New Comm Ave

Olga Doktorov is a junior at Boston College. Her majors are Secondary Education and History. She truly enjoys working with children. She also likes birds. Her hobbies are dancing, listening to music. and going to the theater. She moved from Saint Petersburg, Russia only 18 months ago, and now resides in Wellesley, MA with her husband and cute little parakeet Sunny.

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Almost two decades ago Samuel P. Huntington published his work “The Clash of Civilization” discussing the differences of cultures around the world and their interactions with each other. In the contemporary American society this theme is extremely important. The rates of immigrants are rising gradually.

The U.S. is now a united country of all cultures combined under one prevailing culture of Western civilization. People come here for a variety of reasons. But how does the process of their adjustment and assimilation occur? Why do some people stay and become successful, while others are defeated in this struggle and forced back where they came from, or live out a miserable existence here? What price do people pay when the clash of civilizations occurs? In the two documentaries God Grew Tired of Us and The Devil’s Playground, directors Christopher Dillon Quinn and Lucy Walker, respectively, depict the clash of African and Amish cultures with American civilization. Both groups are similar in their ignorance of this new American culture, but they differ in reasons that forced them towards this clash: the Sudanese are refugees with no home, while the Amish are “prodigal sons” who leave their home and community to play on The Devil’s Playground. Importantly, this difference makes both groups to have no choice: the African group succeeds, while the Amish one is defeated and retreats home.

Both Sudanese and Amish adolescents are absolutely unfamiliar with the basic features of Western civilization such as electricity, shower, and apartments. The Sudanese are from a group known “Lost boys.” When the civil war broke out in 1987 in Sudan, the Muslim side ordered to kill all enemy males regardless of age. About thirty thousand boys fled more than one thousand miles out of the country, and since then for fifteen years they had been living in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya successively. The United Nations Organization provided them with very basic education, donated clothes, and some food. But these boys had never used cell phones, refrigerators or any other type of electric appliances; they had never eaten any ready-to-eat or convenience foods like potato chips or crackers. These are the things that are inevitable components of the everyday life of every American, but for Amish and African people they seem like something from outer space. The U.S. agreed to bring some of the “lost boys” here.

On the eve of their journey one of the boys said in an interview “I have never used electricity. I expect it would be very hard for me to use it” (God Grew Tired of Us). On the moment they found themselves on the board of the huge transatlantic plane, the clash of civilizations began. The “brave new world” collapsed on them with all its bulk of unknown. Very quickly they had to learn what a typical American person imbibed with his mother's milk.

For Amish adolescents it is not that different. “We’ve got almost no contact with the outside world. The Amish have no electricity, TV, radio. All you know is the Amish way of life” said one of the Amish young people, Faron Yoder (Devil’s Playground). Although they are not forced to this ignorance about the Western culture, but chose as the community to be isolated, the outcome is the same: when Amish kids enter the American world at sixteen years old, they have no idea what is going on around them. Everything is so new and strange.

Although the amount of new gadgets they should learn how to use is overwhelmingly huge, it does not take long to adjust to the material side of the new culture: what you can eat and how to turn light on. Very quickly, Amish and African folks start to wear American clothes (for example, jeans and t-shirts), watch TV, use phones, and drive cars – everything that did not exist for them just a year ago becomes part of their lives.

However, it takes so much longer to learn people’s traditions, customs, and mentality. The system of values that was imposed upon them in their communities differs tremendously from the one that is honored in American society. Thus, these disparities create misunderstandings and serious difficulties for their adjustments to the new life. One such value is the importance of maintaining a tight-knit community. Voluntarily or not, both groups have to live in cooperation with one another in order to sustain their lives. Each person separately cannot produce everything he needs for life, neither does he have an opportunity to buy everything himself. While in America one of the leading principles of the ruling concept of individualism is “everyone by himself.” Panther, one of the Sudanese boys says:

In the United States people are not friendly.…You cannot go to the house of somebody you don’t know though you are all Americans. They call the police and say, “Why did this guy come to my house? I don’t know him.” But in Sudan…you say, “I’m new to this place,” they can show you where you are….That’s difficult. You cannot even ask them because these are different people. It’s really difficult. How are we going to be acquainted with this life here? (God Grew Tired of Us).

