In both The Jazz Singer and Hester Street the protagonists clearly deal with similar crises of identity. Both Jakie and Jake face inner tension as they deal with trying to figure out who they “really” are. Both men are Jewish immigrants that settle into a place that is seemingly entirely different in cultural values and customs, and both face whether to “completely” assimilate or to return to their mother culture. I emphasized “completely” because I’d like to raise the question on whether it is really possible to fully assimilate into a culture that is known to be an eclectic fusion of immigrant cultures?

In The Jazz Singer, Jakie struggles with his identity as a young boy. Being raised by Orthodox parents, Jakie is not allowed to indulge in his passion for jazz music, which he does without the permission of his parents. As an adult, he breaks away from his mother culture by becoming a famous jazz performer, but seems to have the nagging urge to please his Orthodox father and cantor the Kol Nidre. In the end, he acknowledges his Jewish culture, but continues to do what he loves. In Jakie’s case, he accepts that the two sides of him can coexist if he really wants to.

On the other hand, in Hester Street, the protagonist, Jake, completely rejects his immigrant background. As a “Yankee” he adapts to the American-ness and avoids having to identify himself as a Jewish immigrant. When his wife, Gitl, arrives with his son, Yossele (whom Jake renames Joey), from Russia, he is taken aback by her orthodoxies and tries to force her into becoming something she is new to and someone she is not. Personally, I found his character to be annoying, even though he was essentially giving her more “freedom.”  Jake acted violently and wanted to completely forget he was a Jew and also find faults in his wife because he didn’t love her. The story concludes with Jake and Gitl divorcing and marrying people they actually love and that are suited for the lives they want to live. In this case, Jake completely forgets his old life and starts anew as an American. However, I would argue that, like Jakie, he would eventually re-embrace his culture in one way or another.

Immigration has founded a large part of history of New York City. Yet, it would be more accurate to say that New York City has influenced immigrants greatly rather than immigrants have influenced New York City. From the films “The Jazz Singer” and “Hester Street,” we can see that the conflicts of cultural and religious identity are inevitable as a result of the integration of various cultures in New York City. We know very well that nothing is absolutely good from every perspective. While the integration of different cultures can certainly help to build a more harmonious New York City, conflicts among people from these cultures would certainly exist because they all want to create their own identity that would be accepted in the mainstream culture. In other words, the conflicts of identity among immigrants are the result of the clashing between the “old” and “new” cultures. They are essential steps for immigrants to adapt their new lives in the new country and culture.

“The Jazz Singer” portrayed a typical example of the conflicts between the young immigrants and their parents. Unlike adults, children can accept new things more easily. They wouldn’t determine what is right or wrong based on certain rules. They can only determine things they like or don’t like. This was why little Jackie didn’t think it was wrong to sing jazz songs. Of course, his religious parents would think he has done something wrong since singing jazz songs would blaspheme against their religion. They should not be blamed for the conflicts since they are the result of the clashing between two cultures. Because Jackie is so immersed into the American culture, which greatly emphasized on individualism, he would always think he was right about following his dream. However, his father thought he should follow the family tradition as he and generations of family members did. Yet, at the end when Jackie sang for his father on the holiest religious day, it shows that no matter how the cultures have changed, the roots are still there. Even if Jackie is the best blackface actor on stage, underneath his make up and costumes, his Jewish roots would still influence him.

“Hester Street” showed the typical struggles of immigrants. When immigrants came to America, they wanted to earn money and get accepted into the mainstream culture. Jake was one of them. He wanted to earn plenty of money so he worked in the sweatshop everyday to earn money; he wanted to get accepted among his friends so he betrayed his wife and courted with the Polish girl. He abandoned his culture and religion because he wanted to be a real American. Jake always said to his wife that America is an educated country. In our view, America is characterized for its tolerance of different cultures and religions. We may think it was a little silly when Jake implied to his wife that in order to be educated, she needed to give up the religious traditions. Again, we have to understand the cultural barrier that the immigrants have to overcome when starting their lives all over again in a new country. It is perhaps the only way we can understand Jake’s decisions and struggles.

