Living in Multicultural California

California is a dream land for immigrants. The Hollywood sign is a big welcome. The early Golden Rush, the fame of the Hollywood, the sunshine of the beach is all the attractions to those immigrants. For many people, California is full of opportunities, and stepping on this land is the start of their wealthy life. They thought that everything in California must be easier. However, the reality is not so beautiful and simple. Living under the multicultural society, people need to handle many things that they may not think about before, such as racial discrimination and stereotype. Although people think in California the racial discrimination must be better than other state, because there are already so many immigrants, racial discrimination are still everywhere. People are treated differently because of their skin color. The whole world is full of contradictions, many people are confused while they are being discriminated, but some people may not even realize the facts of the discrimination. Many artists try to use their different ways to express the complicated feelings of living under multicultural world and open people’s eyes to the real world, such as novel American Son by Brain Roly Ascalon, movie Crash by Paul Haggis, and theater play Border town by Culture Clash in Americca. They are all different genres of art, but illustrate the same complex meaning of living in multicultural California – the assimilation, the self identity, the stereotype, racial discrimination, the hybridism, and multiculturalism.

The powerful novel American Son is a story about two Filipino brothers who grew up in Los Angles under the discrimination and try to fit in the multicultural. There are three main characters in American Son who illustrate typical immigrants in California. The first one is Ika, the Pilipino mother. She came to California for finding good fortunes. For her, California is a dream land. Despite of the poverty and humidity she had in Philippine, she thought California could bring her better life and have endless sunshine. However the start of the dream actually was just the beginning of the nightmare. Her husband left her in early years without caring either their two sons or her. She has to work two jobs in order to support two sons. Being a single mom, especially immigrant, she is the disorders of self consciousness. Compare to the “Land Cruiser mom who is blond and tall and thin and wears black yoga-class tights, and holds a Starbucks iced drink, (American Son, 175)” in the school accident, Ika, the Philippine mom usually wears her “bug-eyed sunglasses” and has dark skin. She is ashamed of her own identity, and talks to Caucasians without any confidence. Not only Ika, her two sons, Tomas and Gabe are also ashamed of her look. Gabe doesn’t even want his mom to put him up from school. Her character is very weak and self-distrust. The criticism and the racial discrimination make her feel more ashamed of herself and scare to identify her own.

In contracts, her older son – Tomas acts actively about his identity. Tomas is a tough guy but with a good heart. When he was a kid, his uncle recalled, he was a very nice boy, even a little shy. But after he grew up, he dropped out school, and became a gangster. He dresses like Mexican gangster and likes to show his gangster tattoos which make him look tougher. He would like people misjudge him as a Mexican gangster rather than a Philippines - his original nationality, because Mexican are tougher. He breeds attack dogs then sale to celebrities. In fact, these dogs also suggest Tomas’ character which is sensitive, love attacking others, but to the owner or the people he loves he is loving, kind, obedience, and there is a sense of protection in the subconscious. Although Tomas tries to act like he doesn’t care about his mom, he usually protects her and prevents the damage. He stole furniture, jewelries for his mom, and when the “high class” Yoga mom attacked his mom – Ika, he stands out and protects her. Deeply in bottom of his heart, he loves and cares about his mom. He chooses the tough way to fight the racism, for he thinks that people won’t touch his family or himself because of his toughness.

On the other hand, Gabe is the only one in the family who wants to fit in this assimilation and acculturation. He is the third character of the novel, and also the main character. He is a “good kid” in the family who has good grade and carries his mom’s entire hope. His hybridism character is more confused than anyone else’s. Facing the stereotype and criticism, he doesn’t know how to identity himself. He feels shame of his own nation, afraid of letting people know that he is a Philippine. He first chose to escape from his family which he was deeply ashamed of. He tried to run away in order to get away from his brother’s violent life and his mother’s recreance. He didn’t want to become his brother and stuck with his poor mom. He was so ashamed, and couldn’t even tell the toll truck driver that he is a Philippine. He even lied to him that his mother was his maid when he first met her. Unfortunately, he couldn’t escape from the life he was ashamed of, because her mom caught him in Oregon. He came back to Los Angeles, and his life got worse. He ended up becoming toward to his brother’s character. He started to steal together with his brother. He finally gave up his last fight for the long-standing efforts to break away from the realities of society, and gradually sink deeply into the cruel reality, eventually succumbed to social discrimination.

The novel is so real and very much in line with the actual situation that many immigrants are facing. The first generations hope their lives could be better in California. If they could not achieve their target, they wish their kids could do it for them. Like aunt Jessica told Gabe that they are “everything” to their mom. Their mom came to California first, because she had “dreams that her kids could have a better life than that caste-driven slum [they] came from.” (American Son, 168) Like Gabe’s mom, other immigrant parents work hard, even two jobs or more at one time. Nevertheless, in reality, their children may not turn out to be the kids they want them to be.

