Individual and Collective Culture

To begin, let me say that writing the first sentence of this blog post was extremely difficult.  There!  I feel better now that I’ve gotten that off my chest.

Our readings on the impact of one’s culture on composition have been challenging for me.  As a relatively privileged white old-school feminist, you would think I’d find Elizabeth Flynn’s article the most relatable, but you’d be wrong.  I find some of her views narrow and antiquated, particularly in her assigning stereotypically feminine attributes to female writers.  Women tell stories of “interaction” and “connection” while men write of “achievement.” (Flynn 428)  She does not credit male writers with the ability to connect with other men due to their need to “differentiate” themselves.  Her 1988 article holds no hint of the current understanding of gender as a social construct, that quaint notions of static masculine and feminine traits are obsolete.  However, Flynn is on point when she discusses how women are marginalized in the classroom (425).  If you doubt this, observe what happens during open discussions.  How often are women cut off in mid-sentence?  How often are they intimidated into silence by an aggressive stance?  Might this not be doubly true for women who are English-language learners?

I am intrigued by the disagreement between Fan Shen and Richard Rodriguez on the ability to maintain their cultural identities in academia.  Shen states that she will “never lose” her Chinese identity, and writing in English is like “slipping into a new ‘skin’” (465).  Her position may have much to do with recognizing that each language carries with it an essential worldview through which language is filtered:  “In China, ‘I’ is always subordinated to ‘We’” (460).  I wonder if the same ideological shift occurs between English and Spanish.  Rodriguez feels sadness at his loss of cultural identity, even as he considers alienation the price of his advanced degree.  His loss of spoken Spanish results in a loss of intimacy with his family.  I would like to understand why the two experiences are so different.  If English values are individualism, idealism, and logic (according to Shen), what are Spanish values?  Does becoming an anthropologist of your own culture necessarily mean you remain an outsider?

Given that the majority of my students are non-white, I’m concerned about their success in the larger culture.  I don’t mean financial success; perhaps, it would be more accurate to say that I want them to be equipped to navigate the larger culture.  June Jordan’s piece challenged me for just that reason.  I don’t question that Black English (BE) is a distinct language with unique syntax (We offer a course here at CSUDH!); I question Jordan’s contention that mastering Standard English (SE) is unnecessary.  There is no question that the student’s messages to the police are emotionally powerful, and the translated scene from Ibsen’s 1879 play makes it more accessible to Jordan’s class.  Writing in BE could be an appropriate mode for essays in Dr. Chin’s African American Prose class (which you absolutely should take).  My concern is that fluency in BE will not prepare African American students to communicate with others outside their culture.  Many regional American dialects and idioms are impenetrable to outsiders, not just BE.  How will my Hispanic, Black, and Asian students communicate their ideas clearly without a common language?  Will they, like Rodriguez, loose their identities if they write in entirely in SE?  Consider the impact of Willie Jordan’s writing compared to that of the other students.  He assumes an audience outside his community, and his statements about the injustice of his brother’s death demand attention.  Like it or not, the dominant culture in this country is English-speaking, and access to power is granted in SE, at least for now.