Two Ways To Belong In America Analysis

Is it better to settle with what you already have and know or branch out and strive for comfort elsewhere? This is the ongoing debate between sisters, Dee (Wangero) and Maggie in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” and sisters Bharati and Mira in Bharati Mukherjee’s “Two Ways to Belong in America”. In “Everyday Use” Maggie is a soft spoken homebody who has never found interest in straying from her mother while Dee on the other hand has moved on in life and uses her past as an image to prove how far she has made it in life, she even changed her birth name to cut all ties with her past. In “Two Ways to Belong in America” Bharati and Mira are Indian immigrants who both came to America with intentions of keeping their Indian heritage, but over time Bharati faded from her culture while Mira kept true. Although Maggie and Mira decided to stick to their roots, Dee and Bharati chose to immerse themselves in a new culture.

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 people‘s positions decide their thoughts and decisions.as old say, “If you love him/her, and sent him/her to U.S. because there is heaven; if you hate him/her, and sent him/her to U.S. because there is hell. Vicissitudes of life appear on Americans. Everyone needs to face his/her personal issues or trouble when he/she immigrant to U.S. In “Notes of a Native Son,” by James Baldwin and“Two Ways to Belong in America” by Bharati Mukherjee. When I compare both of them, two stories are true, and main characters are marginalize group in the U.S.

In the essay “Two Ways to Belong in America” by Bharati Mukherjee. The author talks about the problems immigrants face while they are in America. The author talks about her and her friend Mira’s struggles with Americas policies. This essay examines the audience of the text, the purpose for writing the story, and the subject of the book being read. By examining the audience, finding the purpose of the story, and researching and analyzing the author. The readers can have a deeper understanding of the book.

Bharati and Mira came to America for their education and then return home, but they each took different paths when Bharati married an American, and Mira now sees her sister in a different way because her sister is denying her

In the stories “Legal Alien”, “Ethnic Hash”, and “Everyday Use”, culture can sometimes affect a persons view on others. In “Legal Alien” by Pat Mora she struggles with internal conflicts in both Mexican and American society. Patricia Williams deals with racism in her short story “Ethnic Hash”. The final short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker is about two sisters confront each other about their culture and their mother is caught in between the discussion.

The Mukherjee sisters contrast in the way they live. For example, Mira wedded an Indian student and soon after developed her green card, stress free. While Bharati didn’t, due to her husband’s North Dakota

“Two Ways to Belong in America” Essay This is the story of my parents, who have been together for over 20 years, but approach change in different ways. My mom embraces it and my dad doesn’t. My mom, like many other Hispanics who have moved to a foreign, distinct country, wishes to incorporate herself into the country. My dad doesn’t, he prefers to keep his roots.

Have you ever been to a new country or state other than the one where you were born? Did you feel out of place? Many people can relate to what it feels like to be in a strange place. The people that have a strong sense of culture seem to handle situations such as these a little easier than those who have lost a sense of culture. Culture plays a major role on how we view other people and the world.

Yet, with time it shows that the culture they have influenced their life in one way or another. The text states,“Two Ways to Belong in America,” where sister Bharati will soon realize how American culture influenced her decisions. Bharati writes, “I embraced the demotion from expatriate aristocrat to immigrant nobody, surrendering those thousands of years of ‘pure culture’...” (Mukherjee 71). Bharati had given up her personal culture in order to fit into and be accepted another culture.

The character in “White Trash Primer,” starts on a family farm where she lives a lighthearted childhood, stays up late with her sister, plays in the lake, and attends church in hand sewn dresses. Bharati in “Two Ways to Belong in America” begins as a fresh immigrant from India, dressing in saris, speaking with

Two Ways to Belong in America by Bharati Mukherjee is a personal essay about two immigrant sisters named Bharati and Mira, moving to the United States to work for around 35 years. Despite differences in personalities and perspectives, the two sisters love each other and get along quite well. Both share the same birthplace and culture background, however one admires wearing jeans, the other clings onto her sari. As it is mentioned in the essay in paragraph 4 and 6, Mira decided to stay true to here culture and marry an Indian student, and Bharati stepped further from traditions and married an American, “Mira married an Indian student in 1962” and “I married a fellow student, an

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

Ashima surrounds herself with other Bengali migrants who are able to relate to her situation. “They all come from Calcutta, and for this reason alone they are friends” (Lahiri 38). This sense of socializing with others from the same culture gives Ashima a sense of connection and belonging. Although, she begins to slowly do American things, “she sti;; foes not feel fully at home…on Pemberton road” (Lahiri 280). Ashima’s only exception to the American-South Asia lives within her children, when she chooses not to protest against her son Gogol’s relationships.

Her characters are either first generation or second generation Indian Immigrants to America. The Indian immigrant characters went to America for getting more affluence and better social realities. But there they face another kind of problems-the problems of racial discrimination, constant tension, bitter alienation and pungent hardships in their activity compact day-to-day life. They revert back to their native lands. They are seized in what Avtar Brah says “the homing desire of the migrants” (Brah. 180). They are also caught between two diametrically opposite cultural values-the values of the native country and that of the host country. Because they cannot fully shed off the cultural values of their native land under which they or their former generations had been so long born and brought up and cannot totally adapt to the cultural values of the alien country. Consequently they suffer from utmost loneliness, complete uprootedness, and mental agonies.. They are divided multicultural