The present paper is an effort to understand the conflicts of the second generation of Indian Diaspora with special reference to The Namesake,a novel by Jhumpa Lahiri. Jhumpa Lahiri, herself has been the child of Indian immigrants- middle class Bengali parents, born in London and grown up in Rhodes Island, America. The Name sake, therefore, is a kind of auto biography as Lahiri authentically portrays her diaspora experiences as a second generation immigrant in the book. Experiences of Lahiri as a growing child of immigrant parents in America are well expressed through the character of Gogol in The Name sake. As a child she is the second generation of Indian Diaspora who also has faced the quest for identity which will have no answers. Her …show more content…
The second generation finds itself presented with two conflicting realities and cultures and sets of expectations – one of the host countries through the socio-cultural surroundings and the other of the home country through their parents.” (Batra 50).Coming across two cultures, the first impression for a migrant is that of homelessness. As the strong Indian roots does not allow him to mix and acculturate at once. Therefore, the Diaspora Indian is like the banyan tree following the traditional Indian way of spreading strong roots of affection. He spreads out his roots in several soils as that of the motherland and the one where he migrates. He constantly tries to nourish from one when the rest dries up. Far from being homeless, he has several homes, and that is the only way he has increasingly come to feel at home in other land. The sense of homelessness every immigrant suffers is genuine and intense; but in recent times it has been seen that this concept has been minimized and made less intense through their social networking.Earlier immigrants suffer intense homelessness due to lack of communication means. They had letters either to write or to receive to connect with family in homeland. The letters receive at a long interval. Land line telephones were a luxury in India in the 1980s.Therefore an immigrant cannot avail the facility unless it is there in
By saying how his father had usually tried to locate a paper to look for job opportunities and had applied for jobs often, this supports the author’s idea that not all homeless people are lazy bums. He explains the difficulty of his father having to use a bike to get around the city while being homeless (which he would also use to carry around items found by dumpster diving to sell), and how he would play music on the side of the street for income before finally having to dangerously look for a place to sleep at night.
Essay on The Homeless Introduction to Human Resources Columbia college By Kawana Roberts The issue of contemporary homelessness has took a huge shift from the common perception of homeless people. I am witnessing a shift from the image of ‘homelessness’ being a physically dirty, pan handling, poor, uneducated individual who does not have a physical home for shelter. Initially, I failed to recognize that ‘homelessness’ can be a temporary state on can live in. Not all homeless people are homeless by “choice”, sometimes people are homeless by “force”.
Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies is filled with comparisons and various motifs that could instigate the interests of the reader. The diversity of the mother-child relation shown in the symbolic portrayals of motherhood that Lahiri seems to grant more than the most basic critique is admittedly one of the more curious ones. Lahiri does not seem to prefer or priviledge any of the representations, be it American or Indian, but she certainly creates a clear image that the two characters, Mrs. Das and Mrs. Kapasi, make as mothers. There is less detail about Mrs. Kapasi and her realtions with her children, but the first time that Lahiri mentions her, she is shown as a caring mother whose son died. Lahiri writes that “in the end the boy had
He was very successful and rich. However, due to economic problems and poor decisions making, he lost all of his money, his house went into foreclosure, and his family left him. He talked about living in his 1997 Chrysler minivan behind Kinkos in Marino, California. During his homeless period he was very lonely and struggled to find a job due to his extended time of unemployment. Even though he couldn’t find a job, there was one thing that helped him escape homelessness.
There has always been tension between the Indian and British people because of the the British People's colonial rule in India from 1858 to 1947. In By Any Other Name you will see many examples of the tension between the two ethnicities. The memoir about two Indian sisters, Premila and Santha, and their difficulties in British schools. In By Any Other Name, the author Santha Rama Rau uses diction, imagery, and tone to express a central message about personal culture and how you should stay true to your personal identity even if you are judged.
In “Longing to Belong”, Saira Shah gives you a look into the life of a 17 year old girl longing to understand her parents heritage and trying to fit into a culture that is so much different from what she knows. Having a father who originates from Afghanistan and a mother who originates from India. Saira wants to learn the culture of her father’s afghan routes. The author feels the only way in to learning is by being betrothed into an arranged marriage. The author states that her uncle in seeing “two unmarried” daughters in the company of a chaperone visiting his home, concludes that they were sent to be married.
To understand homelessness, people must examine the issue using the sociological perspective, which is a perspective based on human behavior as well as person’s connection
In the essay “Two Ways to Belong in America,” from 50 essays, Bharati Mukherjee contrasts the different views of the United States from two Indian sisters. The author distinguishes her American lifestyle to her sister’s traditional Indian lifestyle. Both sisters grew up in Calcutta, India, moved to America in search of education and work. Bharati adjusts to the American society very quickly, where her sister Mira clings to her Indian traditions more strongly. Despite both sisters living in America, only Bharati is an American citizen, while her sister Mira is not.
Kenney Morales Prof Peters English-101 “Homelessness” Imagine you are walking in a city, and amongst the crowded street, you notice a man. He isn’t walking, just sitting down out of sight. He doesn’t make a sound. However, he stands out the most out of everyone else.
It is hard to imagine life as a homeless family. I hope that I’ll never have to move my family from shelter to shelter as some families must do every day. According to the essay “Homeless” by Anna Quindlen, we should take more time in our lives to see the pain that homelessness creates. I agree with Anna Quindlen’s assertion that a home is everything. A home can provide certainty.
Ultimately, Lahiri suggests the idea that American culture plays an influential role in shaping one’s physical and cultural beliefs, but it is possible to avoid being assimilated through self-determination and resistance. In the story Interpreter of Maladies, an Indian-American family, known as the Das’s, travel to India, but upon arrival, they are clueless about the culture and history of their own country of nationality. Throughout the story, the behavior and actions of the Das family is told through the eyes of Mr.Kapasi, the
Overcoming a challenge, not giving up, and not being afraid of change are a few themes demonstrated in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Perhaps the most prominent theme derived from the novel is defying the odds, or in other words rising above the expectations of others. Junior Spirit exemplifies this theme throughout the entirety of the book. As Junior is an Indian, he almost expects that he will never leave the reservation, become an alcoholic, and live in poverty like the other Indians on the reservation—only if he sits around and does not endeavor to change his fate. When Junior shares the backstory of his parents, he says that his mother and father came from “poor people who came from poor people who came from poor people, all the way back to the very first poor people” (11).
Anderson moves between four parts, examining first the dwellings of the hobo, passing through the different types of homeless man, their problems, and ending with a glimpse at the social and intellectual aspects of vagrant life. Much of his research is done in the four segregated areas of Chicago known for homeless and migratory workers: West Madison Street, Lower South State Street, North Clark Street and Upper State Street. This study is marked by its many divisions and classifications. Homeless men are divided into five categories: the seasonal labourer, the migratory worker (hobo), the migratory non-worker (tramp), the non-migratory labourer (home-guard), and the bum. Another notable division are the causes of becoming a migratory worker.
The ‘rootlessness’ which is central to an immigrant consciousness also connotes an underlying phenomenon of ‘give-and-take identity politics’ of a pre-defined identity along with the coterie of religious, cultural, racial, social values and norms thus become a site of hope, of a new beginning. All these issues come up in a unique fashion in One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. This is unique from the perspective that unlike her other works where India is mostly viewed through the eyes of Indian natives, here in this novel there are some non- native characters who aspire to settle nowhere but in India with the hope of fulfilling their dreams which were otherwise lost in the materialistic soil of America. In One Amazing Thing, there are only nine characters and the plot is neatly developed around there lives and individual experiences.