Though each individual experiences life differently certain experiences link them together. Specifically, being a person of color while being a singular experience, is also a very universal when it comes down to the way in which minority groups are subject to the oppression of the white mainstream. The friction between being proud of one’s identity or choosing to ignore it and assimilate into society, is complex and is a fact that many people of color struggle with, because it is not easy to be proud of one’s identity when everything around them is telling them not to be, so in a sense these individuals see themselves in two ways, a minority proud of their identity, and then as an outsider in a white world where they feel as if they will never be accepted. Often, people of color feel as if the only way they are to succeed is by rejecting their identity completely, or “code-switching” which means to downplay certain aspects of their identity. For example, black people refraining from using African American Vernacular English around their white counterparts in order to assimilate into white culture, as seen in ABC television show Black-ish where Dre’s son Jack is made aware of the difference between using the n-word around other black people and public, or even in the Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, where the main character Gogol tries for so long to ignore his Bengali heritage, to the point of being embarrassed by his parents enough to not want them to meet his white girlfriend, Maxine. This struggle or sense of duality or “two-ness” is defined by W.E.B. Du Bois as double consciousness. In his essay The Souls of Black Folk he discusses the idea that African Americans, and by extension all people of color experience a kind of “double c... ... middle of paper ... ...ds them, in accents they are accustomed not to trust” (Lahiri 108). This too is a form of double-consciousness as both Ashoke and Ashima are aware of the loss of culture, of their own identity in their children as their children shun India and by extension Bengali culture, and no longer sound like the people they miss and love back in Calcutta. It is extremely sad, because in order to make a better life for themselves and for their family they came to America, but because of the search for opportunity, they also lost their sense of identity in their children even though they tried their hardest to create a kind of Bengali community in America as well. Quietly, unlike Dre, Ashoke, more than Ashima comes to understand that he cannot push his culture upon his children, especially Gogol, and instead allows Gogol to navigate being Bengali and being American, for himself.
The novel The Garies and their Friends is a realistic examination of the complex psychology of blacks who try to assimilate through miscegenation and crossing the color barrier by “passing as white.” Frank J. Webb critiques why blacks cannot pass as being white through the characters Mr. Winston and Clarence Jr.
One’s cultural identity consists of their race, gender, socioeconomic status, age, religion, and so on. Being aware of your own cultural identity is just as important as being aware of other’s. People’s cultural identity defines who they are, the privilege (or lack of privilege) they receive, and how society views them. It is important to understand that White individuals have more privileges than individuals of color. White individuals do not experience detriment and difficulties due specifically to their skin color and instead receive advantages. White privilege is defined as benefits that white individuals have that people of color do not (Kendall, 2012). The following walks through my personal cultural background, how it was shaped, defined, and developed, and limitations to my personal competencies.
This model examines the relationship between the dominant culture and one with minority status, such as Latinos. Attitudes towards self, same minority group, different minority groups, and the dominant group are examined through five stages within the model. These include conformity, dissonance, resistance and immersion, introspection, and integrative awareness. The stage most pertinent to Antonio at this time is the Dissonance stage. During this stage, one starts to acknowledge the existence of racism, that he cannot escape his own heritage, and experiences conflict between shame and pride felt for his culture. This same shame versus pride conflict is also extended to members of his own minority group. Held stereotypes about other minority groups are now questioned as well. One in the Dissonance stage is also starting to realize that not all beliefs held by the dominant group are valuable or even accurate (Sue & Sue, 2003). Because of the two incidents Antonio endured during his freshman year and their emotional impact on him, he is becoming aware that even though he has “assimilated,” others of the majority group will still identify him as different. Antonio is also experiencing conflict between what members of the minority group (his parents) and the majority group feel are important; his parents believe he
... 134). To Americans, India still continues to be an exotic land of fairytale. They also ask him questions on ‘recent rise of Hindu fundamentalism’ which Gogol, like any ordinary American kid, is oblivious to the current affairs of India. Another American lady Pamela comments that Gogol is lucky because he would not fall sick if he visits India like her friend had. Inspite of Gogol’s emphasis that his parents “devote the better part of suitcase to medicine . . .” Pamela cannot be convinced because to her Gogol’s identity is essentially to that of an Indian. It is apparent to a native American Gogol is a representative of India, a land of exotic culture, palaces, and simultaneously a land of diseases. In reality Gogol is like any other American kid of his generation but he cannot truly blend in their life as his first identity is ‘Indian’ and to that of an ‘outsider’.
