The novel we read this week includes a selection of six short stories from Jhumpa Lahirir’s Interpreter of Maladies. Within this novel, we read several fictional tales of global migration and experiences within India and South Asian diaspora in the United States. While reading each of these short stories, we explore several different experiences migration has on immigrants and immigrant families. Though all of these short stories tell different stories of immigrants’ experiences, they all illustrate the difficulties that immigrants face when displaced or distanced from their culture. This illustration of each story allowed Lahirir to paint a well rounded image of the impacts cultural displacement has on immigrants. 

Immigrant displacement has several lasting effects on immigrants and immigrant families. Taking a look at the health and social effects of migration, we can explore many difficulties these immigrants may experience. An article from the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health identifies several factors that affect mental health in premigration, migration, and postmigration in both adults and children. 

The premigration effects on mental health for adults can stem from economic, educational, social, and occupational challenges within the new country. They can also experience a disruption of social support and even trauma due to exposure to harsh living conditions and violence in their travels. Postmigration effects include uncertainty about immigration, unemployment, social status, the loss of family and community, and the difficulties in language, learning, and adaptation. All of these effects of migration can deeply impact a person and their mental health and can have long-lasting effects. In the short story When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine, we can see the difficulties of having to leave behind one’s family to migrate and the possibilities of not having reunification. This can also create several lasting mental health effects as well.

Children are deeply impacted from immigrant displacement and can have several lasting effects on mental health, developmental delays, and social barriers. We can first look at children who are migrating during developmental stages and see the impacts of language, learning, and adaptation. We can also see the lasting effects of disruption of education which can put children behind in their education and developmental progress. Children are also often separated from extended family and peer networks which can impact a child’s mental health deeply. Highlighted by the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, children can experience poor nutrition, exposure to harsh living conditions, and exposure to violence during their migration that can have life-long effects on mental health and even physical impacts for these children. Postmigration for children can look different for all children, though a few common factors include difficulties with education in new languages, stress related to family’s adaptation, discrimination, social exclusion, and acculturation.

As we can see, there are many long-lasting effects on mental health and the difficulties these immigrants and their families experience. It is important to keep these difficulties in mind while reading Jhumpa Lahirir’s Interpreter of Maladies, to view the impacts migration has on the characters in their displacement or migration.

Works Cited

Kirmayer, Laurence J, et al. “Common Mental Health Problems in Immigrants and Refugees: General Approach in Primary Care.” CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association Journal = Journal De L’Association Medicale Canadienne, Canadian Medical Association, 6 Sept. 2011, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3168672/. 

Lahiri, Jhumpa. Interpreter of Maladies. HarperCollins Publishers India, 2017.

The partition of the Indian subcontinent (India and Pakistan) in 1947 left an everlasting mark on the Indian people’s mentality. It also resulted in the partition of Pakistan in 1971, resulting in the formation of two new countries, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Partition, which was intended to prevent sectarian violence, instead inflamed tensions between Hindus and Muslims by forcing them to divide. During and after the partition, millions of people are forced to move with the hope of a better life in a foreign place. Immediately, one of the world’s largest migrations occurred, with millions of Muslims migrating to West and East Pakistan (later known as Bangladesh), and millions of Hindus and Sikhs migrating in the opposite direction. Hundreds of thousands of people never made it. It is self-evident that incidences resulting from division breed hate among the people of the Indian Subcontinent. It also passes on from generation to generation throughout the course of each decade.

Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies is one of those diasporic short story collections that deals with displaced immigrants and second-generation characters. Characters in this collection of short stories face a variety of diasporic issues, including miscommunication, nostalgia, solitude, hatred, fractured cultural identity, psychological issues, and traumatic experiences. In addition, via this collection of short stories, Lahiri beautifully depicts the division and its aftermath. The stories focus on the transfer of memory and the observation of the diaspora’s second generation. The first generation are made up of those who have been victims of traumatic occurrences, while the second generation are made up of those who observe or witness the prior generation’s incidents or suffering. In the story, Mr. Das also reveals that their parents now live in India and that the Das family visits them every few years. The stories’ narrations reveal a later generation of diaspora’s awareness of the history of partition and its tragic experience.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/29/the-great-divide-books-dalrymple

https://www.gradesaver.com/interpreter-of-maladies/study-guide/the-partition-of-india-1947

Approximately 2,900 children were adopted from other countries in 2019 according to the U.S. Department of State and the Bureau of Consular Affairs. Studies find that internationally adopted children are more likely to be a victim of bullies, both overt aggression and relation victimization. Overt aggression bullying is hitting, pushing, and name calling. While relational aggression bullying is purpose exclusion from groups and making up stories about a child. This led to finding out that these adopted children were more likely to be suffering from anxiety and depression.
Being adopted and welcomed into a new family and country can be such a happy and exciting time for a child. This experience can quickly be ruined by attending a school where everything is foreign. In 2017, my cousin, Saraphina, was adopted from Haiti. In my families’ small town, she is the only person of color, so she has stood out when surrounded by her peers from the beginning. Unfortunately, she has started to experience being bullied at school. Transracial adopted children are more vulnerable to bullying in elementary school as kids start to notice differences and would rather conform to their peers than stand out. These children have a hard time speaking up to their parents about the bullying due to their skin color because they think their parents won’t understand since they are white.
As we see in “The Leavers,” Deming gets bullied by Cody and called a “Chinese retard.” While trying to adapt to a new family and get comfortable with them Deming has to struggle internally with the bullying he is experiencing at school. This is something many adopted children experience as they don’t know their place in their new environment just yet. Adoptive parents have the responsibility of opening up to their children and talking about racism. Adoptive parents engagement with their child and their community can help to have a positive environment surrounding their child’s life. Transracial adopted children can be under a lot of stress and anxiety when joining a new family and environment, its up to the parents to help the child accept who they are and feel welcomed and as if they belong.

