Breaking The Boundaries

By N. Alice Yamada

Images Editor

hildren with multicultural upbringing are frequently helpless victims of the conflicts present in the immigrant experience. Their parents cannot provide their children with a family that will act as a consulting center for the children as seen in the native families, since the parents are just as bewildered in the foreign social system. What happens to the children if their families of origin cease to fulfill the tasks of a family? Where can they learn the proper socialization techniques that they must exhibit to fit into the society? Without a strong sense of what their own culture is, these children become a part of an American subculture, the "neither/nor group".
A specific set of individuals in the second and consequent generations comprises the "neither/nor group". Those in this group try to assimilate into the mainstream culture while retaining their ethnic culture, unlike those who choose to eliminate one of the two cultures that surround them. However, many of these individuals feel out of touch with their heritage as well as with the culture of the surrounding society. Neither of the cultures are able to comfortably accomodate them; there is a sense of not belonging both in their parents' cultures as well as in the mainstream culture of their environments.

Often times, immigrant children are unexposed to aspects of their ethnic background due to the lack of opportunity. Louise, a second generation female with a Japanese mother and an American father, was quick to point out that lack of information she was facing. For example, she had read about festivals and ceremonies in Japan, but she did not have any idea about how these celebrations actually could be enjoyable and entertaining. She noticed a tone of seriousness when Japanese festivals were described in literature sources and she could not imagine Japanese people as fun-loving. However, when she actually had the opportunity to visit Japan recently, she was overwhelmed by the jolly drunkards; they were not the solemn, business-like people she had envisioned them as being.

"I think it was a mixture of the stereotypes I saw on TV and what I heard in daily life about how boring Japanese people are, but I just had this image of incredibly quiet parties and festivals. Therefore thinking they were a bunch of uninteresting nerds, I wanted to be less Japanese and more American. I had this 'denial' of my Japanese blood; I didn't want anything to do with that dullness," summarized the half-American, half-Japanese young woman. She added about her initial state of mind toward Japan as misconceptions, proclaiming, "I didn't know that they could be such fun people, and then I realized how little I actually knew about Japan. I sort of speak the language, not well or anything, but I do, and I thought I knew enough about the culture to turn me away from it, but in actuality, all I had was a false sense of Japan that I had built in my mind from being away from it too much. It never occurred to me, but it is like the same thing as saying, 'Oh, I've read so much about skiing, I know exactly how to ski and what it feels like to go down a slope. It is really nothing all that special.' In reality, if you go skiing without the actual experience, it is very different from reading about skiing and the excitement on the slopes is much more special than what can be inferred from reading about it."
The misguided perception of cultures in multicultural families, as seen in the case of Louise, is an issue in present day American society that has created many victims in the second generation. Although often times assimilation is chosen by the individual, it is not complete and is rather segmented. The second generation and those that follow are faced with conflicting values from parents and peers, while facing discrimination from the mainstream culture for their ethnicity.
Even though they do not consider themselves to be a part of their parents' culture, they are often times grouped together with their parents by the mainstream Americans, due their proximity to this culture; Simply because they know more about another culture than the all-American, classic Americans, they are immediately grouped with said culture. The reality is, however, that multicultral children are not completely in tune with the culture of their parents, despite their seemingly 'profound' knowledge.

In addition, they are accustomed to the American value system more so than their parents, this forced and superficial grouping causes conflict, not only, within the troubled children but within the family as well. They have seen the stereotyping for non-whites, solemn and proper, boring Asians, stupid and poor Blacks, and hyperactive and loud Hispanics. Many individuals in the Neither/Nor society become bewildered in this value system, and may try to escape such tagging by avoiding their ethnicity all together. In doing so, they establish the first part of the Neither/Nor subculture; they become 'not ethnic'. In the case of Lousie, she became 'not Japanese' in order to ease the conflict between her family and her society. She chose to throw out her Japanese family to appeal to society, to fit in.
This, however, is often expected from the family. Lousie was not disrupted by her family when she fell into a denial of the Japanese culture. In order to attain a certain level of success, it is expected from these multicultural individuals to lose their heritage in order to become American. Corporate society will not trust someone who comes to work wearing a formal outfit from the tropical islands with exposed skin and numerous body piercing; they will not let an individual like that handle important decisions dealing with lots of money simply because of the image they portray from what they are wearing. Diffusion into the mainstream society requires losing their ethnicity to a certain point. Although this is understood by many parents, it is still lamented and depicted as being one of the most offensive act against their origin.
Ted was torn by the differences in family and social expectations. He is a second generation Jamaican male brought up in a white neighborhood, and luckily, he had not experienced personal attack while growing up. At a very young age, Ted had been exposed to the white community. He mingled in with the white children before they became socially aware of the differences between Ted and themselves. Ted was readily accepted because he grew up with the white children before they realized the different treatments society had ready for them and Ted. Because of the early association, Ted has no accent or dialect when he speaks; he even has a slight Massachusetts-twist commonly found in the tone of white people from the small towns that surround Boston. He is a football star, and he is very much blended into the white society. He had completed the first stage of being a part of the Neither/nor society, the 'not-ethnic' stage, covered at a young age. His family, however, was very discontent with his state of mind. Because the father had seen so much negativity in the white society in Jamaica, he could not deal with the fact that his son was becoming increasingly white and less Jamaican.

