Analysis Of Firdaus Kanga's Trying To Grow

As a first generation Indian-American, I am no stranger to being a part of a distinct community while observing two unique cultures. Traveling to India exposed me to a dynamic population with rich diversity comprising of numerous languages and differing religions. Though these individuals may have had differing customs from their neighbors, there were similar ambitions to conquer grinding poverty. This poverty can be clearly noticed by seeing citizens sleeping on floors of a railway station, or the lack of air conditioning in searing hot weather. The frailty and mortality of the human condition was starkly visible in India. As a fellow human, I was humbled not only by the lack of privilege and opportunity of many citizens, but also by their

“The Inconvenient Indian” speaks to a general audience and particularly to US and Canada. The book is organized into chapters and each chapter refers to a variety of themes. Some of these themes are history, culture, politics, and laws. By incorporating all these themes,

Beginning in the sixteenth century, Europeans made the voyage to a “new world” in order to achieve dreams of opportunity and riches. In this other world the Europeans came upon another people, which naturally led to a cultural exchange between different groups of people. Although we commonly refer to European and Indian relations as being between just two very different groups of people, it is important to recognize this is not entirely true. Although the settlers of the new world are singularly referred to as Europeans, each group of people came from a different nation and with different motives and expectations of the new world. Similarly, the Indians were neither a united group nor necessarily friendly with each other. Due to the

When most of us think of the great Indians of the last century, we think of a thin, well-defined figure standing stern and serious. When we think of a modern Indian, we

These stereotypical binaries of the childlike and savage Indian are directly linked to the narratives of white settler society and colonization. Essentially, by classifying all First Nation cultures under a monolith of a few stereotypes the white setter society claimed dominance over the First Nation peoples as they created the lens through which the First Nation’s history and identity would be read. The influence of the press and government policies lead to the acceptance of these stereotypes as defining truths about First Nations people which aided the settler societies in solving the Indian problem by destroying what it meant to be Indian. In this way, the stereotypes not only developed the idea of assimilation to save the Indian, but they

Both of the stories “Akua Nuten” and “The Loons” have reflected the fact that White people do try to reach out and discover the Indian culture. Nevertheless, they were either neglected by the unsociable Piquette or frightened at gunpoint by the racist Kukatso (Theriault, 128). Varying from the friendly and submissive attitude Cardinal described all Indians to have, Piquette was antagonistic and ignorant to learn or accept the White culture. Much like one of those

The Indian resistance against the British empire is one example of opposition against imperialism. Until 1858, India was controlled by the British East India Company. Thereafter, the crown rule replaced the company rule until 1947. “The slow expansion of the Indian role in public affairs would not have occurred without mounting political pressure from Indian society” (Findley 188). The people of India had tried to cause a reform through a political channel, evident through the slow yet steady participation in political affairs from 1858-1947. In this resistance,

The article “American Native Studies Is For Everyone” by Duane Champagne, which is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. This article addresses about some various issue between Indian and Non Indian Scholars that who should be studying about Indians, how the media distribute the information about Indians and the importance of American Native Studies.

“To be Indian is to lack power – the power to act as owners of your lands, the power to spend your own money and, too often, the power to change your own condition.” Jean Chretien, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, 1969 “White Papers”

Immigrants’ refusal to appreciate a fused culture promotes division. Mukherjee questions the idea of immigrants losing their culture for American ideals: “Parents express rage or despair at their U.S.-born children's forgetting of, or indifference to, some aspects of Indian culture,” to that Mukherjee asks, “Is it so terrible that our children are discovering or are inventing homelands for themselves?” (Mukherjee, 1997, para. 28). Many immigrants experience anger when their children no longer hold the ideals of their home country. This tension produced within the household hinders the unity within a resident country’s culture and encourages division within families. Using herself as an example, Mukherjee provides another instance of anger directed at her from her own subculture: “They direct their rage at me because, by becoming a U.S.

She explains her thesis by stating “Others who write stories of migration often talk of arrival at a new place as a loss of communal memory and the erosion of an original culture. I want to talk of arrival as a gain,” (360). The key points of the text include Mukherjee describing her transition between Calcutta and the United States, and what it means to be and American and how culture influences that aspect. The information in the text is significant; the people of America are a part of a melting pot, sometimes it is hard for them to find the distinction between American culture and their own. The information in Mukherjee’s story is clear and specific, unbiased, and is relevant to the purpose of the story. I believe Mukherjee has achieved her purpose of informing her audience about cultural differences; she presents certain strengths and weaknesses within the text.

Throughout the years many historians have compilated and examined why Indian people were so desperate to gain back their independence from the British Empire during their rule over India, from 1612 to 1947. The reasoning can most definitely be found as the British discriminated against Indian people as they believe that they were inferior; it is no surprise that Indian people fought so hard for their independence. Throughout the British Raj, they placed and put forward unbelievably racist acts and laws which discriminated against Indian people. Which of course led to Indians to rebel against the British rule and which the British reacted with causing massacres. Explaining the nationalistic many India’s felt during the British Raj.

Similarly, Said’s description of Orientalism is also an example of modernity, in that he describes it as an “imaginative examination [based] exclusively upon a sovereign Western consciousness […] governed not simply by empirical reality but by a battery of desires, repressions, investments, and projects”. Thus, in Tracey Deer’s Mohawk Girls technologies of modernity can be seen through the creation and subsequent isolation of many First Nations to reserves, and the classification and declaration of “Indian-ness” or “Mohawk purity”.

Sensing the pitfalls of an analysis based on studying the abstract forces at work within Native communities after contact, Richter explores the lives of particular Indian people and their replies to the European presence. He examines the lives of familiar 17th century such as the Powhatan woman Pocahontas, the Catholic Mohawk woman Kateri Tekawitha, and the Wampanoag man Metacom (King Philip). This is why western civilization is one of the most sensitive issues to talk about and support once all the evidence is

This is because so much of the visible aspects of Indian culture has diminished or disappeared and so much was borrowed from that we have lost sight of the origin; there is little wonder that awareness is lacking in some circles concerning the extent of "counteracculturation" upon the "numerically and politically dominant race."