Sources:

Are Transracial Adoptees More Likely to Be Bullied

https://baby.lovetoknow.com/adoption/how-many-children-are-adopted-each-year

Adopted Kids: More Likely to Bully or be Bullied?

Shared from another section of the course.

Hegel’s text, published in the early 19th century, discusses the master-slave dialectic. This is the idea that man establishes his “self-consciousness” by identifying those apart from him as the “other” or “non-I”. De Beauvoir’s text, published in 1949, takes this dialectic and applies it to male and female relationships. Therefore, I will discuss such relationships in the time period of De Beauvoir’s text (specifically 1930s and 40s) in order to provide context.

In the early 1930s and prior to, a “real man” was typically seen as a person with pure authority and power, who was tasked with decision making for women (Encyclopedia.com), while women were seen as domestic and the primary caretaker. However, the Depression (1929-1939) brought about a change in this dynamic with the increased dependence on women. Many of the “pink collar” jobs were impacted less by the Depression than jobs in the heavy industry, which men typically took on (Encyclopedia.com). Still, women and men were placed in completely different categories, with women still facing harsh restrictions. Many men during this time felt threatened and shamed by their “lost masculinity” and increasing dependence on women. Due to this, many films which highlight naive and domestic women, such as the famous Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938), emerged (Maslin). It’s important to note that such films attempted to reverse the reality for men in the Depression by offering a woman who was dependent on a man.

WWII (1939-1945) changed gender roles in several ways. As more men were deployed in the war, the need for labor from women at the homefront increased. One of the most popular war icons was Rosie the Riveter. She represented a strong, assertive woman who worked during WWII. Although many women still worked “pink collar” jobs, WWII opened up job opportunities in areas previously designated to men, such as the heavy industry and wartime production plants (The National WWII Museum ). Still, employers attempted to maintain pre-war gender roles by separating females and males in the workplace and paying women lower wages. After the war, many women were pushed out of their previous, higher wage jobs into less secure, “pink collar” jobs in an attempt to give men back their jobs (May). Nonetheless, it is undeniable that there was a change in and questioning of previously set gender roles during the time of De Beauvoir’s text.

Citations:

Beauvoir, Simone de, and Caroline Toy. The Second Sex.

“Gender on the Home Front.” The National WWII Museum | New Orleans, The National World War II Museum, www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/gender-home-front.

“Gender Roles and Sexual Relations, Impact of the Great Depression on .” Encyclopedia of the Great Depression. . Encyclopedia.com. 16 Aug. 2021 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.

Kojève, Alexandre, and Raymond Queneau. Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit. New York: Basic Books, 1969

Maslin, Janet. “Snow White Is No Feminist.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 19 July 1987, www.nytimes.com/1987/07/19/movies/film-view-snow-white-is-no-feminist.html.

May, Elaine Tyler. “How Did World War II Change Women’s Employment Possibilities?” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/tupperwaremay/#:~:text=How%20did%20World%20War%20II,been%20previously%20closed%20to%20women.

Sharpsteen, Ben, et al. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. RKO Radio Pictures, 1937.

“‘We Can Do It!”.” National Museum of American History, americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_538122.

Shared from another section of the course.

One of the excerpts that we will be reading this week is the “Introduction to the Reading of Hegel,” written by Alexandre Kojeve. This excerpt looks at and analyzes the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who was a German philosopher in the 19th century. One of Hegel’s most notable philosophies is the Master / slave dialect. This dialect, as described in the reading, looks at the idea of having two self-consciousnesses and how they interact with each other. The struggle between the two is built on the fact that each must see each other not as a threat to itself. Hegel describes this relationship similar to the relationship between a master and its slave, thus making the Master / slave dialect.

Between a master and a slave, they are in a relationship where they are both dependent on each other; the master has the power of its slave, yet only has that power if the slave recognizes to themselves that they are powerless to their master. In an article written by Andrew Cole apart of the Duke University Press, he has an alternative way to describe the relationship “The truth of the master reveals that he is the slave, and that the slave is revealed to be the master of the master” (Cole 579). The overarching idea of the Master / slave dialect is that both, self conscious or master/slave are dependent on each other whether that is how it was originally intended to be.

To look at this Master / slave dialect in a much larger scale, it can be seen prevalent in todays society through capitalism. Capitalism is the “economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state” (Oxford Languages). The social relationship of Capitalism consists of wage laborers and capitalists. Capitalists seem to be in the dominant position due to fact that they control the wage laborer’s work and pay. However, if you cut the jobs of workers, or lower their pay, then those workers loose their ability to buy the capitalists product. This contradiction of relationships is what Hegel’s refers to as the Master / slave dialect; the relationship between two parties which rely on each other for the good of their own.

Other articles to check out:

Capitalism’s Master/Slave Relationship and Hegel’s Dialectic

Hegel on the Master-Slave Relation

Works Cited:

Cole, Andrew. “What Hegel’s Master/Slave Dialect Really Means.” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Volume 34, Number 3, Fall 2004. Duke University Press. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/174870/pdf.

Feilmeier, J.D. “Hegel’s Master-Slave Dialect: the search for self-consciousness.” Central College. Accessed Aug 27, 2021. https://central.edu/writing-anthology/2019/07/08/hegels-master-slave-dialectic-the-search-for-self-consciousness/#:~:text=Hegel’s%20Master%2DSlave%20dialectic%20tells,life%2Dand%2Ddeath%20struggle.&text=Self%2Dconsciousness%20indicates%20that%20an,the%20only%20point%20of%20view.