Two Ways To Belong In America

In her essay “My Two Lives,” Jhumpa Lahiri, an Indian American, explains the balance between the identities of the two countries inside her heart, as well as her psychological struggle between her bicultural identities. She describes herself as an Indian-American because she moved with her family from India to the United States when she was very young. However, confused with her identity through her growth, she feels that she doesn’t belong to either of the two countries because of its completely different cultures. When she is at home, she deals with her parents in an Indian way, which is strange compared to the American way that she come across outside. She says that she has a distinctive identity in spite of her Indian appearance

The Mukherjee sisters contrast in the way they live. For example, Mira wedded an Indian student and soon after developed her green card, stress free. While Bharati didn’t, due to her husband’s North Dakota

Immigrants’ refusal to appreciate a fused culture promotes division. Mukherjee questions the idea of immigrants losing their culture for American ideals: “Parents express rage or despair at their U.S.-born children's forgetting of, or indifference to, some aspects of Indian culture,” to that Mukherjee asks, “Is it so terrible that our children are discovering or are inventing homelands for themselves?” (Mukherjee, 1997, para. 28). Many immigrants experience anger when their children no longer hold the ideals of their home country. This tension produced within the household hinders the unity within a resident country’s culture and encourages division within families. Using herself as an example, Mukherjee provides another instance of anger directed at her from her own subculture: “They direct their rage at me because, by becoming a U.S.

She explains her thesis by stating “Others who write stories of migration often talk of arrival at a new place as a loss of communal memory and the erosion of an original culture. I want to talk of arrival as a gain,” (360). The key points of the text include Mukherjee describing her transition between Calcutta and the United States, and what it means to be and American and how culture influences that aspect. The information in the text is significant; the people of America are a part of a melting pot, sometimes it is hard for them to find the distinction between American culture and their own. The information in Mukherjee’s story is clear and specific, unbiased, and is relevant to the purpose of the story. I believe Mukherjee has achieved her purpose of informing her audience about cultural differences; she presents certain strengths and weaknesses within the text.

“Culture is sometimes described as a lens through which we view the world, meaning that one’s culture influences their perceptions and interactions in everyday life” (Davis, 2006). Every culture has different beliefs and customs

While Mukherjee decided to embrace the new American culture, her sister decided to stick to her Indian roots. Mukherjee struggles to try and find where she belongs because she is always changing for others rather than for herself. Encountering differences is something she dealt with on her journey of creating her identity, she states, “Nearly 20 years ago, when I was living in my husband’s ancestral homeland of Canada, I was always well-employed but never allowed to feel part of the local Quebec or larger Canadian society” (Mukherjee 293). While changing herself to conform for others, we can all take a lesson from Mukherjee. In life, we go through many changes because we are growing up, becoming more mature, and finding things we like or dislike. We tend to change because of the people we surround ourselves with, like friends or coworkers in order to be accepted. However, she did not seem happy to be forced into a position where she had to conform to the way people would talk to her all for the sake of her husband. This takes away from building and developing one’s own identity because it does not represent who you really are. In society, we are sort of growing away from that in a sense people are taking pride in their identities. For instance, immigrants, women, and races are all

Traditions, beliefs, and family structure vary from culture to culture or even person to person. In the short story “Two ways to Belong in America” is about two sisters from India and their individual perspectives on culture, beliefs and traditions in India and America.

Bharati married an American-Canadian fellow that would live in every part of North America with her over a span of thirty-three years. She became “opting to fluidity, self-invention, blue jeans, and T-shirts, and renouncing three thousand years of caste-observant, ‘pure culture’ marriage in the Mukherjee family.” Despite their differences, the sisters knew they were the only blood relatives they had on the continent, so they had regular Sunday morning calls where they were carelessly affectionate. During these conversations the sisters would have small talk rather than speak what was truly on their mind, yet they pity one another: Mira “for the lack of structure in [Bharati’s] life, the erasure of Indianness, the absence of an unvarying daily core.” Bharati “for the narrowness of [Mira’s] perspective, her uninvolvement with the mythic depths or the superficial pop culture of the American society.” It is clear that the two differ, however, in the ways in which they hope to interact with the country

Culture gives a person a change of perspective toward people and the world, in “Two Ways to Belong in America” by Bharati Mukherjee, It talks about her and her sister’s views of the current immigrant issues. Her sister Mira is influenced by her Indian culture so she views America different from her sister and still follows Indian traditions. Therefore Mira dresses casual Indian apparel such as a Sari and married an Indian man chosen by her father. When Mira gets older and retires she’s going to return to India, furthermore she does not want to lose her citizenship and ties to India just to stay in America for a little bit. Her plan was to come to America to work on her study of child psychology and after that return to India.

They’re mother wants them to be something they're not, they both have such differences in each other life. If America wants to make new rules curtailing benefits of legal immigrants, they only should apply to immigrants who arrive after those rules are already in place."(Bharati Mukherjee 70 ).She knew that her sister wanted to avoid all the extra stuff and continue with her life and the Indian man she met in college. ‘I am an American citizen and she is

The character in “White Trash Primer,” starts on a family farm where she lives a lighthearted childhood, stays up late with her sister, plays in the lake, and attends church in hand sewn dresses. Bharati in “Two Ways to Belong in America” begins as a fresh immigrant from India, dressing in saris, speaking with

For heaven’s sake they even dressed alike. They lived in Calcutta, but they moved to the United states to go to college. Unlike Mira, the older of the two. Bharati stuck to her roots and didn’t let the american culture get to her. She married someone who her father would approve of, she still wore her bindi and didn’t change her style to fit it, she even returned home back to Calcutta after

1. Her resistance to American culture while pregnant eventually leads to a resistance of Bengali culture from her children.

Mukherjee points out, how her sister and her use to dress alike, have the same way of expression in political views, social issues and how they were planning to come to America for two years to get their degree and go back to India to marry the grooms of their father’s choosing.

In Once in a Lifetime, readers learn about the interaction between two Indian immigrant families from the point of view of thirteen-year-old Hema. Hema’s mother, Shibani, and Kaushik’s mother, Parul, represent two separate classes India; however, they develop a strong relationship in America, binded by their loneliness and their nostalgia for their dear and familiar homeland. Hema, a second-generation Indian, is caught in the middle. She is now well accustomed to the American way of life, but remains sympathetic to and understanding of the struggles faced by her parents. It almost seems as if being caught in the middle makes things more difficult – because at least the older family members, who are