The process of adjusting to this new world is the real struggle that is so hard that not everyone is ready to go until the end. The motivation should be very high to handle it. People must have very serious reasons for it. Hereof, the crucial difference between African and Amish folks arises. “The lost boys” from Sudan cannot go back. In Africa they will be killed, or if they are lucky enough to run away from persecution they would have a life full of hunger, poverty, and suffering. They do not have a way home. On the contrary, Amish kids have a very supportive community, caring parents, and a life without necessities. When they are given the opportunity to live outside of their community, they are not ready to take care of themselves; they are not used to it. This is why when they meet with difficulties derived from the clash between civilizations, 90% of them return home. The price of success in this new culture is too high. They can return home and live an easy life.

The fundamental value of their culture – the tight-knit community – that alienates Amish and Sudanese folks from Americans leaves both of them one possible outcome of this struggle: one group has to survive and the other has to retreat. Sudanese boys are considered by the rest of their community and by themselves to be lucky to come to the US. In their understanding, it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you cannot waste. Moreover, they have to adjust to this new world and work hard in order send money back to their relatives and friends in Africa. It is their debt to their less fortunate country fellows left in the refugee camp. They have to succeed. They do not have a choice.

In contrast to the Sudanese boys, Amish adolescents are not expected to assimilate in the American society, but to come back to the community and get baptized. Although according to their beliefs “the person can’t make a decision [whether he will follow Jesus Christ or not] till he is accountable which is generally accepted to be over the age of sixteen,” there is a tremendous amount of pressure to do that from your family, peers, and community as a whole (Devil’s Playground). If an Amish person refuses to get baptized, he becomes isolated from everything he has known for his whole life, he is criticized by everyone he knows, and is constantly pressured to abide. If he agrees, but later on decides to leave church, he is banned from the community – no one even talks to him. The rumspringa or “Devil’s Playground” is a brilliantly invented trap: unprepared for struggle, helpless sixteen years old teenagers are thrown in this new, strange, and hostile world and, thus, are doomed to defeat. It creates the illusion of the choice and makes people more devoted to their religion.

In both documentaries the directors depict exceptions of the main rule. Of course, for some Sudanese boys, the struggle is so hard that they cannot bear it anymore and collapse. After suffering so much pain in Africa and experiencing incredible difficulties in the US, one of the boys ends up in a mental health clinic. The Amish people, Velda and Faron succeeded to stay afloat and survive outside of their community. They have really serious reasons for it: Velda has tasted American feminism and does not want to stay in Amish culture where women are inferior to men; Faron was motivated by love for his girlfriend. But these are just few exceptions that only prove the main rule.

Even when some Amish people choose to live outside of their community and assimilate in the big world, this adaptation is not as effective as it is for Sudanese boys. They are radically cut from their culture by members of the community, and in the same manner they eradicate everything that is Amish in them, replacing it with American: they wear only American clothes, speak no Amish but only English. On the contrary, the Sudanese who strive to succeed with all their hearts and souls are able to collaborate with both African and Western cultures in their lives. Although, just like the Amish, the majority of the time they also wear American clothes and speak English, on special occasions they wear traditional Sudanese garments and often enough, they speak their native language, sing their folksongs together, and dance their dances. In such a way, the Sudanese group does not deprive themselves from their inborn cultural traditions and values, like the Amish, but enrich their lives with the American one. The U.S. is not a hostile place for them anymore. One of the boys says that “I am hoping to bring my family here, So that I know they are well, and I know they are secure” (God Grew Tired of Us). And by the end of the documentary, his mother arrives to New York. So now “John Bul continues to support his family, both in Syracuse [NY] and Africa, while pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree at Syracuse University” (God Grew Tired of Us).

These two documentaries depict paths of two groups of people from another culture. At a glimpse they seem similar; however, the deeper analysis allows for understanding how different they are. Every year the US receives more immigrants than any other country in the world. They come here from the most remote corners of the world, bringing their backgrounds, mentalities, and traditions. The clash of civilizations is an inevitable part of the assimilation process. However, the history of the immigrants and reasons that pushed them to leave their Motherland predispose them to failure or success.

• 2009 Fall
• Cultural Analysis