Nationality, tradition and belonging: The themes of Jhumpa Lahiri's fiction spring from the complexities of the author's own life. Born to Indian parents in London and raised in Rhode Island, the author of Unaccustomed Earth (2008) and The Interpreter of Maladies (1999) says she's struggled for four decades to feel like she belonged in America.
"For me," Lahiri tells Morning Edition's Steve Inskeep, "there is sort of a half-way feeling [of being American]."
But, she says, her parents never thought of themselves as American, despite the fact that they applied for and received citizenship.
"They've lived here now for more than half of their lives, and they raised a family here and now have grandchildren here. ... It has become their home," says Lahiri. "But at the same time, for my parents, I don't think either of them will ever consciously think, 'I am an American.' "
Lahiri says her parents were always isolated from mainstream American culture. Despite the fact that they spoke English, they were "betrayed by their accents." If the family went to buy a washing machine, the sales clerk would talk to Lahiri, assuming her parents couldn't understand.
"The accent, the fact that my mother wore traditional clothing — that marked them immediately as soon as we went out in the public sphere," says Lahiri.
Growing up, Lahiri's loyalty to her parents conflicted with her desire to fit in: "It didn't matter that I wore clothes from Sears; I was still different. I looked different. My name was different," she says. "I wanted to pull away from the things that marked my parents as being different."
Lahiri says her parents didn't mix with her friends' parents in an easy, comfortable way — not because they didn't want to, but because there was a barrier that they couldn't overcome.
"I think this was a two-way street," she says. "It wasn't just that they were afraid or unwilling — there was a fear, an unwillingness on both sides."
Lahiri says creating characters who also struggle with the immigrant experience has helped her confront the truth of her life.
"A lot of my upbringing was about denying or fretting or evading," she says. But through fiction, Lahiri says she's learned to accept that her parents will always be tied to two different parts of the Earth.
"It has been liberating and brought me some peace to just confront that truth, if not to be able to solve it or answer it," she says.
Source cited from NPR.org. Listen Now.
26 comments:
In my opinion, I think that is very difficult for a person to become a American even thogh he/she has lived there for four or five decades. If I were a immigrant in America , I will never forgrt that I am a Chinese and try to be a local people. Some one says that The United State is a melting pot, but I think, to immigrants who can't really mix up with local people and culture, it's always struggle and problems of beloning in them.
I think is hard to be a foreigner because there are too many differences between us such as culture, color or accent. However, if we look it at positive aspect, difference can be good. Sometimes, we too care the power of judgment and afraid what people look us. In my definition, difference means unique, special and unusual. Maybe we will feel alienated when we are different but don’t be sad. The different people must experience something we have not. Now in Taiwan, we have a lot of foreign spouses, and we have many mixed-blood children. Dispiritedly to say, some of my friends don’t like them because of the smelling, language and appearance. Every time when I hear these, I always feel sorry to them. We have no right to discriminate people from different countries; however, there are so many people doing this. There is a song,
“Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera, very touching, and it says “I’m beautiful no matter what people say”. If we respect everything which is different form us, I believe we will have a better world. By the way this is the link of the song: http://tinyurl.com/285ef7
In the last three paragraph, Jhumpa Lahiri says creating characters who also struggle with the immigrant experience helps her confront the truth of her life and it also help her to accept that her parents will always be tied to two different parts of the Earth.
I remind me of the fiction we read before─The Thing in the Forest. Just as Primrose chose to tell it out, the author chose to write it to make herself relieve from some kinds of culture pressure.
I think it is difficulf for someone to fit in to a society if he/she only view his/herself in an identity. Sometimes, identities don't contradict. You can view yourself a person with both identities. Not freak, but special.
And I also agree with Sean's opinion. For those who can't fit in, it may be a struggle for them.
"When in Rome, do as the Romans do." It is a famous old saying, and it is hard to do. For me, It would be a difficult mission to be like an America even if I move to America or I grow up in America because people there still can see your differences from themselves on your appearance and they think of you as a different people. I don't like the feeling of being viewed as that, so I admire her bacause she did it.