The Nancy Foner’s book “From Ellis Island to JFK” presented the essential facts of the history of immigration of New York City. These facts are important for us to understand the historical context of the films. From her work, we learned that many Jewish people immigrate to America to escape anti-Semitism in Europe and many other facts. However, we cannot learn about the stories behind these immigrants from these facts. Films can help us to learn about the stories of immigrants. Each immigrant has his or her own stories that are different from the ones a native-born American has. “The Jazz Singer” and “Hester Street” give us a more realistic and humane insight of immigrants’ lives. We can actually “experience” immigrants’ difficulties and struggles through the films. Foner’s book cannot provide us with these insights. Yet, her book gives us numerous resources to help us better understand how the American society has shaped the immigrants’ lives, and to clarify the misunderstanding we have toward immigrants. Both the history and the stories are essential for us to understand the cultural and religious conflicts of identity among immigrants.

The identity of a person can be shown in many forms. For example, a person’s name reveals where the person is from. In addition, the physical features a person has and the clothing someone wears also reveals aspects of their identity.  In Ellis Island, The Jazz Singer and Hester Street, these features of the characters give the viewers pieces as to who the character is.

As Foner stated, “the reasons why millions have left their homelands to come to America are complex and multi face.” Whatever those reasons may be, in the 1920s, people from Europe travelled great lengths in order to come to New York City. However, that trip came with a price, a price in which some happily paid and some who did not wish to pay it. Most people who came to New York at that time went through Ellis Island. There they had to prove their worth by getting rid of some aspects of the culture they grew up in. One of those aspects is their name; this is clearly shown in the movie Ellis Island. A man walked in with the name Elessen Rahmsauer and entered the United States with the name Eli Lamb. Whether that man was happy about losing his birth name, it is unclear for the shot showed his back-not allowing the viewers to see his facial expressions. The main characters in The Jazz Singer changes his name from Jackie Rabinowitz to Jake Robin in order to throw his old identity away. Being raised in a orthodox Jewish household, he was unable to pursue his passion of jazz singing. In order to separate himself from the traditions his family upheld, he changed his name. The same can be said about the main character in the movie Hester Street; he changed his name to Jake and transformed himself into a “Yankee”.

Besides changing their name, people also learned English. This is depicted in all three movies. In Ellis Island, there were scenes in which a group of people dressed in Eastern European clothing were sitting in a classroom repeating the words a teacher spoke. (What was interesting about that though was that the viewer does not hear the immigrants speak. The viewer merely sees their mouths form the words, leaving the viewer to choose the voices the students have.) In the movie Hester Street, Jake’s son and wife immigrate to the United States and soon begin to learn English. There is a scene in which Jake’s son is rewarded for being able to say the word “horse” and another scene in which his wife starts stating the names of kitchen appliances in English. As the movie progresses, these characters start to converse in mostly English. This shows how they are losing part of their identity. In The Jazz Singer, Jackie speaks in English everywhere except when he is in the synagogue. However, this can be seen as a preservation of identity, for instead of going through the performance, he took over his father’s place in singing the hymns.

People should learn the language of the country they live in, even if they live in self-sufficient neighborhoods consisting of people who speak the same native tongue as them. These self-sufficient neighborhoods are shown in The Jazz Singer and Hester Street. Whenever the characters stepped onto the streets, it would consist of people of the same religion, Jewish, conducting business, working and enjoying drinks together. These ethnic neighborhoods are a way that people wish to preserve this part of their identity, the traditions they uphold because of their religion. Woman would wear plain, dark clothing that covered them. Men wore black hats and grew out their beards. Most of the people in these movies had similar physical features. A person’s facial features give away their nationality. This is clearly shown in Ellis Island; there is a scene in which a woman writes “Serb” on the glass in front of a person looking at the camera. Also in that movie, there was a scene where the viewer saw the side profile of a woman and that a hand drew a circle on the glass in front of her. This circle brought the viewer’s attention to the woman’s nose. In Hester Street, Jake’s wife has certain unique characteristics that Jake’s lover did not have. This was apart in the scene where his lover came over his house to find out that Jake is married and with a little boy.

