The Immigrant identity

The Immigrant identity
Even though people may change their locations permanently into a new environment with new people, it is tough for them to leave their culture for a new culture. However, the acculturation process could be easy if the new people one leaves in embrace the immigrants’ culture and value their way of life. Basing on that, Yen Le Espiritu in her book Asian American Women and Men explores the theoretical concept of the benevolent United States. Through the developed perceptions about the American nation that glorifies the American dream, many people of Asian ethnicity found themselves victims lured into the United States. Encouraged by the possibilities and simplicity of achieving individual’s life goals in such a nation, many people found themselves struggling to keep up with the American culture which undermines the power of other cultures, in particular, the Asian culture. She also evaluates the ideological racism and cultural resistance and how they manifest in the American society. Additionally, as a reflection on the similar issue, Le Thi Diem Thuy through his novel The Gangster We Are All Looking For narrates of the life of unnamed Vietnamese girl. The girl encounters different experiences that she metaphorically feels constrained her abilities an immigrant in the United States. Comparing the two texts, it is worth evaluating the revelation about cultural identity theme of race in The Gangster We Are Looking For using Yen Le Espiritu’s theory of benevolent United States.

With the understanding of the benevolent United States myth, the Asian Americans have developed measures of ending cultural resistance through fighting of exoticization, deconstruction of myth, and refutation of the ideological racism hence countering the traumatic past.
In the first place, the Asian American cultural resistance has been centralized by fighting off the exoticization. Despite most of them locating their roots in the United States, the Asian Americans are still valued as foreign people in this nation. Espiritu writes, “Asian Americans, however, rooted in this country, are represented as recent transplants from Asia or as bearers of an exotic culture” (98). The American inhabitants do not want to assimilate these groups of people but still experience curiosity once they come across these colored persons. The color of their skin calls for more questioning about their backgrounds with few believing the fact that an Asian American could have been born in the United States. Additionally, the immigrants have encountered a hard time to find liberty and freely integrate into the American society. Le in his story writes “But it’s trapped. Where? Inside a glass disk… Ba said nothing. But it wants to get out. How do you know? Because it said to me: .Shuh-shuh/shuh” (26). The narrator in the story metaphorically compares herself to the butterfly in a glass, the limiting American culture, which needs liberty so as to achieve more than it is anticipated. The Asian Americans under such environment with racial discrimination they experience hostility that limits their output. The told benevolent United States myth has been reduced to freedom only found through imaginations and desires. “The rustling was a whispered song. It was the butterfly’s way of speaking, and I thought I understood it” (Le 25). Through imagination, the narrator finds more liberty to exposing her to more achievements than it is in the real sense. However, through the fight of exoticization, the Asian Americans would find some of the hope of reconstructing their image in a society that values them as strangers in disguise.
Furthermore, the deconstruction of the benevolent United States myth brings sense in the ending of cultural resistance. Driven by the American dream, most of the Asian Americans found themselves victims that were attracted to this site of perceived success. In return, the original inhabitants learned of the recognized fruits tilled from the American soil which they ended up believing that their lack was due to the coming of the immigrants. “She confessed elaborate dreams about the end of war: foods she’d eat (a banquet table, mangoes piled high to the ceiling); songs she’d make up and sing, clapping her hands over her head and throwing her hair like a horse’s mane; dances she’d do, hopping from one foot to the other” (Le 36). The narrator’s expression about her mother’s life before the war further explains the myth about the perceptions behind the benevolent United States. The narrator’s mother reveals this story which comes out as a regret of their past because the narrator’s culture was never welcomed in the United States. The desire to deconstruct the benevolent United States’ myth also appears in the symbolic desire of the narrator’s mother to get back into the black tube. “At the mouth of the tube she bent down; her belly blocked the opening” (Le 38). Despite having the zeal to end the cultural resistance, the Asian Americans also finds the difficulties instituted by the authority which cannot let them back to who they were before. Therefore, the only way is to wash off the belief in the United States benevolence and establish a good environment for acculturation.
Besides that, the rejection of the benevolent United States myth simply means a refutation of the ideological racism. The ideological racism entails the justification of various discriminative measures through a set of controlling images that point to the mental and physical features to racially defined groups (Hamamoto) (Espiritu 101). Le writes, “Vietnam is a black-and-white photograph of my grandparents sitting in bamboo chairs in their front courtyard” (35). The Vietnamese girl uses these portrait as a way of hiding the notions that people, American inhabitants, would have about her grandparents if it was colored. In black and white picture everybody would appreciate the wealth and peace they had as portrayed in the background. However, the Asian American men encountered ideological racism where they demeaned to being considered as women regardless of their gender. “Whereas white women have been depicted as chaste and dependable, Asian women have been represented as promiscuous and untrustworthy” (Espiritu 197). The Asian Womanhood has been described with an evil image compared to that of the Dragon Lady, associated with smoking, women who can indulge in sex with their men and poison them at the same time. Nevertheless, this was the expression about the Asian womanhood in disguise. “She could have stomped on it in the dark, and danced on it like a madwoman dancing on gravestones” (Le 87), this was the courage of the Asian womanhood canceled the inequality between men and women. People were all the same, only deceived by the myth of the benevolent United States to value ideological racism.
Finally, putting an end to cultural resistance would mark an end in traumatic history. Le in his novel wrote, ““Was that where I had come from?” (When teacher points out Vietnam on a globe)” (19) is an expression of the Vietnamese girl about what happened to their nation. Nevertheless, the remembrance would not have just come without being stirred by something, probably the culture resistance in the United States. The cultural stereotyping would simply remind individuals of their past exposure to traumatizing events regardless of the positivity or negativity of the stereotype. “For example, consider what stereotypes might be associated with Native Americans as embodied in various Native Americans Mascots across the United States” (Heine 276). The use of these stereotyping reminders exposes the Native Americans to the trauma of their past experiences. Furthermore, Le writes, “War has no beginning and no end. It crosses oceans like a splintered boat filled with people singing a sad song”(87). The implication of the past the Vietnamese girl’s mother had encountered in the past. However, upon the ending cultural resistance, these traumatizing events would be forgotten.
In summary, even though everybody would prefer to relocate to new countries, most of them are hard to part with their culture as they contemplate on whether their culture would be welcomed. Using Yen Le Espiritu’s conceptual theory of benevolent United States of America, the cultural resistance theme of racism in The Gangster We Are All Looking for by Le Thi Diem Thuy. Upon understanding of the benevolent United States’ myth, the Asian Americans would exercise their power end cultural resistance by fighting exoticization, destruction of the myth as well as the rejection of the ideological racism which would be essential in ending traumatic historical events. The Asian American communities suffer exoticization by the American society regardless of their period of stay in the US. However, through fighting cultural resistance and deconstruction of the benevolent United States myth the exoticization could be brought to an end. Additionally, rejection of the myth would in return bring to an end the ideological racism that has been arousing traumas in most of the individuals who experienced such incidences in the past. Once cultural resistance is over in such a big American society, the nation would experience swift development since the output of every individual would be high.
Works Cited
Espiritu, Yen Le. “Ideological Racism And Cultural Resistance.” Asian American Women And Men: Labor, Laws, And Love, Yen Le Espiritu, 1st ed., Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2016,.
Heine, Steven J. Cultural Psychology. 3rd ed., W.W. Norton, 2012,.
Lê, Thi Diem Thúy. The Gangster We Are All Looking For. 1st ed., New York, Anchor Books, 2004,.