The novel illustrates how typical immigrate families raise their kids, and how their kids try to fit in the multiculturalism. Tomas, the strong one, who acts tough, but deeply inside is loving person. He acts like gangster just to be tough so no one would hurt him, instead, they will be afraid of him, and keep distance from him. At first Gabe is confused about his situation, and then the stereotype and the cruel family situation kind of push him into the corner, which lead him toward his brother’s way to challenge the racial discrimination. It is people’s cruelness and criticism that really pushed these kids into the corners and forced them to become something they hate to be. The story is beautiful, but contains the hatred and hopelessness about the discrimination under multicultural.

Compared with Brian Ascalon Roley’s American Son, Paul Haggis’ Academy Award-winning drama film “Crash” illustrates more diverse of the racial discrimination of California and more on the stereotyping. The movie describes how the different races of people are treated differently as their skin color: White, Black, Mexican, and Chinese. These are the people the audience see everyday and everywhere. The story is so vivid that audiences feel deeply and easily connect with those characters in their daily lives. There are so many hatred and helplessness in the movie which is beautiful but sad at the same time.

In the movie everyone is struggling and dealing with the problems they have individually but also as a whole. Everyone has their own family problems. They have to face the family, the criticism, and the stereotype. Despite of the fact that they don’t trust each other, they want to be trusted by others. Their lives are conflictive and complicated.

All kinds of people have different fears of their lives. While two whites are walking on the street and look at two blacks coming toward to them, they immediately stereotype these two blacks as robbers based on their skin color before they even know them. At the same time, the two black boys see the fear in whites’ eyes, and are afraid that the whites will mistake them as gangsters who they maybe really are, or they are just stereotyped. One of the black boys criticizes that buses have the see through glass windows only because people want to see the “colored people” sit inside the bus. This satirizes that the color people are even discriminated by themselves. They hated to be stereotyped, but they intentionally limit themselves into those particular types already.

The Egypt father is another character who was stereotyped by the gun shop owner who thought he was a terrorist. In fact, he just wants to buy a gun with his daughter to protect his store and wife who was assaulted by gangsters. The owner treats Farhad differently without any communication and patient, only because he has darker skin, and looks like from Middle East. Farhad felt frustrating and embracing about how the gun shop owner treated him, so they end up yelling to each other. Both characters in this scene stereotype each other based on their assumption. If they could communicate more, the fight should not have happened. However, they chose let the stereotype and depression became hatred. (But, the pity is that they let stereotype and depression to become hatred)

When Farhad’s store was robbed, he lost everything. In despair, he instantly thought it was the Mexican locker man who did it for he looks like a gangster. His despair became hatred, and he tried to use the gun he bought to shot the locker man. Farhad was stereotyped by the gun shop owner, but facing his own problem, he stereotyped the locker man Daniel. Being stereotyped and misunderstood, Daniel is actually the most innocent one in the movie. Though he looks like gangster who has many tattoos, or he might be before, he has a good heart. All he just wants to do is to change his family’s situation which is moving out from the bad neighborhood and starting a new life. His daughter is deeply rooted with the violent life she had before. In order to escape from the old life, she has to hide under the bed. Daniel hopes his child could have better life than he has. However, it is so hard to escape from being stereotyped. One of the greatest scenes in the movie is when Farhad shot at Daniel in front of his house, his daughter running out to protect him. The gun was fired, and everything was frozen at that moment. Daniel and his wife thought their daughter was dead. Although the director removed the voice of their desperately crying and screaming, the performance of the helplessness and pain represents more intense. Farhad was shocked and stood there with regretting look on his face. When they found that the daughter was ok, the Mexican family ran inside without saying a word and left Farhad stood in front of their porch with confusion about what just happened. As he looked around, the American flag was flying in the neighborhood, which symbolizes the multicultural. In the dark night, Daniel looked out of the window trying to find out the answer about how to survive in this multicultural situation with all this hatred and misunderstanding all around them.

Other ironic character is the Chinaman who was run down by the black boys. He looks innocent compared with the two black boys who stole cars and robbed people. But behind the Chinaman’s harmless face, he was doing illegal slave trading. On the contrary, the black boy, who was stereotype as bad person, was the one who released those slaves. The slight smile on black boy’s face after he released the slaves shows he actually has a good heart.