"The conflict was unbearable when I was applying to colleges," said Ted. "I wanted to go to school with all my friends at a New England college, but my father wanted me to go to Morehouse College, where it's 98% black. I mean, I might have had a good time there too, but dude, I already have my lifestyle and I am pretty content with it," explained the black man. He had been so assimilated into the white culture that he felt little obligation, if not none, to the black community. "My father rarely speaks to me now; he looks at me as if he's about to spit on me, but he's got to understand that I'm not going to change. I am going to be more successful going to a northeastern school; I guarantee you that I would be at higher places than the other Jamaican kids who hang around themselves getting no where," added Ted.

Although Ted had thought he was completely assimilated into the white society, he was faced with discrimination at college. In the new environment, his skin color spoke before he did and he reported that he had met more blacks than people of any other race combined during New Student Orientation. He had a separate orientation program, in which all the minority students were rounded up to discuss the 'minority experience' at a predominantly white society. He was discontent with the treatment, since he did not see himself as being any different from the white students there. However when school started, he noticed that he was actually treated differently by his peers; he had thought he was more assimilated than he actually was. He had known his friends at home for a longer time, and they had accepted him as who he was, pseudo-white quasi-Jamaican, but the new people he met at school refused to see him as such. He had to pledge allegiance to one or the other. However, he could not laugh at the jokes aimed at blacks by the whites, since he could not laugh at his beloved family, but he also could not laugh at the jokes aimed at the whites, for some of his closest friends were white. He stood in between the two communities. He felt as though he was being attacked by both sides without support from either society. He entered the 'Nor' stage of the Neither/nor culture. Ted had lost his family in order to become more accepted by the society, and yet he could not be fully accepted due to his skin color and due to the allegiance to his ethnicity that was left in him.
A similar style of segmented assimilation by choice was marked in the experiences of Maria, a second generation Italian female living in an all Hispanic neighborhood. In order to find herself a place in her neighborhood, she adapted the social skills of a Hispanic young woman. She dresses in tight clothes, applies make up in the same fashion Hispanic girls do, and speaks with the distinct Hispanic accent. Although she is fluent in Italian, she rarely uses the language unless she is with her family. She went against her family's demands when choosing her boyfriend; she is intimately involved with a first generation Puerto Rican despite her family's plead to date only Italians. Much like Ted, Maria seems to be highly assimilated into a society different from that of their family's. And yet, Maria is different from Ted in that she is fully aware that she is not Hispanic. She is Italian, and she is proud to have Italian blood in her. She has just adapted the socialization skills of a Hispanic in order to blend in to the society she likes. She does not want to become completely not-Italian; she just feels more comfortable with the out-spoken and confident Hispanic girls than with the relatively timid or extremely snotty white girls. However, the fundamental difference of race is not overlooked in any way by the society. At the very basis, she is distrusted by the society she chose to live in over that of her family's, because of her white skin. She is faced with comments such as, 'poser' and 'wanna-be' from both cultures that she contacts. But she is not discouraged in any way. "I don't know what makes me feel this way, but I just don't think I fit in to any major society, because I don't want to be just one or the other. I am Italian, but I can feel for the Hispanics as well. I just want to ask people why they try to categorize themselves so much. I don't care if people call me derogatory terms, because sooner or later, the American society is going to have to realize that it can't try to break our hearts and try to keep segmentation of races. By 'our', I mean all of us that try to break the boundaries of race and the designated roles. If there's a whole bunch of people like me, who can be both white and Hispanic, there will be less racial struggle between whites and Hispanics. I can understand both sides, and there's no conflict in me about whether I am Italian or Hispanic. I am neither completely Italian nor completely Hispanic, but am also both Italian and Hispanic," explained Maria.
Maria has found for herself a solution against the struggle, which is much like the solution Louise eventually reached. Although Louise felt compelled to walk away from the Japanese culture, she recently, after meeting a Japanese man who she became intimate with, has started to look over the culture she had neglected. "My abandoning the Japanese culture seemd like a case of necessity. I felt as though I had to deny that Japanese blood in me to be a part of the American society and I didn't have anybody to tell me to do otherwise until I met Kyo, my first Japanese boyfriend," she explained.

