Lost Identity Found
Stuart Hall writes that “Identity is not as transparent or unproblematic as we think” (Hall 392). Hanif Kareishi, a visual minority growing up in racially charged England, experiences uncertainty and frustration relating to his sense of identity. Salman Rushdie, author of short stories “The Courter” and “Good Advice Is Rarer Than Rubies,” develops characters who experience similar identity crises. In his piece, “The Rainbow Sign,” Kareishi explores three responses to encounters with a foreign and hostile culture: outright rejection of the foreign culture, complete assimilation into foreign culture, or adoption of a synthesis of the two cultures. Kareishi himself embraces each of these different approaches at different times in his life, while characters in Rushdie’s short stories embody specific approaches. Kareishi’s discussion of the interaction between race, class, nationhood, and citizenship points to the need for a loosening of racial and class distinctions in favor of a multicultural, liberal approach for achieving a successful synthesis of cultures.
The protagonist of “Good Advice Is Rarer Than Rubies” adopts the rejectionist course when confronted with the possibility of being introduced into a foreign British culture. Miss Rehana, the Indian protagonist of the short story, travels to a British Consulate in India to acquire a British passport. An arranged engagement at the age of nine forged a connection between Miss Rehana and an older man with British citizenship, Mustafa Dar. Though Miss Rehana had not seen Mustafa Dar for many years, the engagement provides the opportunity for her to join him in England. Miss Rehana is poor; her parents are dead. A life in Britain promises better material c...
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... calls for white British to adapt and compromise with immigrant culture. In light of Hall’s commentary, one can only hope that transforming Pakistani and British cultures converge. The other option, of course, is a divergence of culture. Sadly, given the vigilante groups and racial violence present when Kareishi published “The Rainbow Sign,” it is still not clear that England has embraced multiculturalism.
Works Cited
Kareishi, Hanif. “The Rainbow Sign.” London kills me. London: Penguin Books, 1992. 3-37.
Hall, Stuart. " Cultural Identity and Diaspora." Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory. Ed. Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
Rushdie, Salman. “Good Advice is Rarer than Rubies.” East, West. NY: vintage Books, 1994. 5-16.
Rushdie, Salman. “The Courter.” East, West. NY: vintage Books, 1994. 175-211.
Despite the prejudice, hate and violence that seem to be so deeply entrenched in America's multiracial culture and history of imperialism, Takaki does offer us hope. Just as literature has the power to construct racial systems, so it also has the power to refute and transcend them. The pen is in our hands. Works Consulted -. Takaki, Ronald.
Edwards begins to articulate his argument by providing solid information on the “intellectual history” of the term from scholars who might have coined this term before the 1950s and 1960s. Edwards mentions prestigious intellectuals such as sociologist W.E.B Du Bois and activist Marcus Garvey as being “ engaged with themes of internationalism, but diaspora has only in the past forty years be...
Post-colonialism is a discourse draped in history. In one point in time or another, European colonialism dominated most non-European lands since the end of the Renaissance. Naturally, colonialists depicted the cultures of non-Europeans incorrectly and inferior. Traditionally, the canon has misappropriated and misrepresented these cultures, but also the Western academia has yet to teach us the valuable and basic lessons that allow true representations to develop. Partly in response, Post-colonialism arose. Though this term is a broad one, Post-colonialists generally agree on certain key principles. They understand that colonialism exploits the dominated people or country in one way or another, evoking inequalities. Examples of past inequalities include “genocide, economic exploitation, cultural decimation and political exclusion…” (Loomba 9-10). They abhor traditional colonialism but also believe that every people, through the context of their own cultures, have something to contribute to our understanding of human nature (Loomba 1-20). This is the theme that Lewis prescribes in his, self described, “satirical fantasy”, Out of the Silent Planet (Of Other 77).
Hall, S. (1995). Diasporas. from "routes" to roots (pp. 427-428). new york: oxford university press.
