¶ … Dust- John Fante
John Fante's Ask the Dust is regarded as one of the most successful novels of the 20th century with its theme grounded in immigration and myth of American dream. The novel is not exactly negative in tone instead it simply focuses on realistically presenting the life of immigrants in Los Angeles community of 1930s. The author has beautifully recreated the early times of massive immigration to the Golden State where people of many communities settled down in the hope of building and carving a more positive future for themselves than the one they would have been accorded in their native lands. After reading the novel, it appears that the most important theme of the novel is 'struggle of immigrants to become an American by degrading others'. This theme has been highlighted in various ways including relationships between various communities, their mode of conversation, their manner of perceiving others etc. It is quite interesting to see how different immigrant communities treat each other and how they try to prove themselves better than the others.
It is strange that while all communities were suffering from the same problems like language barrier, lack of adequate rights, racial bigotry, discrimination etc., they were still not supportive of each other. Instead they would not miss an opportunity to degrade the other immigrant communities. This reflects their inferiority complex that had been generated by lack of equal rights and opportunities in the Land of Plenty. Arturo initially faces rejection by the "same faces, the same set hard mouths from [his] hometown" (46) because his complexion is darker and he is basically Italian. He hates them for their malicious attitude and gains satisfaction from the fact that "they are old...
Since they had been ill-treated by pure Americans, the only way they could hold on to their pride was by degrading other races. It was indeed a vicious circle, which had made life difficult for immigrants in Los Angeles communities "where everyday life is [informed] by Spanish culture, Indian culture, and African culture" (Hicks 1). Since all immigrant communities from various part of the world formed the Californian culture, it was impossible to ignore their comments or to escape the impact of their attitude towards each other.
It is important to bear in mind that immigrants were not exactly cruel to each other as Americans were to them, but they wanted to convince themselves that even if they were not exactly as good as Americans, they were at least better than their immigrant counterparts. This could give them a sense of achievement. Richard Collins agrees and explains that immigrants had even adopted the stereotypes and prejudices of Americans by "perversely calling themselves Dago and Wop with alternating affection and deprecation." And their younger generations."..continued the name-calling, perpetuating the prejudice through a self-lacerating denial of family and ethnic peers in their eagerness to become 'American" (Collins 44) The best demonstration of this struggle can be seen in the first few meeting scenes between Camilla and Arturo in the bar where the former waitresses. We notice that while they both belong to immigrant communities, they are still extremely vindictive to each other. Camilla is more so because she is the one who initiates their exchange of cruel jibes. In Chapter four of the novel, we see how Camilla tries to degrade Arturo by making him feel inferior. This is a highly interesting exchange of…
