This thesis employs a narrative analysis of more than twenty-five films that are
centrally concerned with immigrants and the immigrant experience. In Part One,
drawing from the work of Yosefa Loshitzky, I will focus on films that feature an
immigrant lead character. In Part Two, I will explore movies that filter immigration
through the perspective of a native-born citizen protagonist.
Important to my reading throughout this study is how we, as viewers, are situated by
these stories to feel or react to the predicament of the immigrant. By examining two
narrative approaches, that of the immigrant protagonist and the citizen protagonist, we
can better understand how films engage larger issues of identity, belonging, and
citizenship.
The thesis will conclude with a close reading of Goodbye Solo. This film uniquely
transcends convenient categories of immigrant narrative or Eurocentric perspective;
instead it approximates Ella Shohat and Robert Stam's call for a polycentric approach
to narrative in their foundational work, Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism
and the Media. / Graduation date: 2013
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/35804 |
| Date | 03 December 2012 |
| Creators | Yeager, Angela L. |
| Contributors | Lewis, Jon R. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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