The Namesake Ashima

The personal narrative “Born in Amrika” (2003) by Mona M. Maisami speculates that children of Iranian originated parents struggle between culturally identifying themselves as American or Iranian. Maisami develops her main idea by narrating through the point of view of a young girl born in America interacting with her Iranian born cousin Nina. Throughout the story, Nina and her cousin encounter various differing cultural phenomena such as dress and meal rituals before realizing they can adapt to both cultures at the same time. This short story highlights these two different lifestyles in order to emphasize the way American citizens with overseas connections question their character because of their newly adopted home. In hopes to reach out to

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

Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth is comprised of eight short stories about different Indian families’ struggles in America, many of them going through the immigrant experience. The conflicts are with friends and family, and also with themselves, as each of them attempt to find their own identity along with fitting in with the rest of society. One of the causes of these struggles that because the families in the stories are mixed in terms of generation. Many of the adults in the stories were first generation immigrants from India, while many of the children were raised in the United States, which is the second generation. This led to blending of culture and at the same time, clashes between the immigrant mentality of living and the American mentality of living. In Unaccustomed Earth, Lahiri demonstrates to the reader the important influence of environment, specifically culture and how it impacts parental teachings, on the personality and development of an individuals’ identity, and how the actions and development of characters can affect one’s family and friends; the impact of environment and culture is shown especially by the characters and stories “Hell-Heaven” and “Hema and Kaushik”.

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

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.

The topic of diasporic identity is a favourite topic of discussion among the younger generation. Parameswaran uses the frequent get-togethers of the youngsters at the Bhave house to air different viewpoints of the immigrant experience as seen from the point of view of the younger generation. Some favour total integration, but others speak of retaining the old, while adapting to the new. Many feel that only by sticking together can they confront the threat of racism. When the newcomer Dilip says “You should make every effort to merge since you’re here to stay” (Sons 37-38), Vithal Moghe, who is something of a rebel and who into always speaks of militating for one’s rights, retorts

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.

The short story "Hell-Heaven" written by Jhumpa Lahiri, is about the clashing of the cultures of a Bengali family settling in the west. While story is told in the child's point of view as she matures to a young woman, we're also given the experiences of the people around her through her eyes. These people include her mother, father and a family friend. They each have a different experience as an immigrant migrating and living in America, which leaves us to wonder what message is the author trying to convey with this piece of literature. However, the message to come from "Hell-Heaven" Jhumpa Lahiri is that immigrant families face struggles and tribulations living in unfamiliar territory and having to choose one culture over another.

Kinship is an area we talked about extensively in class because it represents a huge part of many people’s lives. This ideal is found throughout and delegates the lives of many individuals throughout thousands of cultures. In “Motorcycles, Membership, and Belonging” McCurdy says that if an Indian couple were to come to the United States for the first time they might be, “surprised by [the lack of] American social relations.” (McCurdy 2014:209) In this essay I will be describing how American views on kinship and social relations vary from those of Indians through both personal experience and learned information.

Sindelar suggests that there is a phenomenon known as the Split-Feather Syndrome, in which “social, psychological, and emotional disabilities — among expatriated Indian people, i.e., those who were placed and raised in non-Indian homes” (2004). The Split-Feather Syndrome may be due to the extremities in culture difference between Indian and other cultures. For instance, the ideologies of child-rearing, family bonding,

1. Her resistance to American culture while pregnant eventually leads to a resistance of Bengali culture from her children.

One way Lahiri shows difficulties that immigrants and refugees experience, is with the theme of displacement. To illustrate the idea of displacement, Lahiri uses Mrs. Sens to show the what immigrants have trouble adjusting to in a new environment. Mrs. Sens is a middle-aged, Indian woman, who is having difficulty adjusting to the differences between India and America. Lahiri emphasizes the awkward attitude that Mrs. Sens has towards driving. When asked about her driver’s licence, Mrs. Sens points out “Yes, I am learning, but I am a slow student. At home, you know we have a driver” (113). To put it differently, Mrs. Sens finds it odd and difficult that she has to learn driving because back in India, she had a chauffeur. Furthermore, when she says she is a slow

“All Diasporas are unhappy, but every diaspora is unhappy in its own way. Diaspora refers to people who do not feel comfortable with their non-hyphenated identities as indicated on their passport…They are precariously lodged within an episteme of real or imagined displacements,self-imposed sense of exile; they are haunted by specters, by ghosts arising from within that encourage irredentist or separatist movements.” - (Vijay Mishra, The Literature of Indian Diaspora: Theorizing the Diasporic

The post colonial experience has made the goal of harmonious family relationships that much more difficult, due to the families fragmenting throughout the old country and immigration to the land of the colonizer. Children and adult children alike lose perspective on their homeland and the struggles within their homeland. They become awe-struck by the development of the colonizers land, and as a result become confused with where their loyalties should lie. In Arundhati Roy’s novel “The God of Small Things”, the Kochamma family is a family of tragic situations and tragic people. Not all of their problems stem from colonization; in fact it is their own cultural traditions that lead to much of the tragedy; however it can be argued that the