Diaspora and Syal’s Anita and Me
Diaspora, a term used to describe the dispersion of a people from their original homeland, has become an increasingly pertinent topic of discussion in contemporary society. Nalini Natarajan in the essay “Reading Diaspora” argues that “the phenomenon of diasporic populations is by no means new, but its scale in the twentieth century is dramatic” (xiii). Natarajan also argues that the nature of contemporary diasporic experiences, due to the global reach of technology and media is significantly more complex and ambivalent than earlier diasporic experiences. Literary works have become a major source of knowledge about Diaspora and Mishra Sudesh, the author of the essay “From Sugar to Masala: Writing by the Indian Diaspora” calls for a clear distinction between the old (sugar) and new (masala) diasporic movements. Sudesh argues that the old diasporic movement is marked by the semi-voluntary flight of Indians to non-metropolitan plantation colonies such as Fiji and Trinidad while the new diasporic movement is the post-modern dispersal of all Indian classes to thriving metropolitan centers such as the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. Sudesh claims that writers of the old diaspora tend to concentrate on the cracks within the experience while new diasporic writers tend to focus on “the liminal or threshold zone of intercutting subjectivities that define the experience of migrancy” (287). Sudesh places Meera Syal, the author of the novel Anita and Me, amongst the many writers of the new or masala Diasporas.
Syal’s Anita and Me is a coming of age novel about a young girl, Meena, trying to cope with the inner and outer conflicts of a child of a minority culture facing both the temptati...
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...h she may one day visit her parent’s homeland, India is not her home and neither is Britain. It is the space between these two countries, lifestyles, and cultures that has finally become her home.
Works Cited
Brah, Avtar. “Diaspora, Border and Transnational Identities.” Feminist Post-Colonial
Theory. Ed. Reina Lewis and Sara Mills. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Fludernik, Monica. Hybridity and Post-Colonialism. Germany: Stauffenburg and Veriag,
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Natarajan, Nalini. “Reading Diaspora.” Writers of the Indian Diaspora. Ed. Emmanual S.
Nelson. Connecticut: Greenwich Press, 1993.
Sudesh, Mishra. “From Sugar to Masala: Writing by the Indian Diaspora.” A History of
Indian Literature in English. Ed. Arvind Krishna Melhotra. New York: Columbia
University Press, 2003.
Syal, Meera. Anita and Me. New York: The New Press, 1996.
“Like many immigrant offspring I felt intense pressure to be two things, loyal to the old world and fluent in the new, approved of on either side of the hyphen” (Lahiri, My Two lives). Jhumpa Lahiri, a Pulitzer Prize winner, describes herself as Indian-American, where she feels she is neither an Indian nor an American. Lahiri feels alienated by struggling to live two lives by maintaining two distinct cultures. Lahiri’s most of the work is recognized in the USA rather than in India where she is descents from (the guardian.com). Lahiri’s character’s, themes, and imagery in her short stories and novels describes the cultural differences of being Indian American and how Indian’s maintain their identity when moved to a new world. Lahiri’s inability to feel accepted within her home, inability to be fully American, being an Indian-American, and the difference between families with same culture which is reflected in one of her short stories “Once in a Lifetime” through characterization and imagery.
Hall, S. (1995). Diasporas. from "routes" to roots (pp. 427-428). new york: oxford university press.
In the book The House on Mango Street, author Sandra Cisneros presents a series of vignettes that involve a young girl, named Esperanza, growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. Esperanza Cordero is searching for a release from the low expectations and restrictions that Latino society often imposes on its young women. Cisneros draws on her own background to supply the reader with accurate views of Latino society today. In particular, Cisneros provides the chapters “Boys and Girls” and “Beautiful and Cruel” to portray Esperanza’s stages of growth from a questioning and curious girl to an independent woman. Altogether, “Boys and Girls” is not like “Beautiful and Cruel” because Cisneros reveals two different maturity levels in Esperanza; one of a wavering confidence with the potential to declare her independence, and the other a personal awareness of her own actions and the decision to take action and wage her “own quiet war (Cisneros 89).
