Essay Sample on A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

Although some aspects of assimilation have improved, this topic has intensified today due to a gap in pay wages and hair discrimination. Assimilation occurs when minorities endorse the standards of the majority culture, often losing their own culture and identities in hopes of co-existing and becoming accepted in society. Sometimes, when minorities do not assimilate, they become marginalized in their environment. As explained in the novel A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, being an African American in 1950s America was filled with burdens and strife if they did not fit into the larger crowd. The struggle for money was very prevalent since the wage gap between Caucasian Americans and African Americans were so extreme that it was hard for blacks to provide. In the novel, the payroll of four black adults was still hard to provide a comfortable lifestyle. Also, many African Americans believed that the majority would accept them if they changed their culture and appearance to fit in. As inculcated by Benetha’s mutilated hair, the reader can catch a glimpse of the pressure that is paired with looking unique and how it compels the ethnic group to change themselves to transmute. Although assimilation methods may have changed, the topic has intensified among African Americans today. The main culprit behind the growing wage gap between African Americans and whites is marginalization. According to research conducted by Prof. Kerwin Charles, a professor of Economics, Policy, and Management at the Yale School of Management, the earnings gap between African-American and Caucasian men is the same as 60 years ago. Charles confirms, “The resulting analysis captures the impacts of rapidly rising income inequality in the United States and provides a much starker representation of the widening gap between most African-American and white men… black-white earnings gap remains at 1950s levels for median workers”(Charles). African Americans are forced to assimilate into the white culture because they hope that in doing so they might see a difference in treatment at work. As a result, according to Charles' research, the wage gap for the majority of blacks in America has remained unchanged since the 1950s.  Additionally, an article conducted by Valerie Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy, shows the extremity of how powerful this large wage gap is. She argues, ”The average hourly wages of white men with the same education, experience, metro status, and region of residence, black men make 22.0 percent less, and black women make 34.2 percent less. Black women earn 11.7 percent less than their white female counterparts”(Wilson). Black Americans are severely taken advantage of compared to their white counterparts. If a white man and a black man have the same job with the same credentials, the white man will almost certainly have a higher payroll. This led to the assimilation of African Americans. African Americans yearn for the same opportunities as white Americans, so they assimilate into the majority culture in hopes of receiving similar opportunities. They might change the way they traditionally dressed or talked. In the novel A Rasin in the Sun, George Murchension is a prime example of how assimilation makes a person lose their identity and culture. He absorbs into the white culture in hopes of becoming more successful economically. Assimilation in the working class demonstrates that in the pursuit of equality, African Americans will lose their identities when absorbed into the majority; therefore, African Americans will lose their identities in the fight for equality. This leads to another example of assimilation, which is hair discrimination. The LDF is an organization educating people in the United States about hair discrimination and why it is so relevant today. In their article, Olamide, the author and founder of LDF, states, “With no nationwide legal protections against hair discrimination, black people are often left to risk facing the consequences at school or work for their natural hair or invest time and money to conform to Eurocentric professionalism and beauty standards” (Olamide). Hair discrimination has led to African Americans feeling as if they have to change themselves to fit beauty standards that are absurd and non-inclusive. In the black community, hair is such a powerful and beautiful symbol, but now has been manipulated into a source of oppression and absorption of their community. Our society’s ideas of beauty standards are so damaging and the perspective of ideal beauty puts a nonrealistic goal in their heads that are simply unreachable. In A Raisin In The Sun, Benetha mutilates her hair as a symbol of assimilation into the dominant culture and beauty standard. Hair discrimination doesn’t stop at adults but is also seen at school. An interview was conducted with a little girl, asking her about an experience she had at school, “She was wearing her hair down, she says, a teacher told her it was a distraction and made her mom pick her up. That experience, in early 2020, was so upsetting that at the end of the school year, she switched schools”(Charley 3). Assimilation cripples children into thinking that they aren't good enough, which is detrimental to children's mental health. These children then start to straighten their hair or do hairstyles in hopes of appearing “more white”, furthering the problem of assimilation of their natural identities and heritage. The topic of assimilation had a vast influence on the black community that continued into modern times.