Rejection and Disaffiliation in Twenty-First Century Immigration Narratives
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I Was Never An American: Rejection and Disaffiliation in Twenty-First Century Immigration Narratives Author: Mary Catherine Daily-Bruckner Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:104159 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2015 Copyright is held by the author. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nd/4.0/). Boston College The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Department of English I WAS NEVER AN AMERICAN: REJECTION AND DISAFFILIATION IN TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY IMMIGRATION NARRATIVES a dissertation By MARY CATHERINE DAILY-BRUCKNER submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2015 © copyright by MARY CATHERINE DAILY-BRUCKNER 2015 Abstract Title: I Was Never An American: Rejection and Disaffiliation in Twenty-First Century Immigration Narratives Author: Mary Catherine Daily-Bruckner Dissertation Advisors: Christopher Wilson, Carlo Rotella, Christina Klein, Min Song This dissertation explores traditional patterns of immigration narratives and reads them alongside not only their contemporary, divergent counterparts but also historical moments that contribute to the narrative transformations. By way of this examination, literary changes over time become readable, highlighting the speed at which the rhetoric and aims of many immigration narratives became patently anti-America in the twenty- first century, significantly departing from the traditions established in the twentieth century, which, at their core still held pro-America aims. The first chapter, “The Solution is the Problem: Immigrant Narratives of Internment and Detention,” considers nonfiction narratives regarding immigration detention within the borders of the United States. I read Monica Sone’s Nisei Daughter and Edwidge Danticat’s Brother I’m Dying as narratives that explore detention as central immigrant experience, exposing a chronicle of national suffering after attacks on American soil. When paired with Sone’s work, Danticat’s Brother I’m Dying reveals a shift in traditional narratives, exposing links to criminality and a move away from affiliation. In my second chapter, “The Helpless Helper: Illegality, Borders and Family Reunification,” I study Thomas McCarthy’s The Visitor, Courtney Hunt’s Frozen River, and Wayne Kramer’s Crossing Over. In these films, the suffering of immigrant families designated as somehow “illegal” are often displaced onto a white, parental “helper” figure in order to scrutinize their processing and treatment. These three independent films probe the ways in which economic, judicial, and political interests negatively affect family reunification policies. Additionally, The Visitor, Frozen River, and Crossing Over rely on an alternative point of view – that of American citizens rather than immigrants – as a way to further fragment traditional immigrant narrative structures, which instead favored immigrant-as-narrator constructs. In chapter three, “Considering Conditions of Possibility: Canonical Modes with Modern Concerns,” I transition back to the immigrant’s point of view and turn to traditional “high” literature. The narratives studied in this chapter retell canonical American novels before placing an important twist on the story: the decision to leave America rather than assimilate and aspire to the American Dream. Saher Alam’s The Groom to Have Been and Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland both make use of the narrative mode of the novel of manners while H.M. Naqvi’s Home Boy and Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist draw upon the ethnic bildungsroman tradition. By treating immigrant experiences as literary through adaptations of canonical novels rooted in American success and integration, these four authors make the choice of writing their protagonists out of America all the more resonant. The final chapter of this project, “The End Product of Our Deep Moral Exhaustion: Alternative Genres and Immigration Narratives,” pulls upon Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union and Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America to ground a discussion of the role of alternate history in contemporary immigration narratives. From there, the chapter pushes out to include Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story as an example of speculative fiction. In each novel, a commentary on America’s global social position is revealed by means of the degree to which the protagonists and their families do or do not become assimilated Americans, placing these novels in an intermediary position on the continuum of post-9/11 immigration narratives. Via my close readings, I aim to demonstrate the ways in which patterns of departure from traditional narratives became both enhanced and more rapidly altered at the start of the twenty-first century. The comparative work of this dissertation project allows access to a unique vision of twenty-first century America that is only available through the lens of immigration narratives, critiquing the modern nation’s strengths, shortcomings, political climate, and social realities all while attending to conscious and significant modifications to traditional immigrant narratives. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………………… ii INTRODUCTION: OPPORTUNITIES FOR REDEFINITION………………………………… 1 CHAPTER 1: CONSIDERING CONDITIONS OF POSSIBILITY…………………...……… 35 CHAPTER 2: THE SOLUTION IS THE PROBLEM………………………………………..... 80 CHAPTER 3: THE HELPLESS HELPER…………………………………………………..... 127 CHAPTER 4: THE END PRODUCT OF OUR DEEP MORAL EXHAUSTION………..….. 190 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Throughout my education, I have received tremendous support and encouragement. Although only my name appears on the cover of this dissertation, many people contributed to its creation and completion. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Christopher Wilson, who has guided and mentored me throughout my entire time at Boston College, providing sound advice, reassurance, friendship, and the occasional (necessary) kick in the pants. My co-chair, Carlo Rotella, has provided me with unique insights, constructive criticism, and practical advice, all of which pushed me to continue “onward” over the years. In addition, Christina Klein and Min Song served on my exam and dissertation committees, supporting my movement from ideas to final products through their willingness to engage with my projects and help enrich my work. I also wish to thank the Boston College English Department, and specifically the incomparable personalities and talents of its faculty members. Additionally, my steady progress has been possible due to the generous financial support of Boston College, for which I am extremely appreciative. My appreciation likewise extends to Dean Candace Hetzner, who is a tremendous role model and compassionate adviser. Finally, I wish to thank my friends and family, who have helped me overcome setbacks, remain focused, and keep my sense of humor. I owe my sanity to Alison Cotti-Lowell and Erin Peterson. Rob and Jack Bruckner are my main squeezes and the undisputed loves of my life. They drive me crazy, love me unconditionally, and make me whole. Lastly, I wish to acknowledge my parents, Jim and Cathy Daily, who have always loved, encouraged, and inspired me. I dedicate this project to them. ii INTRODUCTION: OPPORTUNITIES FOR REDEFINITION It was my sense in the fall of 2001 that the United States was missing an opportunity to redefine itself as part of a global community when, instead, it heightened nationalist discourse, extended surveillance mechanisms, suspended constitutional rights, and developed forms of explicit and implicit censorship. - Judith Butler 1 I. Any of us, myself included, who stood in lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001, felt a literal seismic change as immense towers collapsed profoundly into dust. After the seismic activity came the ripples: first the eerie ripples of human silence, followed by the ripples of first responder sirens, and finally, after what seemed like an eternity, ripples of speech. Early utterances, barely comprehensible, released primal emotions before giving way to more coherent calls to organization and action. We are still in the midst of these ripples, but the space between them grows larger as we move further away from 2001. Narratives intervene in the interstitial space between the concrete events situated on each ripple, helping to make sense of the events of the day, the aftermath, and the way that a series of events occurring over just a few hours (it was 102 minutes from the time the first plane hit the WTC until both towers had collapsed, with the Pentagon and Pennsylvania events in-between) led to the alteration of national immigration policy and, consequentially, American immigration narratives. In the months and years immediately following the events of 9/11, novelists, poets, musicians, and visual artists took to their mediums to work through the day itself and its cultural aftereffects. As such, 9/11 became a single event that set in motion a series of changes to immigration in America; modifications that include policy decisions, border patrol practices, and social shifts felt on both individual and collective levels. In 2010, Edwidge Danticat explained some of these aftereffects on her identity: One of the advantages of being an immigrant is that two very different countries are forced to merge within you. The language you were born speaking and the one