I really like Jhumpa Lahiri's writing style after reading her novel "Interpreter of Maladies."She is talent in discripting the characters' personality and their inner thoughts.I think because of her special identy as an Indian born in the U.S.A, she has both Indian and American perspective. After reading her novel and movie "The Namesack",I realize how different between India and America.It really took a lot of efforts for a foreigner to fit in the mainstream culture of the U.S.A.People in taiwan tend to focus on western culture,especially on U.S.A.Through reading Jhumpa Lahiri's novel, it is a good chance to observe the soecity from Indian perspective,which is very different from the mainstream western perspective.
After reading this article, the immigrant labor was the first thing came into my mind. They are foreigners to us; in some way, they may feel the same solitude like Lahiri. I think culture differences are main reasons why foreigners feel alienated. They struggle with their self identity. It is hard for them to choose a side that they belong to.
In my opinion, we should not judge anyone from our perspective and take a superior attitude toward them. They just speak different languages and come from different background.
I think that it is very difficult for people, who are immigrants from another country, to melt into the local culture. They have to tolerate others’ peculiar eyesight or even the prejudice, for they have different color and special accent from the local people. I think that such the prejudice sometimes will make a people become isolate from others and afraid of touching new things, and they even will think themselves are freaks. Therefore, I think that Jhumpa Lahiri is very brave. Although she said that there is sorts of half-way feeling, she still struggles for melting into America.
From my point of view, I think it’s difficult to fit in the country which you immigrant. Take Jhumpa Lahirl for example, she is an Indian person; nevertheless, she has to learn the American cultures because they immigrant in America. There could be lots of differences between these two cultures. They would struggle in these two cultures as well. Even if you do want to adjust the country, you still feel discriminated , and you can’t really“belong to”there. However, like Jhumpa Lahirl says,” Creating characters that also struggle with the immigrant experience has helped her confront the truth of her life." As meeting the culture shock, it’ll make you expand you visions to look around the world and try to tolerate and accept various cultures, for there are many kinds of races in the globe.
At the beginning of the interview, I feel somewhat woebegone for Lahiri's life, because she said, “I don’t need to be from any places. I can from nowhere.” Her upbringing was like hydroponic because her root had nowhere to cling. For this reason, I could sense her childhood wasn’t happy, for her experiences differed from her parents' because they had originally come from a land somewhere, strong ground. The fact that she grew up in America and has life there, but she still lived away from it that is a land she thought of as home. She pretended to be someone and wished to be looked in other ways. I think it’s really sorrowful for a person who can’t say that there was a place, a land that she could go there and say I'm home, just like she loses her belonging, even she never finds it. A person who can’t discover her shoot and root is a vacant shell with no soul. Lahiri’s parents, Indian emigrants, I think also experience confined way for them to America and struggle to raise a family in a country very different from theirs. How to keep their children acquainted with the Indian culture and traditions? There must be a pull and drag between inherent sentiment and external environment. It’s absolutely rough for the second generation of Indian immigrants to America. Like Lahiri, struggling for forty years, she only has a half-way feeling of being an American and must navigate between the cultural values of their birthplace and their adopted home. However, when succeeding generations become gradually assimilated into western culture and are comfortable in constructing global perspectives, Lahiri points there is a shift in a lineal relative. It’s a departure of the second and following generations from the constraints of their parents, so by means of writing, she comforts herself of alienation and self-obsession. The sensation and emotion are really overwhelming.
I feel that it is a big struggle for Lahiri to identify herself whether she is an American or not when her parents don’t think they are Americans. In her story- a interpreter of maladies, she implies her background in the story. I think maybe she also needs a interpreter to interpret her mind, which is the struggle from her identification. Although they live in the United Stated of America, they still don’t identify themselves they are American people. Even if they are the citizens, they still don’t want to face it. I think it is a problem about some trauma for the countries communication. They can’t accept the totally different culture; therefore, they start to repel it. In my opinion, it is very difficult for people to accept because it is totally different. However, I think it is because Lahiri has this kind of background that she can has the achievement now. It inspires her so much that she can write the excellent stories which we just read.