Although all the characters in the movie seem do not know each other, but they actually intercross and connect to others. They glance aside by others, but without any notice or feeling. The detective said: “In LA nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass... I think we miss that touch so much that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something" (Detective Graham in Crash, played by Don Cheadl. The characters in the movie revealed their struggles of fitting in this multicultural California. They are being stereotyped, at the same time; they also stereotype others and themselves. The hatred is under a vicious circle, and sticks there. No matter how angry they are, deeply in their heart, they maybe are still good person. They still have warm hearts which can make this multicultural society much better, Just like the Mexican maid helped the Senator’s wife, and the black kid protected the Chinese slaves from being sold. The world could really be better if people trust each other instead of prejudice each other. The snowing at the end of the movie implies that the hope for the new start escape from the struggling and being stereotyped. The smile on the black kid’s face, after he released those Chinese, metaphors the goodness in everyone’s heart. The Chinese kid stands in front of the windows of the music store with his mouth widely open. He may see the hope and the fame of Hollywood, but the future is still a question mark to him. It might be heaven, and it might be hell. The movie contains many ironies, metaphors to symbolize the multiethnic people struggling to overcome their fears as being stereotyped.

Likewise, the play titled Border town by Culture Clash in America vividly described its characters, on both American (San Diego) and Mexican (Tijuana) sides. These characters always have mixed feelings about living near the borders with the multicultural. The title “Americca” is not misspelled, but refers to “America”, it connotes the mixed cultural of the border cities. If people have ever been to San Diego and Tijuana, they will see that mixed culture in both cities and realize their differences. Both Act 1 and Act 2 in the play start with the same scene of two American play writers were caught by border patrol of both sides. Both Act 1 and Act 2 are ironic and full of metaphors. They showed the different perspectives between American and Mexican.

At first, the two play writers are caught by the American patrol – Militiaman, because they look so much like Mexicans who illegally crossed the border. The militiaman stereotyped them only because of their color of skin. The background described the “two Mexican illegal are caught, frozen like deer in the harsh lights” (Culture Clash, 9). The scene satirizes how Mexicans were caught and trapped like animals and were not treated as human beings. The racial discrimination was clearly showed in the play.

The racial discrimination sometime goes even far, such as the incident happened to Tyrone Thomas. He was a black kid who was a junkie and a policy flunky. Even he was policy snitch, policemen still didn’t like him. One day they decided to “shake him down”, the kid tried to run away, but the policeman caught him and hit him hard on the head. They “hit so hard, that the gun fires” (Culture Clash 23). At that time, no one cares about this accident, because Tyrone was black. The report questioned if the same accident happened to a white kid, will people act the same? Even people live in multicultural California, are they really care about it? It says, “Who cries for Tyrone the junkie?” (Culture Clash, 24) They called him “junkie” only because he was black. The reporter said “I couldn’t distinguish the good guys from the bad guys!”(Culture Clash, 25) Who is the bad guy here, the policeman or Tyrone? Is the one who discriminate others or the one being discriminated? It is hard to tell.

Do people really accept this multiculturalism? In the border town, San Diego and Tijuana, people assimilate each other’s culture and become hybridism. A border couple was in the play, a Mexican wife and an American husband. They love each other, but are ashamed of their marriage at the same time. The woman said “the border is political. A symbol, an imposing monument impressed into our consciousness”. The man said “I do love her, and I need her, but I am embarrassed of her”. The political situation between Mexico and America deeply affect their lives. The ridiculous thing is even though they sleep on the same bed, they use different flag as their comforter. It symbolizes their own nationality, even they married each other. Deeply inside, they may still prefer to their own cultural.

However, some people do see the world differently than others. The Ex-marine is one of them. He is a very nice guy, and sees the world more impersonality. He has seen the war, the cruel of the world. He doesn’t discriminate Mexicans, instead he loves living in Mexico, where he feels more comfortable than living in America. There is no pressure, because “America is so obsessed with what color [people] are and what [the] background is.” He said in America, “everybody waving their little flags and crying out for war.” He is truly changed by acculturation.

On contrary, not everyone could assimilate the multicultural like the ex-marine. According to Donna in the play, people call East San Diego - City Heights. All “races” were put in one place, so the white do not have to deal with them. The poor and the rich were divided, so the poor will not bother the rich – white people. (Culture Clash, 48) The discrimination was obvious.

Over all, living in multicultural California is not as easy as people think. In the multiethnic immigrant community, people need to learn how to adapt the culture of other ethnic groups and try to understand others. The novel American Son, the movie Crash, and the play Culture Clash of Americca all helped people to reveal and understand the truth of living in multicultural. Although California is a multiethnic community, there is still racial discrimination, the stereotype and assimilation in the society. A lot of people still can not accept "outsiders" involved in their social lives. They think the involvement of “outsiders” made their lives worse. They are very easy to vent their anger with a variety of immigrants, or the society as a whole. On the other hand, facing the long time unfair treatment, many immigrants have given up their hope or may have been pushed over to the corner.