South-Indian American Women Writers

1
South-Indian American Women Writers

• Issues of
• Cultural Identity and Gender

2
Migrants and their Cultural Identities

• Immigration and its Push and Pull factors
• Five kinds of diaspora
• Victim(e.g. Jews, Africans, Armenians),
• Labour (Indian, Chinese),
• Trade (Chinese and Lebanese),
• Imperial (the British, etc.),
• Cultural/Economic diasporas (the Caribbean).

3
Middle Passage

4
Routes of Recent Migrations from Indian
Subcontinent
Air India
H. Bannerji
Rushdie, Imtiaz Dharker (back to India)
B. Mukherjee, India-- U.S. Canada -- U.S.
Sujata Bhatt India U.S. -- Germany
5
Immigrants and Cultural Identity

• Possible Choices ? But do they have a choice?
• Assimilation ? the myth of melting pot
  self-hatred (Pam, second-generation)
• Separation/isolation ? Discrimination, Exclusion
  (.g. the elderly couple in M)
• Hyphenation (In-Between positions) ?
  Multiculturalism Ghettoization (Sheila)

6
Cultural Identity Multiple Influences
Family and other social units
7
Cultural Identity and Gender Identity Issues
Related to South Asian American Women (1)

• Cultural Identity in between country of origin
  and the host nation
• potted plant, empty baggage, umbilical cord
  buried in the host nation
• -- how/whether to look back
• -- hyphenated or not (e.g. B. Mukherjee refused
  to be hyphenated)
• Experience of Racism Visible Minorities
• e.g. Sari, food, religion, need for resistance
• We the Indian Women in America Paki Go Home
  To Sylvia Plath

8
Cultural Identity and Gender Identity Issues
Related to SAAW (2)

• Cultural Identity influenced by Sexism of both
  places (Her Mother)
• Experience of Racism and Sexism Combined in both
  places. e.g. Her Mother Management
• Racism
• can happen because of lack of understanding,
• subtle ones in the questions, harsher ones in
  racist slurs
• Individual
  institutionalized
• Intensify or weaker mother-daughter bonding and
  sisterhood

9
Her Mother Gender issues

• What makes the mother similar to our mothers?
• Which parts of the mother make her traditional
  mother? What aspects of her are feminist and
  unconventional?
• How is the mother related to the daughter and her
  husband?

10
Her Mother Contradictory Gender identities

• traditional mother
• Views about marriage Concern with the two
  daughters
• Motherly advice Eat, Bathe, Oil your hair, stay
  with Indians, go meet the good buy.
• Her own dream and collections
• feminist
• teach the daughter independence
• Views of her husband, Indian men and American
  culture

11
Her Mother Contradictory Gender identities (2)

• -How is the mother related to the daughter and
  her husband?
• The daughters being closer to the father, p133
  different feminist views p. 135
• The husbands double standard his sense of
  betrayal p. 138

12
Her Mother Cultural Issues

• How does the mother and the father look at the
  U.S. and India differently?
• What are the mothers stereotypical views of
  Westerners?

13
Her Mother Gender Culture Issues

• What pre-occupies the mother? How does the
  mother feel about the daughters hair-cutting and
  leaving?
• Why does the daughter see going abroad as an
  escape? Escape from what?
• How does the mother get to understand the
  daughter?
• Grief memory
• Significant clues midnight encounter, Rapunzel,
  handkerchief pinched look
• Sisterhood and Mother-daughter bonding can they
  be strong enough support in a society dominated
  by men?

14
Bharati Mukherjee
Sees immigration as a process of reincarnation,
breaking away (killing) from the roots.

• Born in Calcutta, India, in 1940, she grew up in
  a wealthy traditional family.
• Went to America in 1961 to attend the Iowas
  Writers Workshop
• Married Canadian author Clark Blaise in 1963,
  immigrated to Canada
• Found life as a "dark-skinned, non-European
  immigrant to Canada" very hard and moved to the
  U.S.

15
The Management of Grief Background

• June 22nd., 1985 Air India flight 182, leaving
  from Vancouver for India, exploded and crashed
  into the Atlantic ocean off the Coast of Ireland.
• 329 people died.
• Suspects Two Sikh nationalists.
• But investigation still goes on.
• Consequence p. 162

16
The Management of Grief

• First question
• Whatre the meanings of the title?

17
The Management of Grief Different Ways of
Management

• Characters
• -- The narrator (Mrs. Shaila Bhave), p. 160, 164,
  169, 170
• -- Pam, escapes, feeling neglected, ends up
  serving Orientals. p. 161, 174
• -- Kusum, accept fate, 163, 164, 173
• -- Dr. Ranganathan, another kind of escape, while
  keeping the connection p. 169, 170, 174
• -- the elderly couple leave it to their god
  insist on their own way and believe themselves
  "strong."

18
The Management of Grief Different Ways of
Management

• The Canadian government -- evasive 159,
  indifferent 160.
• lt--gt Irish 163-164, 165, 166 giving flowers and
  showing sympathy
• lt--gt not blaming on the whole group of people
  because of some individuals 167
• Judith Templeton--considers them ignorant, a mess.

19
The Management of Grief Different Ways of
Management

• Theory
• 1. Rejection, 2. depression, (Depressed
  Acceptance) 3. Acceptance, 4. reconstruction (p.
  170)
• What is not considered?
• guilt/regret, hope,
• prefers ignorance, or their own versions p. 163
• mourning process searching, waiting.
• Different cultures views of grief and mourning.

20
Cultural Identity and Gender Identity Issues
Related to South Asian American Women (3)

• Two mothers experience different kinds of loss
• Carry on what they cherish and are given.

21
Cultural Identity and Gender Identity Issues
Related to South Asian American Women (4)

• Another examplefrom the daughters perspective
  Desperately Seeking Helen
• Helen, like the stove, or biting in the food, is
  a sign of rebellion. Only she is also a role
  model, a vamp (the opposite to heroine) who turns
  out to be a combination of mother figure and
  Eisha Marjaras need for resistance.