Vast oceanic barriers and strictly emphasized borders divide nations and cultures. Thus is born the fear of the unknown stranger on the other end who speaks a foreign language, eats the unthinkable, and dresses like an alien. The familiarity of one’s nation and its people is comforting, for one can relate to the other in every tradition and ritual that is practiced. But what if this comfort of familiarity is suddenly snatched from one’s atmosphere? What if strangers from other ends of the globe come to propinquity with oneself? Cultures will be threatened. They will clash and intermingle as they meet new customs. In this chaotic jumble, it is the people who will suffer. Confusion will plague minds, as the inevitable question of identity will rise.
America falls victim to such a clashing of worldwide cultures. People travel in perilous conditions to reach this land of hopes, wishing to rejuvenate life and grasp opportunities. Nancy Foner mentions the multiple reasons that attract people to this nation, including population growth, persecution, chain migration and even global capitalism. She comments on the ethnic diversity of Hispanics and Asians and Africans that flood America, specifically New York City. Her elaboration on cultural diversity lets one to realize the multitude of cultures that flood the nation. Although the nation warmly welcomes immigrants and their cultures (chain migration has after all allowed for places like Little Italy and Chinatown to flourish), it boldly introduces them to its own unique modernity and cultural values. Without much effort, the nation offers a new culture to these immigrants. In addition, it allows them to see the unique cultures of Africans, Europeans, or Asians who were once just distant strangers. Such introductions however, came off threatening to immigrants who wished to live in this diverse nation yet, grasp solely the culture of the nation they once belonged to. Over time, America’s history began to see conflicts of racial and religious identities. People parted from one another because while one desired to fit in and follow the new modern culture, the other wished to strictly follow his ancient culture and tradition.
Micheal Rogin mentions critics like D.H. Lawrence and Richard Slotkin who argue that American literature and films “establish national identity” (419) as they depict racial and ethnic struggles. In my opinion, this notion works vice versa as well, since the nation’s identity offers authors and filmmakers with ideas to work with as well. Whichever the case may be, America has earned a persona of having cultural clashes and identity confusions, which have been portrayed in many moves including The Jazz Singer and Hester Street.
The Jazz Singer portrays intolerance of one culture towards another. Whether Cantor Rabinowitz solely fears the Lord and wishes for his son to follow his footsteps or whether he floats on ethnocentrism, we see a father completely prejudice to the musical style of another culture. The Cantor struggles with accepting the fact that his son is interested in Jazz, the music of African Americans. Jackie lives in America and happens to be exposed to a genre of music that enthralls him. Unfortunately however, this kind of music must only come out of a blackface because jazz is labeled as black music. Jackie begins to struggle with his identity because he is born Jewish and expected to become a cantor, yet he desires to sing jazz. The protagonist changes from Jackie to Jack, as he uptakes his jazz career and sings with a painted black face. We see Jakie/Jake’s split identity and his identity confusion as the man goes through a name change and a face change as well. Micheal Rogin talks about white jazz singers with blackface and even questions labeling jazz as black music. He firmly believes in cultural diffusion and states that jazz traveled through America from the South to the North, and touched many Jews on its way. These Jews were in similar racially brutalized conditions as the Africans. Jazz served an expressive purpose for both of these ethnic groups. Hence, not only does The Jazz Singer tell the audience that immigrants voluntarily lived in rigid conditions abound to their cultures, they rejected other cultures and anything that they labeled to belong to another culture as well. Cantor Rabinowitz was too blinded by his religion and culture to ever realize that perhaps jazz too held strong Jewish roots. This film depicts one of the luckier endings however, for Jack can hold on to his cultural roots as he sings on Yom Kippur and grasp the new culture by singing jazz music to an audience. Unfortunately, he must still sing this music with a blackface and this is the very issue that the movie raises. It questions the cultural divisions that the society has placed on people, and allows the audience to see that people can take part in religious as well as cross-cultural interests.
Another case of identity struggle is touched on in Hester Street. The protagonist’s name change from Yankel to Jake is the most obvious giveaway of the internal conflict that the man faces. He tries his very best to talk like an American, look like a Yankee, and make sure he is never mistaken to be Jewish. Jake is struggling to detach a part of him that can never be erased, and this conflict is highlighted when his traditional wife comes to America. The clashing of cultures is evident as Gitl holds on to her religion and traditional attire, restraining from any Genile behavior. Jake in contrast, only feels embarrassed of his wife’s un-American ways, cuts his son Yossele’s hair and even renames him Joey. Jake has allowed the new nation to rejuvenate and renew himself, for he has given himself a new American identity. While this notion sits well with himself and his peers, Gilst finds it absurd to change oneself and cut oneself from the holy threads of Judaism and Russia. It is for this reason that Gilst finds solace in Bernstein in the end. As Jorn K. Bramman states, this movie asks the audience whether it is better to “find one’s identity as a member of a traditional community with its time-honored ways and values, or whether people would be happier and more authentic by leaving behind the old ways and becoming individuals of a new type—the modern, American type.” Jake obviously choses to leave behind the old ways and falls in love with Mamie the dancer, who is a young American girl. The film resolves the identity conflict by showing that one can chose their own path in this nation. On one end, Gilst and Bernstein live a happy Jewish life while Jack and Mamie live their fabricated American life on the other end.
Rogin’s opinions made perfect sense to me and I definitely agreed with much that he had to say. I agree that blackface freed people from barriers that once bound them, and this enabled Jake to sing jazz. Although Jake had a blackface, his emphasized lips were white. He was after all a white man stepping into the territory of another culture. Cross-cultural interest was taboo in society, but it was the truth that could not be denied by panting one’s face. I was made aware of the fact that African Americans and Jews were united under nativism and racism, and jazz was their form of expression. In addition, I come to understand that it was cultural diffusion that spread Jazz from the African Americans to the Jews. Over all, I came to agree with and learn from many of Rogin’s remarks in his Blackface, white noise- Critical Inquiry.
