Muhammad Atir Siddique

Ms Eaker
12/07/14
Authors Statement

United States is a country of immigrants who come from all across the world. These immigrants
over the past three centuries have brought every single type of culture and idea to this country.
Just looking at food you can tell how diverse our nation is; our pizza is Italian and our fries are
French. This raises the question to what extent do we want the new immigrants to assimilate.
Which further asks how do we define assimilation and what makes someone an America? All
these questions have been asked in the past and in different time periods had different
meanings. Todays trends of immigrants differ from those of 1900s because they are coming
from different backgrounds. Hispanic specifically Mexican immigration has been significant in
the past; however, now it is the Asians. During my research, I came across information and
opinions completely new to me. The standards of immigrants, the data on social trends among
immigrants and research on the outcomes of their assimilation were some of the main topics
included in my research blog. I tried to be as objective as I could in the given matter but being
an immigrant I had some personal opinions about issues that may have influenced some of my
sources of information. Hence I looked to other individuals for my Multi Genre Project.
My Multi Genre Project includes two pieces; a recipe to make typical Americans and a
documentary about the social trends regarding assimilation and American identity. I will be
working in two completely different genres to highlight two different aspects that I came forward
in my research. First that ground realities are very different than theories of assimilation. Second
assimilation is not a straight line process that continues with time. Instead it is a very complex
and unique process that could differ from each ethnic group and even within those ethnic
groups. The recipe to make typical Americans serves as a satire piece to the straight line

assimilation theories. It gives a list of things that a person is ought to do before he or she can be
an American. In a way it defines a typical American. The quantity of ingredients required in a
recipe is the satirical part of the piece. As mentioned before, assimilating into a new culture is a
complex process the recipe makes it simple much like the straight line theorists. Furthermore,
as in my first blog I talked about the article by Perry Skerry which was for the most part a
response to another author. In that article, Perry talks about Salins book in which he talked
about a recipe approach to assimilation of immigrants. According to Salins there are three
elements to assimilation in American society. Learning English, protestant work ethic and civic
duties. The problem with this approach is that it simply tries to make assimilation seem like a
cookbook recipe. It goes back to the idea of a melting pot theory of America where everyone
became similar despite coming from different backgrounds. Hence my target audience is the
people who think of assimilation as a non-complex process and advocate for immigrants to
completely leave their culture and become American. It is a satire to maybe get their attention
on how their approach to assimilation looks like when put in a context of a recipe.
Recipes are usually written for cooking by experts who know the methods of making a
certain food. There are types of recipes that are geared toward different audiences based on
audience's preferences. Most commonly recipes have a symmetric structure with name of the
dish as the heading. Then a description of the food that you will be making after which
sometimes a picture of the food is also included. Next comes the equipment and the ingredients
list. If there are any specialties related to the food you are making it should also be included on
there. Depending on the type of food, it could include seasonings, toppings, etc. Next the
recipes include the method of making the dish the dish. If we look online for recipes, it also has
some reviews of testimonials on how it tastes and easiness of the recipe.
I followed the rules and conventions of the recipe to some extent. I had everything in almost
the same pattern and followed the symmetrical format for the recipe. Unlike a recipe book, I
made it look more like a recipe from and online website that has testimonials at the very end. I

tried to also make it entertaining using action verbs in the methods and nouns in the ingredients
as Ms Eaker had told me about recipes. One convention I did break in recipe is that I did not
write everything in a chronological order like a recipe in methods. The methods include a list of
things that could be done to make an American not necessarily in the exact order.
My second idea consisted of making a documentary that will include the ground reality
approach to my research. My main purpose of making this documentary is to see whether or not
the people I will interview hold the same views as the research. Furthermore, I want to see just
a general perspective on the public opinion regarding assimilation and American identity. My
audience for this documentary is the college student body because the video is featuring all
college students so it would be easy for the audience to relate and understand the issues that
are brought up through questions in this documentary.
Documentaries serve many purposes but generally they are based on real life events instead
of acting like fiction movies. They could be called nonfiction movies and the goal of a
documentary is to prove a point whether it be that aliens are real or that global warming is a real
threat to our environments. They are usually very detailed and have many different audiences
based on the message that is being conveyed in the documentary. That gives you a lot of
freedom to choose between what kind of choices you want to make in your documentary as a
writer, producer or a director. Unlike, newspaper articles or blogs in documentaries you have
freedom to break the conventions because creativity sets you apart in documentaries.
There are different modes of documentaries. In some documentaries there are no voice over
or they are poetic and then in some it person to person interaction rather than simply
observation and a narrative ( Bill Nicholas ). In my documentary, I tried to combine multiple
aspects of documentaries. For example, I had music, voice overs and interviews. That breaks
the set modes of a documentary; however, there is no rule that says that you cant break the
rules. I wanted to explore the genre of documentary and there was not enough time or sources
to make multiple documentaries. Thus I decided to combine all of those things in one

documentary. In the voice overs, I used paraphrased quotes and ideas from my research blogs.
One of the most significant one that was also an inspiration for the recipe is the Perry Skerry
article. Furthermore, the report from Pew Center has been significant throughout this portfolio
and Multi Genre project because it provided with statistics that have been stuck in my mind.
Furthermore, it did not provide any explanation for the difference between first generation and
second generation responses regarding immigrant identities hence I used it in the documentary.
I learned that to some extend those results were true.
I tried to do my best on this project but the documentary took a lot of time. I knew it would be a
lot of work to put it all together. However, I learned a lot from this process. I did not know a thing
about editing and now I just filmed and edited a ten minute documentary. I had none few
equipment to finish this project. Most importantly, I got the answer to my question of assimilation
of immigrants in American society.

Works Cited.
Skerry, Perry. "Do We Really Want Immigrants to Assimilate?" The Brookings Institution. The
Brookings Institution, Mar.-Apr. 2000. Web. 30 Oct. 2014.
http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2000/03/immigration-skerry
"Chapter 3: Identity." Pew Research Centers Social Demographic Trends Project RSS. Pew
Research Center, 7 Feb. 2013. Web. 08 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/02/07/chapter-3-identity/>
"Bill Nichols - 6 Types of Documentary." Bill Nichols - 6 Types of Documentary. N.p., n.d. Web.
07 Dec. 2014. <http://www.slideshare.net/elwillcox/bill-nichols-6-types-ofdocumentary?next_slideshow=1>.
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