However, those that wished to remove themselves from their old identity-such as Jake-do not fit in. Jackie has shaved off his beard and cut his hair to look like a modern American. Jake also makes fun of the person who just came to America in the second scene where he, his lover, and two of his friends are sitting around a table in a restaurant. Jackie, however, took a somewhat extreme approach: he put on a mask. Being a “cultural schizophrenic,” Jackie wishes to hold onto his old self and his new self: a jazz singer. (Rogin, page 426) However, a Jewish man at the time could not be a jazz singer, thus in order to obtain fame and fortune, he put on a blackface. This mask allowed him to be free “from paternal, old-world constraints” and allows him to follow his dream of using his voice to sing jazz. (Rogin, 419) “Blackface is the instrument that transfers identities from immigrant Jew to American.” (Rogin, 434) Through this mask, Jackie is able to live the way he wants: that is, until his father falls ill. Then it becomes an internal conflict between his religion and what he sees himself doing with his life (which has become part of his identity). The scene that best reflects this internal struggle is when he is looking in the mirror (with his costume on) and in the reflection the viewer sees his father singing in the synagogue. In the end, he gets to keep both identities: a cantor of his synagogue and a jazz singer.

Jake did not have this choice. His wife and child represent his old identity and his lover represents his new identity. In the end, he decides to keep his new identity and get rid of his old one. Thus in the end of the movie, he divorced his wife and married his Polish lover. This signifies how Jackie decided to be an American and starts life anew.

Jakie’s refusal to become a Cantor evidently points to the concept of identity. As seen within the movie, The Jazz Singer, Cantor Rabinowitz’s strict ruling tries to disintegrate the identity of Jakie. However, Jakie fights against the tradition of his family, refusing to carry on the five generations of the Rabinowitz being Cantors. Years passed after Jakie, (now Jack Robin) had run away from home. The issue with his father is still standing after all these years. However, when he is presented with a situation to clear his name in the eyes of his father, he does so, and to this I disagree.

Not only do I disagree with this, I also disagree with parts of the shocking critique of The Jazz Singer presented by Michael Rogin. First and far most, I was intrigued when he said that the movie had done ‘no favor to blacks.’  As stated on page 419, paragraph two, “The Jazz Singer’s protagonist adopts a black mask and kills his father.” However, I beg to differ with Rogin’s view. I believe that Jakie’s choice to run away from home and pursue his dreams of being a jazz singer should have no bearing on his father’s death. Cantor Rabinowitz was already ill and on his deathbed. This brings me back to Jack’s decision of performing for the Atonement. Why must it take a death to reach out for someone and make amends? Especially family? Personally I feel that the father should have done more for Jakie and not wait until he was about to pass away.

Aside from this point, I do agree on Rogin’s view regarding the function of whiteness and blackness. Jakie uses his blackface in order to create a new him, a body to take on a new form. In this new form, he freely expresses his voice by singing black music, jazz. This side allows Jakie to find his identity as a singer, not just for the synagogue, but also for jazz. This is Rogin’s point, that the whiteness and blackness experienced by Jakie enables him to heal his ‘divided soul.’  The union of his divided soul is seen at the end, as he is both a Cantor and a jazz singer when Mary says “[He’s] a jazz singer – singing to his God.”

After watching Ellis Island, I feel that Michael Rogin could have said anything about the film. His critique on The Jazz Singer had commented on subtle events, making it difficult to predict what he could say about a film like this. Either way, the film contrasts the present day (of when the movie was made) to the Ellis Island from the past. In the past, the immigrants had tried to assimilate into the American culture, as they learned English and New York landmarks. Clearly, they were by far more identified by their background and in a sense, still not American. This is demonstrated in the one scene where there was a ‘profiling’ of the immigrants and one of them was labeled ‘SERB’. This black and white scene, in comparison to the tour of Ellis Island, shows how the film is resolved indirectly. By comparing these two times, we see that the laws for immigration have changed and the bare conditions which were endured by immigrants so long ago (as seen in the panoramic view in the beginning of the film) are no longer present. Indeed there are challenges, but if anything the conditions have improved for the immigrants nowadays, and their descendants back then; given that the people who are taking the tour are the descendants.

