Reflective Paper
Is the US Truly a Melting Pot?
Before this class I knew and believed that America is called the melting pot of the world. America allows freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and the right to pursue happiness. Though those beliefs America seems to be a country that is tolerant, accepting of others and not afraid of diversity in race, beliefs, and religions. However through the reading Paradise by Toni Morrison, “Miss McEnders” by Kate Chopin, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao I noticed that American culture brings in diversity yet people are afraid of those who are different than them.
When writing my Short Analytical Paper 2 I noticed that in Paradise by Toni Morrison there are multiple occasions where the citizens of Rudy and Haven are afraid of people being different from them in beliefs, ideas and race. In my SAS 2 I pointed out that originally the citizens of Haven decide to move their town to Rudy due to white people moving in and original members moving out. This showed me how the black community of Haven was afraid of the change of the city due to people who were the opposite race moving in and that some of the original families were moving out. Another example of the anxiety of change from diversity that I found in Paradise is when the new generation wants to change the inscription on the oven and the old generation does not want to. The old generation believes the oven to be something their grandfathers built (Morrison, 85-86). However, the new generation feels that the inscription could relate to them as a race and the history of slavery (Morrison, 87). This exposed to me the fear of change and different belief’s the old generation is huge. It is so big that Stewart threatens to shot anyone in the head that tries to change the inscription. The fear of diversity is also shown though the fear of the convent near their town. A couple of the men in Ruby conclude that the strange occurrences of deformed babies being born, children pushing their mom down stairs, brides disappearing, and two brothers shooting each other are all caused by the convent (Morrison, 11). They chose to use the convent as a scapegoat because it was different. I believe that they couldn’t explain the things that happened there and felt uncomfortable with them so they figured since nothing else could explain what happened that the convent was to blame. Morrison shows us how the citizens of ruby are afraid of diversity because it leads to change, and that it can’t be explained or the same as them.
When writing my first Sort Anlysis Paper on “Miss McEnders” by Kate Chopin I noticed how diversity in the United States can be through class and wealth not just race and religon. Miss McEnders is an extremely wealthy woman who is a member of the Woman’s Reform Club (Chopin, 175). Miss McEnders grew up in an extremely wealthy house hold that shielded her form truly seeing how others live. I noticed because of the way she failed to see the difference between a service worker and a commodity economy and thought that anyone who did work for her was like her butler James. This is prevalent with her dealings with Mademoiselle Salambre. As I stated in SAS 1 when McEnders meets with Salambre she is shocked that Salambre had a child out of wedlock and is very upset that she lied to her about it (177). I believe that Ms. McEnders couldn’t grasp the fact that if Salambre didn’t lie that she wouldn’t be able to get hired. McEnders couldn’t understand why a woman would be put in that position because all she has known is her sheltered life. So she felt the need to punish Salambre for “living in sin” (Chopin, 177-178). She was astounded by the difference in life style that Salambre had and was not accepting that Salambre couldn’t live and act like her even though they were form two completely different backroads, and class status. She was afraid of the difference between them and how the difference in the way they lived lives based on their social status would reflect on her personally. This really made me think and question how people typically view America. The story showed how the wealthy in America don’t understand and are afraid of the differences of the poor or lower class citizens instead of everyone working together in harmony. However despite the differences Ms. McEnders did seem to care about the person but couldn’t actually help or be empathic because she had no experience with it.
Another example of the fear of diversity in the United States is in The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Woa by Junot Diaz. When writing my Research Report and Synthetic paper I noticed that Diaz shows how Americans treat kids who are different, and how the cultures of immigrants clash with that of America. For example when Oscar is a teacher “he watched the “cool” kids torture the crap out of the fat, the ugly, the smart, the poor, the dark, the black, the unpopular, the African, the Indian, the Arab, the immigrant, the feminine, [and] the gay … (Diaz 264). This showed me that there was a gap in the acceptance of the melting pot culture in America scene with kids. Instead of being accepting the kids make fun of any one who is different form their perceived norm to them. Another example is in “Assimilation Anxiety” by Kadzi Mutizwa which I found when writing my research report. In this aricle Mutizwa describes this clash of culture between the home of Immigrants and the United States Culture. I also noticed that Mutizwa empathized how Diaz exposed the clash in culture in both Yunior and Oscar’s life. Mutizwa claims that the Dominican culture of being an athletic, strong male figure, and ladies’ man clashed with the American which leads to a “confusing navigation of young adulthood” for immigrants because they can’t be both cultures ( Mutizwa 117). One would think that in an accepting and very diverse country that it would be normal for a person to be able to stay within his own culture on U.S. soil because of the freedom to follow one’s own beliefs. America does allow this though but it is not as clean as it could be. There are no laws restricting others beliefs but the public has not come to terms with all the assimilation yet.
Through writing my Short Analysis Papers, Research Report and Synthetic paper I was able to see how Morrison, Chopin, and Diaz expose how the perceived view of America as a melting pot and accepting of all is not actually correct. Instead being a perfect melting pot Americans are afraid of others that are different, and aren’t the same as the perceived norm. They are afraid of the difference and the change it could bring across, and instead of blending cultures they try to stick together under their own perceived norm whether that be by race, social status, or where they are originally from. America does has the diversity, but it is just scared to change. We still have the pinnacle of the spear on diversity but we still have a long way to come in mixing ingredients of the pot together. With the knowledge I learned for this class I can better appreciate other people’s views on the subject of diversity that I would have not entertained otherwise.
Works Cited
Chopin, Kate, and Pamela Knights. The Awakening and Other Stories. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.
Díaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. New York: Riverhead, 2007. Print.
Morrison, Toni. Paradise. New York: Plume, 1999. Print.
Mutizwa, Kadzi. “Review: Assimilation Anxiety.” New Labor Forum 18.1 (2009): 116-19. JSTOR. Web. 24 Mar. 2015. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/40342801?ref=no-x-route:a81a7ef437cbcef2eb3cb90ed286bccf>.