South-Indian%20American%20Women%20Writers%20(

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South-Indian American Women Writers ( Filmmakers)

• Issues of
• Cultural Identity and Gender

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Outline

• The native mother perspectives The Mother
• An Immigrant-mothervictims perspective
  Management of Grief
• Immigrants and their Cultural Identities
• Related Issues and Texts
• Experience of Hostility and their Survival
• Cultural pluralism What is Worth Knowing?
• Mother-daughter relationship Desperately Seeking
  Helen

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Her Mother Gender issues

• What is the most important question the mother
  asks of her daughter? How does she find out the
  answer? (the daughters change 134 the question
  133 process of discovery 141 - )
• 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?

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Her Mother Contradictory Gender identities

• traditional mother
• Motherly advice Eat, Bathe, Oil your hair, stay
  with Indians, go meet the good buy.(pp. 131 134)
• Views about marriage Concern with the two
  daughters (135 )
• Her own dream and collections (132)
• feminist
• Rebellious thoughts pp.132 142
• teach the daughter independence
• Views of her husband (135), Indian men and
  American culture (138)

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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

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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?
• --Stereotypical viewsnot clean, divorce, and
  racism (134 135 )

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Her Mother Gender Culture Issues

• The daughters hair-cutting and leaving
• 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?

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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.

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The Management of Grief Background

• June 22nd., 1985 Air India flight 182, leaving
  from Montreal 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

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Why is Canadian government criticized?

• 1. Indifference seen as foreign affair
• 2. Incompetence
• Canadian government already informed In early
  1985, Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi was
  getting ready to visit North America. India asked
  Canada and the United States to keep close tabs
  on Sikh militants who might pose a security
  threat. Many Sikhs around the world were furious
  over the Indian Government's 1984 assault on the
  Golden Temple at Amritsar, Sikhism's holiest
  shrine.
• One person, Talwinder Singh Parmar, was put under
  strict surveillance. But around the time of the
  explosion, he managed to go untapped and
  unnoticed.(source)

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How is Canadian government criticized in the
story?

• Who else are criticized in the story?

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The Management of Grief

• First question
• Whatre the meanings of the title?

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The Management of Grief Different Ways of
Management

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

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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 Her parents not blaming on the whole group
  of people because of some individuals 167
  (Sheilas own limitation p. 171)
• Judith Templeton--considers them ignorant, a mess.

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The Management of Grief Different Ways of
Management

• Two kinds of bureaucracies
• Custom officers --his image 167
• Judith signing papers pp. 162 170 172

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The Management of Grief Different Ways of
Management

• Theory
• Rejection, 2. depression, (Depressed Acceptance)
  3. Acceptance, 4. reconstruction (p. 170)
• What is not considered?
• Need to keep hope, 167
• Need time to go through the process of
  guilt/regret,
• prefers ignorance, or their own versions p. 163
• mourning process searching, waiting.
• Different cultures views of grief and mourning.

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Immigrants and their Cultural Identities

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

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

• Possible Choices ? But do they have a choice?
• Assimilation ? the myth of melting pot
  self-hatred (Pam in M, second-generation)
• Separation/isolation ? Discrimination, Exclusion
  (.g. the elderly couple in M)
• Hyphenation (In-Between positions) ?
  Multiculturalism Isolation or Ghettoization
  (Sheila p. 168)

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Cultural Identity Multiple Influences
Her Mother
Paki, go home.
Management
Family and other social units
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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,

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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

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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.

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

• Experience of Racism need for resistance --
  Paki Go Home
• In-between positions and cultural pluralism We
  the Indian Women in America What is Worth
  Knowing?
• Mother-daughter relationships -- To Sylvia
  Plath

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Desperately Seeking Helenby Eisha Marjara

• Another examplefrom the daughters perspective

• Helen, . . ., 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.

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Desperately Seeking Helenby Eisha Marjara

• "Helen was a larger than life figure, the icon of
  Indian cinema which is the world's largest dream
  factory. More than a movie star, she was a
  glittering figure of desire and playfulness, the
  mistress of a thousand disguises, yet always
  herself,'' avers the film-maker who has written,
  directed and enacted the lead role in the film.
  (source)