This is also seen on Foner’s account. According to Foner, as many of us will agree, “A hundred years ago, immigrants arrived at Ellis Island dirty and bedraggled, after a long ocean journey in steerage; now they emerge from the cabin of a jet plane at John F. Kennedy International Airport, often dressed in designer jeans or fashionable attire.” Foner’s account is filled with statistics relating the immigrants who have come here, and why.  However, the emotional aspect present in films such as Ellis Island is absent in Foner’s book. Yes, there are tragic events which Foner mentions such as anti-Semitic violence, but reading about one does not have as much empathy as seeing one.

Finally, I would love to end off on the ironic note expressed in Hester Street. Jake says, “Bernstein, you wished you had a son like my Joey, eh?” Of course, Berstein does become Joey’s stepfather at the end, a perfect reversal of the tables for our protagonists, Bernstein and Gitl with the antagonists, Jake and Mamie. At the heart of the situation between Jake and Gitl is the question of identity. Jake, who thinks he knows who he really is, does not; thus creating the barrier between him and his ex-wife.  While Gitl prefers to live the way of life as she knows it, Jake does not. His want for his former bachelor life and freedom that he got when arriving in America masks his identity; and ultimately drives Gitl away with abuse and animosity. Clearly, Jake’s identity has changed; he has went from the caring and loving Yekl (as described by Gitl) to the playboy Jake.

In From Ellis Island to JFK, Nancy Foner goes about discussing two of the largest waves of immigration in United States history. Her discussion – at least in the first chapter – seems to focus on analyzing the qualities of each of these waves of immigration and on making comparisons between the two. She provides numerous statistics – the number of people coming in during each influx, the number of countries represented, the quality of trades and professions represented, et cetera – to bolster her argument and provides the reader with a very clear quantitative picture of immigration. Unfortunately, even with all of this information about the immigrants, the reader has a difficult time figuring out the souls of these individuals.

Who were they really? What drove them to leave behind everything they had in the Old World and to embark upon the perilous journey – at least, it must have been slightly perilous during the earlier influx – to the New World? What did they hope to find in this bizarre foreign land that is so different from their places of origin? What did they find once they passed through the belly of Ellis Island and emerged on the other side? What struggles did they face?

The film Ellis Island is a little too “artsy” for my tastes at some points, but the imagery and the audio it employs accomplish what I believe the director hoped to accomplish – it humanizes the hordes of immigrants that had to pass through the tiny island on their way to America. It puts faces to the numbers. The film also shows a glimpse of some of the struggles these individuals have to deal with even before they officially step foot on American soil – the struggle to prove their worth, the struggle to preserve their identities, the struggle to convince the authorities that they can fit in.

These are struggles that are more clearly examined in Hester Street and The Jazz Singer – two more films that do an excellent job of humanizing the immigrant hordes. Each of these films feature at least one immigrant protagonist who clearly suffers from a crisis of identity – he is torn between continuing to uphold the traditions of the Old World and fully submerging himself in the “American” culture. In The Jazz Singer, Jakie struggles with making a decision between pursuing his lifelong dream of becoming the eponymous jazz singer and pursuing his father’s lifelong dream for him to become cantor in the synagogue. In the end, the film suggests that he can actually have the best of both worlds – he can remain romantically attached to his Jewish mother and to his gentile girlfriend.

Hester Street does not have the same type of “compromise” ending for its main male protagonist. In this film, Yekl decides to abandon his Jewish heritage for the more glamorous life of a Yankee. He leaves his wife – who continually refuses to completely forsake her heritage in the way her husband does – and marries Mamie, a dancer. In turn, Gitle marries Bernstein – a so-called “traditionalist” who is as eager as she is to preserve their shared Jewish heritage. However, Gitle does not confine herself to one extreme end of the spectrum, as Yekl did by completely forsaking his heritage and embracing “Americanization.” For her, even though she does marry a traditionalist, the ending is also one that embraces the idea of “the best of both worlds” – she has her traditions, but she also speaks English and shows her hair.

Some people might find these types of “compromise” endings unrealistic and dissatisfying, but I’m of the opinion that having the best of both worlds is an integral part of defining what America is all about. This is a country that was built by immigrants – by people who came from somewhere else and settled down here, for whatever reason. These people didn’t just abandon their traditions when they came here. They brought their traditions with them and these traditions are what eventually mixed and morphed to create a culture that is distinctly American. You can’t have an “American” culture without the basic components that make it up – without the tiny and not so tiny contributions from  the cultures and traditions of Jewish, Chinese, or Italian immigrants. Perhaps, you can forget that those components exist, but when you break our culture back down again – when you dissect it – they are plainly there to see.

