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When adapting to a new culture, many find it hard to assimilate into their new world while still holding on to their past life. Finding yourself in a new place with a new language and unfamiliar faces is challenging for immigrants. Jhumpa Lahiri, an immigrant herself, sheds some light on the Indian culture in her book, Interpreter of Maladies. She conveys many challenges that immigrants face when moving away from their homeland in a myriad of short stories. These short stories introduce similar themes of immigration and adaptation through different experiences. Two of Lahiri’s short stories, “A Temporary Matter” and “Mrs. Sens”, do a great job in showing similar challenges of cultural differences in two different ways. They introduce characters

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.

Forming a new identity in a foreign country is not an easy task. Immigrants usually face challenges to identify themselves. Identity formation is the development of one’s distinctive personality due to particular reasons such as new environment, new culture and conflicts. During the process, some characters from Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake either create or deny the bond with their own culture; some undergo conflicts among generations. Those processes reflect significantly in Ashima and Gogol throughout the book. The degree of assimilations determines to what extent the characters have formed the new identity in the new culture.

The American desire to culturally assimilate Native American people into establishing American customs went down in history during the 1700s. Famous author Zitkala-Sa, tells her brave experience of Americanization as a child through a series of stories in “Impressions of an Indian Childhood.” Zitkala-Sa, described her journey into an American missionary where they cleansed her of her identity. In “Impressions of an Indian Childhood,” Zitkala-Sa uses imagery in order to convey the cruel nature of early American cultural transformation among Indian individuals.

As Ashoke settled in the United States with his new wife, Ashima, as first-generation immigrants and started their own family, Ashoke insisted to her wife the life that America can offer to their children, from sufficient education and multiple possibility of a better future than a life in India. Ashoke’s principle towards life proves the conceptualized idea of America’s supremacy in different sociocultural aspects that again places the Asian Americans in the margin of the culture paradigm. Racism is another portion of the marginalization that is displayed in Nair’s film. A scene from the movie exhibits the perception of some Americans

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.

Many second generation minorities from immigrant parents are driven subconsciously to conform to new culture and social norms. For foreign born parents and native born children integrating the two cultures they inhabit brings about different obstacles and experiences. In Jhumpa’s “The Namesake” the protagonist Gogol is a native born American with foreign born parents. The difference with birth location plays an important role in assimilating to a new society in a new geography. The difficulty for parents is the fact that they’ve spent a decent amount of time accustomed to a new geography, language, culture and society which makes it difficult to feel comfortable when all of that changes. For Gogol the difficulty only lies with the cultural norms imposed by his parent’s and the culture and social norms that are constantly presented in the new society.

It was drab and dirty and smelled of stale food…[one] would expect something a bit finer” (Uchida, 34). Hana becomes disheartened as her visions were shattered by reality and a sense of betrayal from her husband’s lies. She, like many picture brides and immigrants, expected too much of a new life, and when she discovers the way things really are, she feels deceived and dismayed. Accepting the truth and the reality of their new lives is a part of an immigrant’s experience in moving to America and is a crucial part in shaping their attitudes in their new lives.

Two hundred forty-one years. In that small amount of time America forged its self into a vast landscape of different cultures. A combination of numerous cultures mongrelized together to form “We the people” in America today. Due to all the mixing in the pot, an uncertainty about the countries identity arose. For all the beauty that the melting pot brought, it also created a darker side, as aspects of each cultures fought for superiority in the nation. This fight emerges throughout American history and as a new era of deporis rises, the issues are becoming more relevant. In American Dreamer by Bharati Mukherjee, she shares her own experiences as an immigrant and the fight she partook in to have her own American identity seen. Mukherjee’s fight mirrors hundreds of naturalized American citizens who are trying to realize their identity, however it also shines light on native-born Americas struggling as well. The need for a unified American identity produces a nationwide identity crisis.

In her essay “My Two Lives,” Jhumpa Lahiri, an Indian American, explains the balance between the identities of the two countries inside her heart, as well as her psychological struggle between her bicultural identities. She describes herself as an Indian-American because she moved with her family from India to the United States when she was very young. However, confused with her identity through her growth, she feels that she doesn’t belong to either of the two countries because of its completely different cultures. When she is at home, she deals with her parents in an Indian way, which is strange compared to the American way that she come across outside. She says that she has a distinctive identity in spite of her Indian appearance

On the day of wedding her name was changed from Jaya to “Suhasini”. Two contrary characteristics Jaya means victory and Suhasini means soft and smiling. Again Jaya is at the verge of remaining in silence without raising her voice. She adopted the strategy that silence and surrender should be the main trait of an Indian woman. The tips given by Vanitamami for a good wife became a foundation of Jaya’s silence married life. She accepted Mohan as a sheltering tree and satisfied with her role as Sita and even she compare herself with Gandhari. Silence becomes a symbol of patience and endurance. Her Ajji taught her to wait, the waiting game.

Zitkala-Sa’s autobiography informs her readers of the damaging and traumatizing effects of assimilation by utilizing her life experiences as a narrative, demonstrating how living under an oppressive and dominant culture was an internal struggle between society's expectations and her own cultural identity. Sa’s experience is especially unique considering her mixed heritage as well.

This book depicts the national and cultural status of the immigrant mother, who is able to preserve the traditions of her Indian heritage that connect her to her homeland. Ensuring a successful future for her American-born children is coordinated with the privilege of being an American citizen. Ashima yearns for her homeland and her family that she left behind when

The chief attraction for Virgil is of Jaya because she is the only person in that house capable of procreation and genuine emotion. There is a passing reference to a seer’s prediction that she would never become a mother. As prophecies are often equivocal, the curse on Jaya may be in fact indicative of her husband’s impotence. The illicit relationship with her brother-in-law must be seen as the manifestation of her irrepressible yearning to become a mother. Though her mother-in-law always finds fault with her sexual transgressions, she is the only character in the play who is true to herself. She desperately protests against the encroachment of colonial coercion and urban mechanization that enter in the form of the Guards and Agents. Her thirst for motherhood remains unquenched by the sham finger-play of her pitying brother-in-law. She is the only person who stands her ground in spite of the devious argumentations and warnings of Virgil. And she alone is fully conscious of the present condition: “It is not really a life any more. We’re just spare parts in someone else’s garage –” (34T).

In Alicinte Aneshanam, the director uses these approaches to makes the protagonist understand the real nature of her husband, and the perceived difference when looked from a familial perspective and non familial perspectives, leads her to self realization. Through these binary oppositions, TV Chandran persuades the women folk to come out of the family confinement to understand the reality, and to overcome the alienation they are facing the society.