Two authors, in particular, will help explore this idea that an immigrant or minority experiencing the trauma of bigotry must in some way attempt to reconcile their own cultural heritage with the demands of a new society that objects to their very cultural difference. James Baldwin and Richard Rodriguez experienced this type of immigrant and minority angst regarding their own ties to their cultural and racial backgrounds. Baldwin struggled with the desire to be a writer, not just a black writer, amidst the chaos and protests of the 1960's political movement and Richard Rodriguez battled between the pull of assimilation and the success it promised and his own feelings of familial betrayal...
The book “From Unincorporated Territory” [Saina] , by Craig Santos Perez, is an interesting story because it shows how colonialism is the destruction of the author’s culture and identity on his native island Guam. It forced the author’s family and himself to make a drastic change in their life and migrate from Guam to America on an outrigger. After leaving in the year 1995 and not returning until 2008, the author depicts to the audience what has changed due to colonization. My thought on colonialism is firm. That I am confused about it. The reason for my confusion is I believe it is necessary for a certain purpose most people cannot see. Even though know that it is wrong; I know it destroys somewhat the vast majority of the colonized culture but I can’t help to think that the author has a message of that purpose most people cannot see. After reading the book, what I just admitted even to me sounds a little cold hearted, but reading his point of view in this book, it made me realized I’m not too wrong for making such a confession. I believe the author has a hidden message about it. Once I had a gut feeling I wanted to expose that message in my essay.
Can it be that the ongoing debate over the amount of immigrants and asylum-seekers allowed to inhabit Britain annually has been an easy attraction for public criticism and has consequently spurred racism? This kind of control and power over another human's future and identity has led to the government disregarding immigrants' statuses as equals, a fault that has rubbed off in to our immediate society. The most critical of our government's handling of the situation would be the British media. Any fault results in widespread newspaper coverage.
As Indians living in white culture, many problems and conflicts arise. Most Indians tend to suffer microaggressions, racism and most of all, danger to their culture. Their culture gets torn from them, and slowly, as if it was dream, many Indians become absorbed into white society, all the while trying to retain their Indian lifestyle. In Indian Father’s Plea by Robert Lake and Superman and Me by Sherman Alexie, the idea that a dominant culture can pose many threats to a minority culture is shown by Wind-Wolf and Alexie.
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. “Race, Culture, Identity: Misunderstood Connections.” Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers. Ed. David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 101-131. Print.
Knott , Kim, and Seán McLoughlin, eds. Diasporas Concepts, Intersections, Identities. New York : Zed Books, 2010. Print.
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
multiculturalism hype is not all it is cut out to be and segregates communities rather
In today’s globalized world, diversity is more and more a reality that contemporary nations have to live with and deal with. The relation between solidarity and diversity has become one of the key political and cultural issues and it carries particular weight in the British case as Britain has transformed into a multi-racial and multi-cultural society since the 1950s. National mentality tends to regard diversity, difference, and complexity as a problem for fear of the possible cultural and political “fragmentation” or “disorder” that might be aroused. So negotiating a way between an ideal Unitarianism and a pragmatic pluralism is a challenge facing policy-makers. In debates concerning multiculturalism in Britain, Shi thinks
Aschcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, eds. 'The Post-Colonial Studies Reader'. London; Routledge, 1995.
Every human being, in addition to having their own personal identity, has a sense of who they are in relation to the larger community--the nation. Postcolonial studies is the attempt to strip away conventional perspective and examine what that national identity might be for a postcolonial subject. To read literature from the perspective of postcolonial studies is to seek out--to listen for, that indigenous, representative voice which can inform the world of the essence of existence as a colonial subject, or as a postcolonial citizen. Postcolonial authors use their literature and poetry to solidify, through criticism and celebration, an emerging national identity, which they have taken on the responsibility of representing. Surely, the reevaluation of national identity is an eventual and essential result of a country gaining independence from a colonial power, or a country emerging from a fledgling settler colony. However, to claim to be representative of that entire identity is a huge undertaking for an author trying to convey a postcolonial message. Each nation, province, island, state, neighborhood and individual is its own unique amalgamation of history, culture, language and tradition. Only by understanding and embracing the idea of cultural hybridity when attempting to explore the concept of national identity can any one individual, or nation, truly hope to understand or communicate the lasting effects of the colonial process.