Just as adolescents embark on an intellectual journey to discover their true identity, so do the characters portrayed in the films The Jazz Singer and Hester Street. For instance, in Hester Street Yekl undergoes a dramatic change in both his personality and beliefs when he arrives in America. While in America, Yekl switches his name to Jake and abandons his religion. Furthermore, Jake becomes involved in an extramarital affair despite being married to his wife Gitle. However, when Gitle immigrates to America she upheld her Jewish faith and remained loyal to her husband. Unfortunately, Jake fails to show any appreciation for his wife when she tried to change herself for him. In fact, Jake illustrated no remorse for his actions and was blindly in love with Mamie the dancer. Through Hester Street we can see the dramatic transformation Yekl has undergone and visualize that Jake now considers himself to be a true American at heart and not Jewish. I am surprised that Jake even brought back Gitl at all if all he was going to do was just abandon her and betray her with his deceit. I feel that the movie resolved the conflict between Gitl and Yekl well because Jake got what he desired and Gitl remarried to Bernstein and was still able to adhere to her religion without a problem. I actually was hoping that Yekl would go back to Gitl after she reluctantly went against her own will to make him happy. Sadly, this was not the case. I wouldn’t be surprised even if Jake becomes “Daddy Yankee” after witnessing how much he changed.

Also, in The Jazz Singer we witness the identity conflict depicted by Jakie Rabinowitz. For example, Jakie (who later refers to himself as Jack) has to decide whether to premiere in his first show or to sing at the Kol Nidre to fulfill his father’s last wish. Here, Jakie experiences a cultural conflict because he has ponder over who he actually is: A devout Jewish cantor or a Jazz singing individual? Luckily for Jakie, he gets the best of both worlds and is able to both fulfill his father’s wish and sing jazz later on in the film. Even though Jakie ultimately becomes the Jazz Singer, somewhere inside of him his religion is still important to him and this caused him to sing for his father at the Kol Nidre that day. Jakie may now be Jazz Singer and an American, but in actuality he is of Jewish descent and will always be. I believe that since American culture emphasizes on individuality and places no restrictions upon a person it was no surprise why both Jakie and Yekl assimilated so quickly. Knowing the strict doctrines of their Jewish culture, both of them decided to give rise to newer identities as Americans to be able to better express themselves.

Nancy Foner’s writings showed insight to why immigrants like Jakie and Jake actually came to America. The fact that most immigrants suffered economic hardships and persecution in their native countries explain why they came to America. For example, Foner states that the amount of money a person makes within a month in Brazil isn’t enough to buy a new television. However, the amount of person an individual makes in a week in America is enough to buy a brand new television set. Factors like these are reasons why immigrants want to travel to America to commence a new life and escape financial burdens in their native countries. Thus, it’s not surprising why Jake and Jakie had a passion to reside in America. They both wanted to earn a decent living and start life afresh without any religious restrictions or financial issues. While the movies Hester Street and The Jazz Singer focused the identity crisis’ its characters confronted, Foner’s writings gave us the literal sense of what immigration was like. For instance, many immigrants perished on their journey coming to America due to starvation, lack of sanitary conditions on the ship, and harsh conditions and treatment. The expedition to America wasn’t an easy one for all immigrants.

Overall, the movies Hester Street and The Jazz Singer and the writings by Nancy Foner gave me a better idea of the strife immigrants had to endure to settle in an entirely new country. It also exposed to me the religious conflicts Jewish immigrants and other cultures faced, such as whether to stick to their religion or to abandon it and begin a newer life as a different person.

Happy February Everybody!

First and foremost I would like to get some initial reactions off my chest (figuratively speaking of course)

• “You can’t pee up on my back and make me think it’s rain” was by far the best line in Hester Street, I can only describe it as epic as Raymond’s mother (Mrs. Kavarsky) completely stumped Jack leaving him agape.
• Ellis Island had extremely creepy “oooo” sounds, and while I was viewing the video my volume was quite loud so I was thoroughly spooked.

