Gustavo Arellano’s book Orange County is delightfully complex tale of his family, the towns where they settled, its migration, the story of towns and the outlandish paradox that is Orange County in California. From literature point of view, the book reveals its theme from three aspects that are the cornerstone of the book. Orange County is a unique book with three parts; person history, investigative journalism and memoir. Arellano’s literary work explores the backstory of the Orange County and its uncovering skeletons. However, this paper provides an insight of connection between the immigrants’ home cultures and the culture in their new land, as illustrated in the book.
The book illustrates how the immigrants want to be in the comfort of their home culture in the new countries, though they are forced to assimilate with the new culture. This ideology is taken as a natural practice of human when they migrate into another country. For example, with the growth of globalization, it is difficult to identify an immigrant cutting the connection between the mother culture and a new culture (Owolabi 72-74). Although in some situation they assimilate to the new culture fully, it takes years to cut the “umbilical cord”. For instance, Gustavo portrays how his parent wanted him to stick to the mother culture. As a teenager, he was expected to participate in the celebration through dancing. For example, the Mexican culture in Orange County was represented by dance as men dressed their cowboy boots, Stetson, and big belt buckle while women were supposed to be demure.
However, it is evident that when people meet new culture some people assimilate to the new culture and wish to abandon the mother culture. For instance, in this book, the narrator would only stick to the Mexican culture just to make his parents happy. His father was always trying to influence him to wear boots and jeans like a cowboy, and he could do it just for him. In this case, the parents were comfortable practicing the mother culture while the children are depicted as the one who wish to abandon their culture. The narrator seems to hate the Mexican culture, reason being that he cannot wear a Stetson. The narrator states that he could not participate in the mother culture without thinking himself as a pretentious because he felt that that was not his culture (Arellano, 36). Such people who despise the mother culture, usually, feel isolated and sometimes people points their fingers at them. For instance, people around the narrator were very disappointed, and they referred to him as a boy who is too Americanized. However, he believed that things have changed, and people should change as well.
In sticking to Gustavo Arellano’s theme, Orange County can be referred as Meyer lemon. Contrary from the traditional lemon, a Meyer lemon according to Orange County story is a combination of bitter, sour, and sweet. The true sordid story in Orange County is of a man behind the personal narrative and the culture that seems to be better than his mother culture. The ethnic and immigration issues make-up are intriguing in this historical book. It is evident that the generation variation contributes significantly to how people assimilate the new culture. In other words, young people are more attracted to the new culture than the old people.
Works Cited
Arellano, Gustavo. Orange County: A Personal History. Los Angeles: Simon and Schuster, 2008. Print.
Crook, Hank, and Doug Myrland. "Columnist Gustavo Arellano Discusses What Nation Can Learn from Orange County | KPBS." KPBS Public Media. KPBS, 17 July 2009. Web. 7 Oct. 2014. <http://www.kpbs.org/news/2009/jun/17/columnist-gustavo-arellano-discusses-what-nation-c/>.
Horn, Adrian M. Juke Box Britain: Americanisation and Youth Culture, 1945-60. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2009. Print.
Owolabi, Kolawole A. "Globalization, Americanization and Western imperialism." Journal of Social Development in Africa 16.2 (2001): 71-91. Print.