This semester I have chosen a class named “News gathering and news writing”（新聞採訪寫作）.We have to submit six news about the community we choose in Hualian .One of it I wrote about the phenomenon of foreign spouse in there .The community has many young girls from China ,Vietnam ,Cambodia or Indonesia .They come here to get married ,spreading up a new life in a unfamiliar country .Such as having babies ,helping family’s business adapting different cultures and learning languages from Chinese to Taiwanese even a dialect is all advancing at the same time .The most important purpose they hope is to decrease their family’s afford and send money back home as much as they can from time to time .
All I want to say is I can see how difficult it is .Living in a foreign country must have courage ,determination and patience .And they work so hard to let themselves fitting in with this unknown area . Face many troubles and unaccommodating situations ,it is too easy to get lost in the process .Like the movie we had watched “The Namesake” which throw some ideas to me makes me look deeper on it .
I have no experience similar with it ,but I could experience this feeling through movies and masterpieces .That is also a realization I got from this article .
The U.S. has been a place for people to pursue their dreams: better live, education, freedom….etc. immigrants from all over the world come to this country for different reasons. However, it is hard for them to really fit into the culture which is extremely different from their own, especially for those who weren’t born in the U.S. Take myself as an example, I once had a chance to go to the U.S to study for one and half years. Even though I have friends and was used to the life there, sometimes I still felt alienated. When I speak with the accent, I noticed the judgmental look on others’ faces. The discrimination against colored people is not as bad as it used to be in the U.S., but the problem now is that people from other countries don’t feel the sense of belonging. Children of those immigrants thus feel the conflict between the loyalty to their parents and the desire to fit in, as Lahiri mentions. I think there is no solution for this, but I believe the best way we can do is to maintain our own culture while tolerate the other.
I think it is not easy to integrate totally with another country that are not your home country. Because, it is different for the people who have lived there since thay were born. Therefore, just suble accent or behavior, appearance would let native people judge on them. They would feel thay are aliented and are not belong to them. I consider that is not a good way to seperate people into different ways. I think maybe we could think deeply in our mind, is it really necessary for we to do this?
We are all human beings live on the same planet, there is nothing different between us. We just need to respect other people and try to understand other peoples' feelings, cultures, thoughts and so on.
America used to be considered as a "multicultural pot",for it including many national immigrant,and American thinks different culture-backgrounded people can get along with very well.They were proud of it.The fact is,however,within America there are many cultural conflict existed.Even though a forigner lives in America natively,they still cannot be an American totally.Jhumpa Lahiri understands this phenomenon very well,being a non-American live in America,and her works use different characters and perspective to present it.From her works,we can imagine that in America what kind of difficulty and contradiction will we meet when we still call America as a "immigrants' heaven".
I can imagine how hard it could be to live in a different country although I have no any experience like that, for it could bring out many problems due to the differences from different cultures. Indeed, sometimes I feel it very hard to get along with a person with different values, let alone the confrontation that every person whom immigrants meet every single day has different values. As a result, I suggest that people respect and try to understand the feelings of many different kinds of people, not only the immigrants, but also all the other minorities in our life.
In my opinion, it is very difficult for one person to accept another culture if he/she has already lived in a culture for half of life. There are many different things have been conquered, and we can understand the value of our beginning during the process. If I were an immigrant, I would try to accommodate new place’s culture but still holding some conventions. I think it is very important for us to remember our roots, because it is a significant mark of where we from, what we have, and who we are.
I think if I have lived in another country for half of my life, I still couldn’t become the national of that country. It’s hard to fit in the different culture. Even though you try very hard, the people in different country still think you are different from them. The accent, the color, the clothing.etc, are obvious to identify you don’t belong to them. And I want to hold my native cultural value, too. I don’t want to forget my own root. I want to not only fit in the local culture but also keep the native culture value. Sound contradictory, isn’t it? But I think maybe this is the reason that Jhumpa Lahiri says about her parents "It wasn't just that they were afraid or unwilling — there was a fear, unwillingness on both sides."