...zation leads to Gogol’s discovery of his true identity. Although he has always felt that he had to find a new, more American and ordinary identity, he has come to terms that he will always be the Gogol that is close to his family. While Gogol is coming to this understanding, Ashima has finally broken free from relying on her family, and has become “without borders” (176). No longer the isolated, unsure Bengali she was when arriving in Cambridge, Ashima has been liberated from dependent and powerless to self empowering. The passing of her husband has forced her to go through her life as a more self-reliant person, while at the same time she is able to maintain her daily Indian customs. This break-through is the final point of Ashima’s evolution into personal freedom and independency.
W.E.B. Dubois attempts to explain the internal turmoil experienced by African Americans endeavoring to co-exist in a Caucasian dominated culture. His concept of life lived behind the veil of race and the consequence of double-consciousness lends to the experience of racial distinctions in America (p. 116). African Americans live with two differing identities that are inherently complex. The first experience is that of having a sense of self (identifying with one's ethnic roots) and the other is having an identity that is ascribed to the person of color through the historical lingering's of slavery. Double consciousness, according to DuBois, is considered the reality of one's life being lived out from behind the veil. The idea of race and whiteness, DuBois contends, is a system of practices, rather than a race, therefore having no claim to dominance (p. 118).
With race being identify as the most essentialised (insert citation) characteristic it is important to understand how the development of racial identity maybe influenced by external determinants. As a self identified Black women much of how I navigate and experiences the world has been through the lens of first a black girl then a black women. In this paper I will examine how my experience as a black girl/women has been shaped by external factors in my environment.
The first stage of Black racial identity development refers to the pre-encounter stage. This depicts the juncture in life when a black American displays a lack awareness of his/her own race and is uninterested in racial differences (to include those that affect Blacks). This stage delineates two types of identities, namely the “anti-Black” and “assimilation“ clusters. The anti-Black pre-encounter stage represents a cluster of black Americans that take pride in White standards, values, and beliefs; they view the White race and culture as emblems of beauty and perfection. These people hold a high level of hatred for the Black race and openly expresses their opinion on the matter. In contrast, the assimilation pre-encounter stage represents a cluster of black Americans that exhibits low salience for being Black. This cluster does not blatantly express hate for the Black race, however, they prefer to identify themselves with being something other than black Americans. They embrace color blindness and maintain a race-neutral demeanor towards humanity. Whether classified within ...
In the beginning of the book toward Gogol’s early life, the reader may make the observation that Gogol is more American than Bengali. In Gogol’s teen years he shows more admiration for being American than Bengali when he listens to his new American tape rather than his Indian one. On Gogol’s birthday, his father sees the “Lennon obituary pinned to the bulletin board, and then a cassette of classical Indian music he’d bought for Gogol months ago, after a concert at Kresge, still sealed in its wrapper” (Lahiri 78). Even since Gogol was little he had always been a little different considering that he was born as an American, unlike his parents. His parents carry on their Bengali traditions and for the most part avoid becoming full Americans. As for Gogol, he continues to act, think, and be American before any tragedy is present. Lahiri writes, “But Gogol never thinks of India as desh. He thinks of it as Americans do, as India” (Lahiri 118). Gogol is American and he knows it, he doesn’t mind thinking like one either. As Gogol is more American than his parents, he is simply dragged away due to hi...
In light of our class discussion about the light skin, dark skin dichotomy I decided to write about my perspective on the issue. Growing up I quickly found out the color of my skin impacted my life in a foremost way. In my childhood years I traveled a lot, but I spent the majority of my life in Jacksonville, Florida. Jacksonville is mildly diverse, especially in the area where my family and I lived. Moreover, the school I attended was predominantly white. With that being said, I was immersed into a setting where I could not culturally or ethnically relate to anymore. Furthermore, I found myself struggling with my identity. In school my peers and classmates would ask: “are you white?” Of course inside I knew who I was— I knew I was black; however, I began to lose sight of my ethnic background and ethnic identity. Furthermore, I found that it was harder for me to connect with people of my own race and ethnicity. Most of my friends where white; yet, I noticed that I was always stigmatized as the odd ball out with my “friends” and it was almost as if I was not good enough to be their f...
