Assimilation—A Good or Bad Word? Proceedings of the 20th International Colloquium of American Studies June 18–19, 2015 Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic Edited by Michal Peprník Palacký University Olomouc Olomouc 2016 Reviewers: Šárka Bubíková (University of Pardubice, Czech Republic) Jaroslav Kušnír (University of Prešov, Slovak Republic) Authors: Petr Anténe, Patrycja Austin, Mark A. Brandon, Andrea Crhonková, Stephan Delbos, Brenda A. Flanagan, Jakub Franěk, Lada Homolová, Josef Jařab, Michal Kleprlík, Stanislav Kolář, Berndt Ostendorf, Vincent N. Parrillo, Miriama Svítková, Zuzana Tabačková, 2016 Vydáno s podporou Velvyslanectví USA v České republice. Th is volume was published with the support from the Embassy of the U. S.A. in the Czech Republic. KATALOGIZACE V KNIZE – NÁRODNÍ KNIHOVNA ČR Assimilation – good or bad word?: proceedings of the 20th International Colloquium of American Studies: June 18–19, 2015, Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic / edited by Michal Peprník. – First edition. – Olomouc: Palacký University Olomouc, 2016 ISBN 978-80-244-4937-1 316.3 * 314.151.3–054.72 * 316.73 * 821.111(73) * 82:316.3 * (73) – společnost – Spojené státy americké – 20.–21. století – imigranti – Spojené státy americké – 20.–21. století – asimilace (sociologie) – Spojené státy americké – 20.–21. století – americká literatura – 20.–21. století – literatura a společnost – Spojené státy americké – 20.–21. století – sborníky konferencí – society – United States – 20th–21st centuries – immigrants – United States – 20th–21st centuries – assimilation (sociology) – United States – 20th–21st centuries – American literature – 20th–21st centuries – literature and society – United States – 20th–21st centuries – proceedings of conferences 316.7 – Sociologie kultury. Kulturní život [1] 306 – Culture and Institutions [1] First edition Any unauthorized use of the work is an infringement of copyright and may be subject to civil, administrative or criminal liability. Editor © Michal Peprník, 2016 © Palacký University Olomouc, 2016 DOI 10.5507/ff .16.24449371 ISBN 978-80-244-4937-1 Contents Assimilation—A Good or Bad Word? ........................................................................5 Josef Jařab Assimilation and Pluralism in the United States: Are Th ey Dual or Dueling Realities? ........................................................................15 Vincent N. Parrillo Creolization and All Th at Jazz: Culture Formation in New Orleans ....................30 Berndt Ostendorf From Mum Bett to Franz Boas: Race and Human Equality in American Intellectual Culture ...............................................................................46 Mark A. Brandon Th e Problematic of Becoming American .................................................................57 Brenda A. Flanagan Hannah Arendt on Nationalism and the Nation State ...........................................64 Jakub Franěk Passports & Poems: Nationalism, Assimilation and Th e New American Poetry ....................................81 Stephan Delbos Opusculum paedagogum: Assimilation & Acculturation .......................................92 Michal Kleprlík Th e Enemy of My Enemy Is … the Result of an Unsuccessful Assimilation Process ........................................................................................................................104 Lada Homolová 3 American Academia under the Th reat of Assimilation in Ishmael Reed’s Japanese by Spring ......................................................................................................116 Petr Anténe “Finding America:” Assimilation of Female Immigrants in Early Jewish American Fiction .......................................................................................................128 Andrea Crhonková “One Must Not Be a Greenhorn”: Th e Process of Assimilation in Abraham Cahan’s Fiction .....................................................................................144 Stanislav Kolář Th e Quest for Cultural Identity vs. Assimilation in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Short Stories ...............................................................................................................158 Miriama Svítková High Walls in Th e Lowland: Nomadic Sensibility in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Novel .....171 Patrycja Austin Longing for Belonging into a Story: On Assimilation, Self-Invention, and Storytelling in Syrian Yankee and I, the Divine ..............................................187 Zuzana Tabačková Contributors and Editors .........................................................................................207 4 Assimilation—A Good or Bad Word?1 Josef Jařab Introduction Th e history of American nation building has undoubtedly been a dramatic pro- cess. Most of the drama ensued from the continuous tension, and occasional clash, between the basic democratic principles incorporated in the relevant political documents formulated and agreed upon in the course and aft ermath of the American Revolution and the changing demographic reality of the country resulting from the ongoing, and at times massive, immigration. Th e original settlers, mostly English and English-speaking colonists, represented the decisive mainstream population. But the observant French visitor, Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, who called himself an American farmer, saw a lot more happening in the American English colonies. He felt that the people exchang- ing the Old World for the New World were not just fresh immigrants—to him they emerged as new people, “a new race of men.” And he welcomed them as Americans. He did not leave his later, oft en and widely quoted question, “What is an American?,” unanswered, and hastened with his own understanding of the new phenomenon: “He is an American, who leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new modes of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds.” Such was his answer. In addition, Americans for him were “the western pilgrims, 1 Th e idea for the topic of the colloquium occurred when the organizers realized that the growing attention being paid in recent years to the phenomena and manifestations of cultural pluralism and multiculturalism may have led to a one-sided or even misleading understanding of the past and present and the very nature of American national culture. Th e aim was to discuss as- similation in its greater complexity. Such an idea seems also to be supported by the wording of the corresponding entry in the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups which reads as “Assimilation and Pluralism,” presumably to suggest that the two concepts are not mutually exclusive. See Stephan Th ernstrom, ed., Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cam- bridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1980). 5 who are carrying along with them that great mass of arts, sciences, vigor, and industry which began long since in the east” and they were to complete “the great circle.”2 Crèvecoeur believed that the English would willingly pursue their mission along with settlers of other nationalities (of course only European, and Western European, preferably) though occasional complaints about the “otherness” of the non-English could already be heard quite early. For instance, the numerous Germans in Pennsylvania who resisted the use of the English language made Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of independ- ent America, very concerned.3 And beside the fact that people of other races were not even taken into consideration as Americans, which of course was in accordance with the general feelings and view of the white majority population at that time Crèvecoeur’s expectation that neither the national nor religious diff erences of the settlers would cause any problems in the creative “smelting” of the new race also proved rather overoptimistic and were hardly justifi ed by reality, as later events and subsequent historical studies would confi rm. (Th e violent resistance to Catholic Irish immigrants who tried to escape from starvation and death aft er the great potato famine in their country, or, later in the nineteenth century, the negative reaction to the Jewish mass escape to America from pogroms in eastern Europe were certainly two examples of a rather hostile reception for obviously religious reasons.) Sacvan Bercovitch, the prominent interpreter of early American literature, believed that “the United States is a country founded on rhetoric” which he saw in the oratories of the New England Puritans and the Great Awakening, in the political documents of the newly established republic, in the general Americanization of the Bible and the biblical language. He found this particu- lar rhetoric responsible for the mythological explanation and understanding of American history.4 Th e rhetorically created myth of America then served as an attractive element in the “American Dream,” which thousands of immigrants came to seek in the New World. (And it is quite noticeable how the rhetoric, including the biblical imagery and metaphors, survives to the present day when most presidential candidates in the United States speak of the city upon a hill, the promised land, or the chosen people and the manifest destiny. And it 2 Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer, in Th e Heath Anthology of American Literature, vol. 1, ed. Paul Lauter (Lexington: Heath, 1990), 897. 3 See Milton M. Gordon, Assimilation in American Life: Th e Role of Race, Religion, and National Origins (New York: Oxford