In my view, immigrants are very difficult to get along with local people. They must have confusions when the perspective is different to where he or she is from. Afraid of the looking. This situation also appear in Taiwan. I think people have to make an effort to mull over about it
For my experiences in my department, I think that going along with different ethnics is not really easy in the beginning. I remembered that when I went into my class four years ago, I found there were many differences over there. First of all, my classmates used Aboriginal languages such as Amis, Bunun, and the like. They used different syntax. For example, we usually said “Where will you go?” They commonly said “go where you?” Next, some of my classmates thought our ancestors made something wrong and to them. One of my classmates had ever said “Hans bullied us for four hundred years.” All of Hans students became silent till the class finished. I found that going along with different ethnics has some ways from my experiences recent years. For example, I will respect their diversity of culture, language, and so on. Do no have any prejudice or racial discrimination at the first time. Probably some of people will not kind of you though you had showed your sincerity. However, these ways can help our lives to go along with other ethnics much better.
I don’t know why she tries hard to be an American. In my opinion, I think an immigrant needn’t to try hard to be a local townsman of the country they immigrate. They should insist on their own culture even though they are live in different country. The nationality is sat up when we born, it is can’t be change like the skin color or the blood. So we shouldn’t give up our culture. I know that immigrants always isolated, they want to be accepted. But it is the indispensable things if we immigrate. We should learn to accept it .
From the interview, we can see how hard it is to go between in two different cultures. Most of people want to fit in to the mainstream culture, because in this way we can feel that we belong to this society, instead of being the minority. In the film” The Namesake”, we can see the struggle that between to Americanize or not. It seems that behave like all other Americans is some kind of betrayal to their parents. There is some kind of connection with your home land although you have left there so long and live in another country where you spent longer time than your birthplace. In the film, their parents just fell that way. They left their country because they want to give their children a better live, education and bright future. They are so brave to do this kind of sacrifice to their children. I’ am sure there are many immigrants that moving to USA for this reason. Want to give a shot and have a better lives in this full of America dream country.
I think it is very difficult to fit in an extremely diffirent counture. I sometimes feels alienated from the people with the same culture, so the whole differences are bound to be hard to understand. People always devide others clearly, for they think this can make sure of people's boundrary. Because of these boundraries, to fit in a whole counture is more difficult. However, I think the situations will improve in the future, for we are in a generation of changing. It is hard to predict what will happen in the future.
Indian's strong desire for traditional living style really
impressed me. Even though they live in another country and speak
another language, they almost remain the same as if they live
in their own coutry. Why doesn't Lahiri be proud of her parents
being totally Indian in America? I think it is pretty hard to live a life like this besides that you don't care how other look at you.
America, which is one of the powerful countries in the world has lots of new things. Young people may be exciting to learn it. But their parents who left where they born, stating a new life in another country. It’s obvious they looks different from other people. Due to their conservative thoughts that their culture gave them, it’s hard for them to talk or to act like American. They can’t have normal social life as the time in India. That’s why their children become their only hope for living.
I think I can understand the feeling of the author and her parents. When I went to the United States two years ago, I found that Americans don't actually talk to foreigners actively. As a matter of fact, Americans do discriminate against foreigners. Just like the author says, there is aa fear and unwillingness on both sides. I had only been there for two weeks, to say nothing of her and her parents. They have been living there for few decades.
I think that to be a immigrant must be struggling for a period of time. Beside, such traditonal people as Jhumpa Lahiri's parents, even if they have accepted American citizenship, they didn't seem to become American in mind due to their fear and unwillingness. Perhaps her parents thought that if they became as a true American people, they would forget about their traditonal habits or belief or something like that. Being a different people may make one frighten what kind of person that he will become, so that staying the same is much safe. However, living in a different country makes a immigrant feel that he is so different from it. I think if time can't change the status quo, it's hard for people to fit in a different culture.
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