The average person wants one thing more than anything else, and that thing is to belong. Usha, a young girl from Calcutta, is no different. Already trying the find her place in the world, Usha must now assimilate into cultural society within the United States. Usha’s uncle, Pranab Kaku, came from Calcutta as well having first come to America, his experiences start off worse than Usha’s, which causes him to join the family in an act of social grouping. With the Old World trying to pull them back and the New World just out of reach, both must overcome tradition and develop their own personal values.
Its well-known that minimum wage can easy vary from state to state city to city and even county to county. Furthermore each minimum wage law in each state/city or county has their own set of guidelines. The disparity of minimum wages within state lines is very diverse. For example the state of California has a state minimum wage of $8.00, while in Richmond, California the minimum wage $12.30 has recently been approved (www.foxnews.com). This is the highest among any state city or county and $2.00 above San Francisco’s $10.30 minimum wage (www.foxnews.com). For Richmond, California this makes sense becaus...
Rajan, R. S. (n.d.). Concepts in postcolonial theory: Diaspora, exile, migration . Retrieved from http://english.fas.nyu.edu/docs/IO/10743/G41.2900fall09.pdf
This research study focuses at negotiating the shifting identities of immigrants and their traumas in postcolonial literature with reference to Lahiri’s fiction. The suffering of every immigrant in achieving a shelter and identity in a foreign land often leads to loss of identity. The qualms, agitation and nervousness of immigrants often increase the issues of identity, and immigrants often feel alienated in the midst of exotic land, they even start to think about achieving new identities. Stuart Hall (1987) a famous cultural theorist discusses the issues of cultural identity and migration as he says “Migration is a one way trip. There is no “home” to go back to”. Change in the place and ambience totally change the circumstances in the lives of immigrants in Lahiri’s fiction, they often try to cling to their own cultural identity and costumes. But the cultural effect is often so strong that it deeply affects the identity of immigrants and they ultimately try to change their identities. Immigrants make an absurd attempt to get mingled in the culture of foreign country. Hall discusses “Cultural identities are those which are constantly producing and reproducing themselves anew, through transformation and difference” (235).
This paper discusses three aspects of the field of robotics The first is the history of where the ideas of robotics originated. Second, what was the effect that these ideas had on society? Finally, what developments in the field have proved to be useful to society?
Recent years have witnessed a large number of Indian English fiction writers who have stunned the literary world with their works. The topics dealt with are contemporary and populist and the English is functional, communicative and unpretentious. Novels have always served as a guide, a beacon in a conflicting, chaotic world and continue to do so. A careful study of Indian English fiction writers show that there are two kinds of writers who contribute to the genre of novels: The first group of writers include those who are global Indians, the diasporic writers, who are Indians by birth but have lived abroad, so they see Indian problems and reality objectively. The second group of writers are those born and brought up in India, exposed to the attitudes, morale and values of the society. Hence their works focus on the various social problems of India like the plight of women, unemployment, poverty, class discrimination, social dogmas, rigid religious norms, inter caste marriages, breakdown of relationships etc.
The science behind humanlike robots is advancing. They are becoming more smart, mobile and autonom...
In “One Out of Many,” Naipaul uses the literary device known as “stream of consciousness” in order to efficiently tell the story of immigrants who emigrate to the United States of America. Naipaul tells the story through an Indian man by the name of Santosh, who is emigrating from Bombay to America with his “master”. Santosh’s actions and thoughts of American life and culture is demonstrated unequivocally throughout the work. Naipaul begins his exposition of cultural alienation through the analysis of class. The author allows the reader to observe Santosh’s discomfort while he is on the plane traveling to America. (Norton 1662) Through this observation, the reader notes Santosh’s loss of his traditional Indian caste identity and his subseque...
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The language and the set-up are very casual for a first person-narrator taking us through her life. It is very casual and formal, almost like she is telling us about her “everyday-life” so to speak. But when she isn’t telling us and getting us through her everyday life, she is usually talking about her parents, sharing thoughts about them. The thoughts and comment on her parents are a bit different. She is at some moment confronting them and their belief. They can’t grasp why she wont go back to India, and she can’t grasp why they’re so intimately focused on their religion. And that’s is the set-up for the more controversial and sensitive style of language in the