, but also because he initially enjoys her company (aka he likes her a little). But, in the end, this relationship fall apart as Ramon realizes his initial goal and he saves up to bring his family over to America to live with him. His staying with Nilda, who pays the rent for both of them, helps him become able to save his money and get a place of his own and plane tickets for his family. Ramon couldn’t save up on his own because, even though he worked his ass off in America, managing two jobs at once, he could earn enough to support himself. Better employment opportunities, right?

Finally, we have Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, where we have a story, “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine”, that constantly criticizes the American education system. Lilia’s parents and family friend often comment on the fact that Lilia doesn’t seem to learn important facts in school, like the India-Pakistan conflict. Instead, “that year, and every year, it seemed, we began by studying the Revolutionary War...we were given blank maps of the thirteen colonies, and asked to fill in names, dates, capitals. I could do it with my eyes closed” (27). Instead of learning about what’s happened in other countries, Lilia’s history classes seem to always focus on the United States. This gives Lilia a skewed version of history because it leads one to believe that the US is the center of the world (which is some cases, it is). In this sense, the family then feels a growing disconnect to their home country, not only because it is half way around the world, but also because the news and schools don’t provide a lot of information on it. They are forced to listen to the news when it chooses to cover India, making the situation seem less real because it all happening halfway across the world. They feel helpless and probably become conflicted as to why they chose to uproot and move away from their home. This provides an even deeper sense of loss for, not only Lilia, but also her parents. Her parents came to America so their family could have a more prosperous life and so their daughter could have greater opportunities. By doing this, the mother and father uprooted their lives in India and moved to the States, hoping all would turn out alright. Coming to America, the parents are subject to a cultural shock as they realize that even the grocery stores don’t stock the food they have eaten all their lives. They feel a sense of loss for the culture they grew up with, and the fact that, not matter how much they try to pass on to their daughter, she will also be influenced by the American world around her. So, I suppose Lilia is getting a solid education, but a biased one at that.

I think it’s interesting how, when you think of America and how it’s been mostly portrayed throughout the years, it has been seen as a place of prosperity and opportunity. But, through Baldwin’s, Diaz’s, and Lahiri’s writing, we can see that there are dark sides to America and how it treats and provides for the people who choose to move there. Immigrants come to the US with the idea of wanting a new life, one that can provide for themselves, along with their families. They want their children to grow up and receive an education that will in turn allow them to thrive as well. But, we can see that this isn’t always the case. That even the hardest workers can’t make it. In Ramon’s case, I think what helped him the most was the connections he was able to make once he learned English. It was almost impossible for him to find a stable job with his faulty English. But, once he was able to talk with people and form relationships, he was able to climb the social and economic ladder. All in all, it’s obvious that this idea that anyone can live long and prosper (sorry about this reference) in America isn’t entirely true because other factors apparently must come into play, such as the color of one’s skin, one’s native language, or even what one chooses to learn in school. All of these factors can affect if they will thrive in the US. It will be interesting to see if Lahiri will discuss problems with immigrating to America later on in her stories, for we aren’t even halfway done with the collection of stories. But, if one things for sure, these authors have demonstrated that it isn’t easy to thrive in America as people may assume, especially for immigrants.