Is ethnicity destiny?

Christine Hirsch

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Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1.0, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (En...

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Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1.0, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (English Department), course: Caribbean Seminar, language: English, abstract: "Know who you are and you know what to do!" (Japtok 305). But if you do not know who you are, you will not know what to do. This is what characterizes Selina Boyce, the protagonist in Paule Marshall´s Brown Girl, Brownstones who displays the difficulties that emerge for an individual who lives between two cultures. Born and raised in New York City during the interwar years, she is an immigrant in second generation from Barbados. On the one hand her family is not able to give her the feeling of belonging to anywhere, which is caused by her parents´ different ideas of the American Dream. On the other hand she experiences the fact that within the Barbadian society she is only accepted if she follows certain prescribed ethnic convictions towards life in gen-eral. Furthermore, she realizes that she has to confront racism within American society, which restricts her in her personal development. The unique position of the second generation immigrants can either be a positive and fulfilling experi-ence or a negative one, depending on how those immigrants confront their situ-ation. The individuals have to make a decision from different options presented to them. Typically they incorporate themselves into one of the two cultures and reject the other or they accept what is best from both cultures and create a new consciousness, a new identity. Selina, however, is neither able to find her iden-tity as a Barbadian immigrant nor as an American which eventually leads to an inner and external resignation. After all she recognizes that the only possibility to find her identity is to distance herself from her environment. The protagonist Selina Boyce displays the challenge of finding an identity which immigrants in second generation have to face. Nonetheless, she seeks to find her identity on her own and rejects people who try to determine her identity by prescribed ethnic norms or by prejudices.