In her article “Framing Cultural Difference: Immigrant Women and Discourses of Tradition,” Volpp portrays how immigrant culture can confine the lives of immigrants to a troubling conflict regarding whether they should remain traditional or become modern. To support her central argument, she elucidates the case of Tina Isa, a 16-year old immigrant Palestinian girl who was murdered in the U.S. by her own parents. Volpp argues that specific important facts become indecipherable because of the conflict of remaining traditional or becoming modern, where the powerful context within which violence against women takes place is ignored or not adequately emphasized. Volpp argues that culture and feminism tend to work against each other, where it is assumed that overcoming or relinquishing their culture will help women be liberated. However, according to Volpp, women have a complicated judgment that they base on their personal feelings and impressions that cannot be reduced to cultural victimization. Volpp elucidates this in her article by exploring antiracist and antisexist practice. Instead of placing the immigrant under the negative spotlight where they are criticized for their antiquated traditions, Volpp presents an argument of how the experiences of culture of immigrants are shaped by material concerns, racism, and state policies.
This week’s films, both Entre Nos (2009) and The Visitor (2007), are moving dramas about U.S. immigration. Both films highlight the ideology of anti-immigrant forces believe that the cultures and values in the United States are superiors to others. Both films accurately portray the reality of the discourse, racism, cultural, and ethnic issues, and the helplessness that many immigrants face. Instead of merely connecting on a rhetorical level, both films connect on an emotional level. Both films have the political undertones that govern ideologies that seem to go against immigrants in the United States. The clash of cultures between foreign-born immigrants and Americans is irresistibly examined in both films.
Ideologies of “culture” and “cultural victimization” operate for migrant women by contributing to moral judgment. These ideologies help people to judge what is right and wrong in regards to the treatment of immigrant women in the U.S., and judge the rationale behind the thinking of anti-immigrant forces. In Entre Nos (2009), it is a bit tricky to point out how ideologies of “culture” and “cultural victimization” operate for Mariana. Perhaps it is her own moral judgment that gives her the will to strive and struggle for the sake of her children. However, in The Visitor (2007), ideologies of “culture” and “cultural victimization” operate in a more explicit manner for Mouna, when Walter’s moral judgment tells him to treat troubled woman kindly like he did her son, even though both of them are illegal immigrants.
In the statement, “We should understand immigrant women to possess a complex subjectivity that is not reducible to cultural victimization” (Volpp, 2011, p.106), what Volpp is trying to say in simple words is that it is not possible to reduce moral judgment to cultural victimization. There does not seem to be much of a resistant in either film regarding the representations of immigrant women as “cultural victims.” Immigrant women are indeed culturally victimized and this is what has been portrayed in both films. Perhaps, Entre Nos (2009) illustrates a harsher yet the more realistic picture of the cultural victimization of immigrant women. Perhaps, the friendship that develops between Mouna and Walter in the The Visitor (2007) would be seen as superficial and slightly resisting an honest representation of immigrant women as “cultural victims.”
References
Dijk, T. A. V. (n.d.). 5 ideologies, racism, discourse: Debates on immigration and ethnic issues. Retrieved from http://www.discourses.org/OldArticles/Ideologies, racism, discourse.pdf
Ideologies of anti-immigration forces. (2005, Jul 5). Retrieved from http://rightweb.irc-online.org/articles/display/Ideologies_of_Anti-Immigration_Forces
Volpp, L. (2011). Framing cultural difference: Immigrant women and discourses of tradition. Duke University Press Journals, 22(1), 90-110.