When she is about to give birth to her first child, her Indian ethnicity reminds her of the conventional social customs of the Indian Bengali Culture. The solitary atmosphere in the hospital makes her recapture the domestic life of Calcutta. She is the only Indian in the hospital with three other American ones in the adjoining room. She is "terrified to raise a child in a country where she is related to no one, where she knows so little, where life seems so tentative and spare." After giving birth, she says to Ashoke, her husband, "I am saying I don't want to raise Gogol alone in this country. It's not right. I want to go back." Ashima feels lonely and terribly alone. She feels lost in a crowd, without an identity in between two opposite cultures. She teaches her children the culture of her own country, about the relations with the relatives, about how they eat with their hands in India, but in the long run she knows deep inside that she cannot force them to do it or practice it. Ashima is often reminded of the words her family pronounced, "not to eat beef or wear skirts or cut off her hair or forget her family", but the second generation does not abide to these rules and lives an American way of life. Ashima, like many first
Black people, especially those who have to merge into predominately white spaces such as schools and work environments, have to develop their identity with not only the need to satisfy themselves, but with the need to satisfy other people’s expectations of themselves. In “Dyaspora”, Hyppolite delineates her experience of being a Haitian while growing up in America. Referring to her experience involving people within her high school and community questioning her identity, Hyppolite states, “They do not see you” (Hyppolite 99). When black people create their identity based upon their racial interactions with any race group, or as seen in the previously mentioned text, culture group, black people lose their sense of true self. Black people, then, either assimilate into the prevailing culture of the society and become “one of them” or become a stereotype-fulfilling the prevalent society’s want for comfort while coexisting with black people, due to their own ignorant and racist claims of what a black person should be. Overall, racism has a negative effect on the identities formed by black people within their respective culture and
Many people find it difficult to start a new life where everything one believed was right suddenly becomes wrong. Ashima, wife of Ashoke, has moved across the world and feels like a stranger in a new land. “There’s something missing” said Lahiri. The narrator depicted the loneliness Ashima felt away from her home in India (Lahiri 1). Ashima is lost, because her whole life she was made to live life a certain way and now must learn to adapt to new things at an older age. As Ashima became settled in their little apartment in Massachusetts, she became pregnant with her first child Gogol. Gogol was named after the author of his father’s favorite books. When Gogol was born, his mother’s
For the characters in the story, they struggle to feel part of American culture. Ashima worries about how her child will grow up in a foreign land with a mother who barely knows anything about it. For Gogol, he has grown up with the culture, but due to his heritage, he is not completely seen as an American. These struggles the characters face perfectly reflect how other humans like them have to deal with these situations. By detailing their struggles in a work of literature, the reader can better understand the emotions and hardships people with the same conditions must
Ashima's link with the Indian soil is mainly because of her love for the Bengali language and the American English seems less important to her. The grasping of "a tattered copy of desh megazine" in a hospital in America indicates her temporary relief in the foreign land . Another important factor in constructing the identity of these diasporic people or immigrants is culture. In the novel, the proximity of these people to Indian soil has been illustrated through the nurturing of the Bengali culture by singing songs of Nazrul and Tagore , analysing the films of Satyajit Roy as well as debating over the political issues and parties of West Bengal. Native cultural activities like dances and songs seem to construct the cultural identity of the people and at times even negotiate with the other cultures too. In the novel, The Namesake written by Jhumpa Lahiri, Ashima's preservation of the various Bengali rituals epitomizes the bond with her native land rather than bonding with the foreign land. The celebration of Gogol's Annaprasan (rice ceremony) as per the Bengali norms provided Ashima a temporary relief in the foreign land even though most of her relatives and family members are missing. But her son Gogol's cultural identity is more connected with the American culture. He listens to American music more than the Indian