This motif of questioning one’s identity is an interesting notion that I never really considered before, yet it makes perfectly sense. If these men and women are choosing to leave their homeland and come to a new, strange land then they have the opportunity to re-invent themselves. This opportunity in turn brings about the internal conflict and struggle as they face the questions, “who am I?” and “which do I choose?” Interestingly I find it analogous to the question of identity faced by incoming freshmen. A lot of high school seniors decide to reinvent themselves when they’re in college. As they leave their high school world and friends behind, they enter a new world where they can cast away any previous inhibitions, reputations, etc. and start anew.

Although the films were all made in different decades they all depict this struggle of defining oneself. In The Jazz Singer, Jakie rejects his conservative Jewish upbringing and runs away embracing a secular, American culture. And since he practices black face you can argue he embraces the African American culture as well. But the question is why? Jakie loved to sing jazz yet his father and his Jewish upbringing wouldn’t allow him to pursue this passion. However, the African American culture is infamous for their love of jazz, which is why he ran away and embraced a new identity. Unlike Jake in Hester Street, Jakie still had his Jewish roots, which was evident in his flashbacks and his decision to sing the Kol Nidre. This dual identity is what brings out the sense of an unresolved ending.

Jake on the other hand, completely abandons his old ways when he comes to America. He changed his name, doesn’t really know Hebrew, and repeatedly refers to himself as a Yankee. Moreover, when he brings his wife to America he changes his son’s name to Joey and reacts angrily whenever his wife does something un-American. Jake turning his back on his old culture, religion, etc. is what helps bring this film to a resolution. The last shot of the two new couples (Mamie & Jack and Gitl & Bernstein) depicts this, the two made their choices and go on their own paths.

A pivotal scene in Ellis Island that portrays this motif is the lady teaching the immigrants; she might be teaching them English words but she’s really teaching them their new lifestyle and identities, like the man who entered Ellis Island as Elessen Rahmsauer and left Eli Lamb.

Foner’s article offered an interesting perspective on this topic as well. Specifically, the notion of how our perspective on immigrants has changed. Foner suggests that we used to see them as these “heroes who weathered hardships in Europe and a traumatic ocean crossing to make it to America” but now since many immigrants are undocumented they are “stigmatized and unwanted.” Since Foner’s book was written in the early 21st century it gives a more modern point of view on this topic, something the films simply cannot. For me, the films offered a much more engaging perspective to this topic because we got to see the story of these people and witness their struggle of identity, something Foner’s reading couldn’t do.

I think it’s pretty obvious that both The Jazz Singer and Hester Street revolve around crises of identity.  However, these two crises are seemingly superficially opposite as one deals with a protagonist wanting to leave behind tradition to pursue the new, exciting, and rebellious while the other centers around the resistance to depart from tradition and embrace the ways of the “new world”.  On a deeper level, however, I think that these two issues are actually very similar and work towards a common goal.  Both Jakie and Gitl face a time when they have to make a decision about their faith and how it defines them.  Both characters are forced to discover their identities and make difficult choices about retaining their identities and belief systems while shaping to the roles they are expected to conform to.  Both characters end up staying true to their faith identity in some way.

Though Jakie’s departure from the traditions of the Jewish faith to pursue his dream of becoming a jazz singer seems to be complete, I believe that there remained a part of him that expressed a desire to return to his Jewish roots and please his father.  These desires are clearly seen when Jakie is in the audience listening to the performance of the Kol Nidre.  Jakie is obviously affected by the performance and has flashbacks to his father singing it.  Jakie has similar flashbacks when he looks into the mirror in blackface.  This crisis of identity was bound to be resolved in the way that it was, with Jakie fulfilling his father’s dying wish to hear him sing the Kol Nidre.  Jakie’s life revolves around some kind of religious experience, whether it be the traditional Jewish faith practices he grew up with or a different kind of religion – the one he experiences while playing the role of a jazz singer.

