Two Ways To Belong In America Summary

Identity is the facts of ones being and the characteristics that reflect on one. One has been named when one was born and nationality has been given.One learns the history, tradition, society rules, language etc. as one grows. Nonetheless when one moves to different country, the background, names, nationalityof one slightly changes. One immigrant to other country needs to learn new language, adopt the new environment and may meet with a refusal because of their identity, which forces one to makes changes in order to fit in the new environment, such as rename and change nationality.The articles from “Two Ways to belong in America” by Bharati Mukherjee and “The F Word” by Firoozeh Dumas, both of the author faces different issues and go through the problems that happened in their life. Even through both of these author are immigrants but they do experience different things. The author of “Two Ways to belong in America”, Mukherjee wants change her identity into American citizenship, while her sister wants to keep nationality of Indian. Dumas experienced that her original name makes people

know she’s identity background and reject her when she tries to find job even she graduate from UC-Berkeley.The articles from “Two Ways to belong in America” by Bharati Mukherjee and “The F Word” by Firoozeh Dumas both of the author want to fit in with their new culture environment by make some compromises, however Dumas changes her name, while Mukherjee changes her nationality.
When one immigrant to a new country, one will meet the difficult that they are not expecting to be and one will not fit into the new country because of one’s characteristic that makes one different than others. In “Two Ways to belong in American”, author Mukherjee says “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 large Canadian society.” Even the author did what she needs to do, she tries her best to work, but she is not fit into the society, she always feels like an outsider. Even her husband is born in Canada, but that’s doesn’t help to fit her into the Canadian community. The name can become the challenge when one moves to a different country that doesn’t share the interest with and people will reject one to join the community because of the cultural background are different. In“The F word” author Dumas experienced the isolate because of her name, which other people can’t pronounce with. People make fun of her name, she was unable to make friends and find job. Because of her name, she consider as other race of people, which are different from others, and isolate by others. “In American, it means “Unpronounceable” or “I’m Not Going to Talk to You Because I Cannot Possibly Learn Your Name and I Just Don’t Want to Ask You Again and Again Because You’ll think I’m Dumb or You Might Get Upset or Something”(352). Dumas mentioned her name is difficult for other people to say on account of the America people barely know the name, the name the author has is from other cultural, its new to Americans, the author list the reasons that nobody talks with her, because her name is from other country, which is hard for them to accept it to learn and pronounce. Not limit to nobody wants to be friends with her, she also get refused when she apply to job because of her name. “Even though I had graduated with honors from UC-Berkeley, I couldn’t get a single interview” (353). Graduate from UC-Berkeley school doesn’t show her intelligent at all. The name is the issue, the company can’t accept with her original name, from the name which shows a totally different cultural background that is differ than them. By have a different cultural background than the majority of people in a new country which create the problems, and can’t fit in with the country.
Even though it’s hard to fit in a new land, but one can still tries to make change and compromise with the society that one immigrant to. When author Mukherjee moves to America, she wants to be part of the America race, she wants to adopt the culture the rule of America. In “Two Ways to belong in America”, Mukeherjee says “I need to feel like a part of the community I have adopted (as I tried to feel in Canada as well). I need to put roots down, to vote and make the differences that I can”(167). Author Mukherjee was differ than her sister, her sister doesn’t want to abandon her identity as an Indian, but author Mukherjee would like to fit in the society she lives in and become citizen have all the rights that she can do in American. Vote and make changes to make the society better, to become into the American race, sharing American’s culture, language, and nationality. To actually becomes an American. Immigrant to another country makes one to abandon something. In “The F Word”, author Dumas changes her name in order to make others easy to say her name and make her life better. “After three months of rejections, I added “Julie” to my resume. Call it coincidence, but the job offers started coming in”(353). After Dumas changes her name, she receives many job opportunity, with the same resume but a different name, the name she used has doesn’t help her to fit in the new environment, she needs a new name that sounds American, that makes people see her name that people can start to think they shares the same culture background.
Once one is immigrant then one is always consider as an immigrant, no matter if one becomes citizen, legal immigrant or not.In “Two Ways to Belong in America”, author Mukherjee addressed her sister as a green card holder in America his sister followed all the laws in America and can’t enjoy the benefit as a legal immigrant. “I’ve obeyed all the rules, I’ve paid my taxes, I love my work, I love my students, I love the friends I’ve made . . . if American wants to make new rules curtailing benefits of legal immigrants” (166). The author’s sister feels anger inside, she as a immigrants followed the rules in American, she paid the taxes, and use her professional skills to teach her students and respect the work she doing, enjoy the time she spent with her friends she made, but all of that are not enough to enjoy the benefit from the American government, the society still has rejection of new races of people that immigrant to American, the government still treat them differently even though they are legal immigrants and did nothing bad. Even Dumas tries to become part of the community, but that doesn’t change the facts she is an immigrants. In “The F Word”, Dumas says “My life became one big knot, especially when friends who knew me as Julie met friends who knew me as Firoozeh. I felt like those charterers in soap operas who have an evil twin . . . I decided to untangle the knot once and for all by going back to my real name”(353 - 354). After Dumas changed her name doesn’t take away of her original identity which she belongs to Iranian race. As she benefits after changed her name, she get new friends and job, but she felt struggle of her new name, she felt like two person in her body. Immigrants always consider as immigrants, their original races can’t remove.
Both articles “Two Ways to belong in America” by Bharati Mukherjee and “The F Word” by Firoozeh Dumas” addressed race.

The race shows their background of culture, nationality and same color people etc. When one immigrants to another country, the difficult one faces can be overcome, and the race one belongs to may changes a little bite, for example the language, nationality. Mukherjee changed her nationality to American citizen; she wants to have the rights to makes changes to the country she live in. Dumas changes her name, which her name is relate to her culture, instead of Firoozeh she changed into Julie, an American name that shares the same cultural with the America race. And after she changes back to that makes her comfortable. The race one share effect the where one live with, and the race one belongs to can be change into different group of people, especially as

immigrants