The Namesake By Jhumpa Lahiri

I was 23 years old. My husband Bharat came to the US from Gujarat, India in 1985 on a student visa to study for a masters in engineering. After one year at his new job he returned to India for marriage. Our marriage was a completely arranged marriage. I had never seen him before, I had never talked to him before, we were set up by our families. I was chosen because they (the families) thought my background in pharmacy was more helpful when you come here (to the US) so you don’t struggle as much. Bharat and I met on April 13, 1987, we were married on April 26, Bharat came back on May 17th to do paperwork for me as and I came here on July 1st. If I think back I felt like I was hallucinating or like I was not myself. I felt like someone had been

Her story gave me a greater insight into the process by which many Indian women migrated to the United States. When reading The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, I did not think about Ashima’s story as being representative of the larger female Indian American immigrant experience, but in talking to Alka, I learned that their shared experience was common. Alka explained that many of the couples that she and her husband are friends with, had similar journeys to the United States. Through Alka’s narrative of her arrival, I also gained insight into arranged marriages which are heavily stigmatized in the Western world. She explained that her marriage was arranged by her and her husband’s parents who acquaintances and that largely left out of the decision making process. I was surprised that her family justified her engagement based on the fact that her field of studies would be most easily adapted in the United States, as well as financially stable. However, what surprised me most about her migration to the United States was, for the most part, out of her control. She chose to marry her husband because the match made both families so happy, and with that one decision she was whisked away to a foreign