These types of internal identity conflict are a common thread throughout the history of immigration, especially through the era of Ellis Island.   People who wanted a better life for themselves and their families experienced relatively traumatic passages into the United States, as Nancy Foner describes in her piece.  Among these people were my grandparents who immigrated separately in the mid 1950s from Italy.  At Sunday dinner, conversation centered, rather ironically, around my grandfather’s experience with both immigration and assimilation.  Knowing only his sponsor, Uncle Joe, my grandfather’s main concern was not whether or not “L’America” would treat him well, but how he would fit in.  He worked tirelessly, much like Gitl did, to learn the English language and slowly adopted “American” ways while retaining the values and traditions of his homeland – values and traditions that are still a very large part of his, and consequently my own, life.  This happy medium was not a quick or easy transition.  It was a hard struggle, as was portrayed most accurately in Hester Street.  I think that all three films that I watched this week depict this struggle in a way that Foner’s text does not really address.  While providing a nice description of the physical process and the reasons why this kind of process could occur, I feel that a lot of what comes next in terms of incorporating “American-ness” into the identity of the individual immigrant is missing and glossed over.

There was a pretty typical conflict of identity in The Jazz Singer.  Little Jakie has to make a huge lifestyle decision, based on the pressure that his parents place on him. According to them, he must choose to take on the identity of a Jazz singer or to stay loyal to his Jewish traditions and become a cantor like his father.  The scene that comes to mind is the scene where grown-up Jakie goes to see a show, and it turns out to be his father singing old-fashioned, Jewish songs. I saw a clear moment of question in his eyes when he smiles and reminisces over his childhood. The conflict of his identity arises from the clash of two cultures. He feels like he has to choose one of the I think this is why Jakie’s identity crisis is never really solved. It takes time for two cultures to learn to accept one another’s ways, so until that time, a young, developing adult will feel torn in his identity.

Then, there’s the second Jake that goes through an identity crisis. In Hester Street, Jake has the opportunity to create this second life for himself in America, which then, of course, leads to a new identity. It’s a similar culture clash to the one in The Jazz Singer. However, I think it’s an even more difficult situation, because Jake never thought he’d have to make an identity decision. To explain, I’ll bring up the scene where he finds out that his wife and son are coming to America.  It’s clear that his wheels start to turn once he finds out because he has to find a way to make his two identities mesh in one place. I believe he doesn’t know what he wants once his wife comes from overseas, because Gitle can’t do a thing to please him (changing her clothes, hair, language, etc.). And by the end, the identity conundrum isn’t really solved, because Jake ends up choosing one of his identities irrationally and aggressively, rather than calmly taking the time to figure things out with Gitl and consider how it might affect Yossele.

To me, the comparisons between The Jazz Singer and Hester Street were apparent almost immediately.  Most obviously, both films are about the conflicts that some Jewish-Americans faced between their heritage and their desire to assimilate into American society.  In The Jazz Singer, Jakie is torn between doing what his father wants (replacing him as the synagogue’s cantor) and what he truly wants (pursuing a career as a jazz singer).  In Hester Street, Jake rejects his Jewish heritage in favor of being a “Yankee”, must to the dismay of Gitl, who doesn’t understand why their Jewish customs shouldn’t carry over into America.  This is embodied by the fact that Jake rejects his traditional Jewish wife for the Americanized, flashy Mamie.  In addition, he has taken to calling himself Jake instead of his given name of Yankel, a situation that is paralleled in The Jazz Singer when Jakie Rabinowitz renames himself Jack Robin.

Thematically, where the two films differ most is in their resolutions of the cultural clashes faced by Jakie and Jake.  In The Jazz Singer, it appears as though Jakie can “have it all”—it’s suggested that despite skipping his Broadway premiere to sing the Kol Nidre, his career as a jazz singer is unharmed.  Even Jakie’s performances in blackface, which completely reject his true heritage, are accepted by his mother.  In Hester Street, however, Jake fully renounces his Jewish past by divorcing Gitl and marrying Mamie.  Perhaps then it is Gitl who is most like Jakie in the end, since she Americanizes some things about herself (namely her hairstyle and wardrobe) yet keeps her traditional Jewish values.  In fact, even though Jake and Gitl both end up marrying people with the ideals they currently value, I would say that it is Gitl who comes out the happiest because she didn’t have to compromise her values or forget who she truly was in order to be happy with Bernstein and her son.