Today, Louise is relearning her Japanese heritage from her Japanese boyfriend. She is not losing her American qualities either; she is still happy with her white friends as well. "For the first time, I feel like I am in touch with my Japanese side too. The cool thing about Kyo is that he is open to ideas and different cultures, so he lets me be anything I want to be. I am adding another dimension to my personality; I can be both Japanese and American! With his introducing me to the Japanese culture more and more in depth, I think I am becoming increasingly more interesting as a person. That's so ironic, because I had always thought that the Japanese culture was just boring and I had convinced myself that I wasn't missing out in anything. I was so wrong!" exclaimed Louise as she concluded her experience in the Neither/nor subculture. Through using her boyfriend as a source of information, Louise was able to break out of the limitations society had placed on her. It had tried to keep her in the lower immigrant status or in the Neither/nor status. There, the subject was confused and powerless with too many conflicts against society, her family, and herself. Now, she has become a part of the newly developing subculture, where the children can be in both their ethnic culture and in the culture of their surrounding society.

While Louise and Maria were successful in balancing their ethnicity with values they had learned from the surrounding society, Ted is still in the troublesome Neither/nor Subgroup. He is caught up in the difference in the role society expects him to be because of his race and the role he wishes to fulfill. Racial roles and stereotypes are so deeply engraved in the society, that members in the Neither/nor subgroup often times associate those characteristics with their family and their ethnicity. This association then causes them to detach themselves from the family and the culture, although neither can ever be entirely discarded. No matter how hard the members of the Neither/nor subgroup try to become fully assimilated into the white society, the color of their skin will never be completely ignored in the contemporary society. Members with cultural heritage that do not coincide with that of their surroundings are not naturally accepted into the mainstream society. It does not matter if they are incapable of relating to their ethnic culture; they are not allowed to ignore their ethnic side. Society will continually try to 'keep them in their place' by reminding them that they are not members of the mainstream society.

That seems to be heart of the problem these children face; they become incapable of fitting into any one culture once they try to assimilate into the mainstream culture. They feel that they must try to become a part of the mainstream society because their family culture is labeled as not being 'good' enough. But when they try to assimilate into the mainstream culture, they are rejected, as with their culture, they are labeled as well. The Neither/nor subgroup consists of the multicultural children who have given into societal pressure and rejected their family culture, but who have also been rejected by the mainstream culture. Ironically, the reason they are rejected from the mainstream culture is the reason they rejected their family: their family culture, the exact item they wished to discard. Social expectations of foreigners do not allow an individual of a different ethnicity, no matter how slightly this might be expressed, to leave behind that culture.

Despite the fact that freedom and equality are portrayed as being the primary characteristics of American society, it has created many pittfalls for the subgroups that try to disrupt the pre-existing balance. The Neither/nor group is a trap created by society to keep aspiring immigrant-origin youths from taking over high positions in society. Despite the numerous obstacles, there is a rapidly increasing population of second generation children who are highly capable of living successfully in the contemporary American society. In 1990, roughly 10.9% of the American population (24.8 million) were estimated to be second generation children. In this great pool of people, only 12% reported speak English poorly. Despite the $4,000 less average family income and the 7.0 higher family poverty rate, 3.2% more of them go to private schools than children with native-born parents, while 0.1% less of immigrant children drop out of high school.

Society takes away the bonding between muticultured children and their family culture by socially conditioning the immigrant children to see their ethnic culture as something lesser then the 'American Culture'. Yet, despite all their efforts, they are not fully accepted by the mainstream society. They are put down and discouraged as traitors to their ethnicity while they are also categorized as being a part of a foreign culture. Without a society to belong, there is a general trend for the children in the Neither/nor subgroup to lose identity and confidence in themselves. Consequently, they become less successful in living through the society.
Although the American society projects itself to be a 'melting pot' of races, color-blind and equal, it is highly detrimental to those who do not wish to be what they are expected to be. There are numerous new subcultures developing, some of which society chooses to create while others are formed by the merging new generations of people. America faces an unique situation, because the "American society" had made the promise to accept 'non-native' members into their society. The interests of the 'natives' must be preserved for the society to be stable, and yet it cannot openly reject any newcomers. With the rapid growth of the immigrant subculture, America has introduced the Neither/nor subculture to close down opportunities through discouragement. When, however, the subculture becomes so increasingly large, the problems in the subculture become the problems of society as a whole. Therefore, the problem must be addressed to make the society run more efficiently and fairly.
The solution to the cultural struggle by the Neither/nor society can be found in the duality that causes these exact problems. By taking pride in the duality, as Louise and Maria have chosen to do, they are able to reach back to the cultural heritage. They may increase their family's understanding of the American society and its numerous life styles. They are relatively more accepted by the mainstream culture than their immigrant parents; therefore they may become the entrepreneurs in breaking down the limitations of mainstream society. By remaining confident in their duality, the social pressure trying to keep them from attaining higher positions in mainstream society may be fought off. Instead of being Neither/nor, they may become Both/and, a more positive and powerful position, as seen in the case of Louise and Maria. The growing second generation subculture has numerous tributes to offer due to their duality; by incorporating them into the mainstream culture, America may eliminate many of its internal social problems concerning ethnicity and race relations. By embracing the immigrant children as having both ethnic and American cultures instead of discouraging them for the duality, American society may progress to become the 'melting pot' of races it aspires to be.