Immigrant Experience: Literary Comparison (Unseen) Flashcards
‘_________ he shares a ______ not a ___’
‘Whom he shares a name not a life’
The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri
- Gogol does not feel connected to his family, despite his cultural ties
‘_____ she had _____ been __________ else’
‘Even she had once been someone else’
Americanah - Chimamanda Adichie
‘______ enough to have ____ their ______ in the _____ from which they had ___________’
‘Long enough to have lost their place in the society from which they had emigrated’
Sour Sweet - Timothy Mo
- Experience of the Chens, 4 years into living in the UK
‘It _____ him ____ like a ____________’
‘It made him feel like a gatecrasher’ (Chen)
Sour Sweet - Timothy Mo
‘____ was a _________ here’
‘She was a nobody here’
Brooklyn - Colm Toibin
‘They had ______ to be ________ with ________ __________’
‘They had begun to be viewed with blatant hostility’
Girl, Woman, Other - Bernadine Evaristo
(Amma reflects on experience of hijabi women following 9/11)
‘The new ________ were still _______ it, ____ in _______’
‘The new emigrants were still tasting it, lost in wonder’
The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
‘Nothing _________ to the ________ she had of ______’
‘Nothing compared to the picture she had of home’
Brooklyn - Colm Toibin
Context : Brooklyn - Colm Toibin
- Protagonist: Eilis
- Urged by her parents to migrate to Brooklyn from a small town in rural Ireland
- Due to lack of opportunities in home town (economic migration)
Context: The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
- Protagonist: Jurgis
- Backdrop of early 20th-century industrialization (meat-packing)
- Follows Rudkus family, immigrants from Lithuania to Chicago
- Idealistic vision of America is quickly crushed by grinding poverty/dangerous work
Context: Girl, Woman, Other - Bernadine Evaristo
- Polyphonic novel, third person
- Follows the struggles/experiences of 12 Black British women who are interconnected
- Absence of speech marks around dialogue (blurs the line between dialogue + description, readers can insert own interpretation, greater connectedness between reader + narrator)
Context: Sour Sweet - Timothy Mo
- Married couple Chen and Lily who migrate to London from Hong Kong
- Lily manipulates her
traditional role in order to take control of their restaurant (Idealistic ambitions)
Context: Americanah - Chimamanda Adichie
- Protagonist: Ifemelu
- Nigerian woman who immigrates to the US from Nigeria to attend university
- Experiences identity crisis (seeks to assimilate into American culture e.g speaking ‘American-English’)
- Eventually embraces her Nigerian accent, natural hair, and returns to Nigeria
Context: The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri
- Protagonist: Gogol
- First-generation immigrant who’s parents migrated to US from Calcutta
- Feels disconnected from his origins, changes his name to ‘Nikhil’
- mother (Ashima) is subservient/adheres to traditional Indian values
‘Land of ________’
‘Land of promise’
Sour Sweet - Timothy Mo (Chen refers to England)
What is the perspective/narrative of ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’?
- First person narrative
- Written in the form of a letter from a Vietnamese American son (Little Dog) to his illiterate mother (Rose)
Describe the immigration in ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’
- Immigrated from Vietnam to America, Connecticut
- Spent months in a refugee processing camp in the Philippines awaiting immigration to the USA
‘Palms already ________ and __________’
‘Palms already callused and blistered’
- His mother has sacrificed her own well being by working in the nail salon
- Motivated by need to provide for her son
‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’
‘Your ______ are _________ and I hate ___________ that made them that ____’
‘Your hands are hideous and I hate everything that made them that way’
- Idea of sacrifice in the host country in order to survive
- Immigrant parents sacrificing for their children, enduring pain/hardship for opportunities
‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’
‘What I ______ of work I know _______ of ____’
‘What I know of work I know equally of loss’
- Immigrants work to achieve/access the opportunities of the host country, but lose themselves as a result
- Immigrant parents sacrifice of hard-work means they are less present in their child’s life
‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’
‘Girl, Woman, Other’
‘Chickpea ______, jerk chicken, Greek ________, lentil ______’
‘Chickpea stew, jerk chicken, Greek salad, lentil curry’
Dishes brought by Amma’s friends to her table
- Highlights a fusion of cultures, multiculturalism of the UK
‘Girl, Woman, Other’
Description of Amma from ‘Girl, Woman, Other’
- First-generation immigrant in England
- Her father, Kwabena, immigrated from Ghana
- Daughter named Yazz
‘Girl, Woman, Other’
‘said ___________ was an English _____________’
‘said affection was an English affectation’
- Amma’s description of her fathers view towards displays of affection
- Artificialty/insincerity of English gestures
-Her fathers disregarding of British norms/acts
‘Girl, Woman, Other’
‘Girl, Woman, Other’
‘The only person of __________ in the whole _________’
‘The only person of colour in the whole school’
- Amma’s feeling/reality of being a minority within her host country
- Lack of culture/diversity, lacks ties to cultural identity and roots
‘Girl, Woman, Other’
‘to ______, to ______ in or she’d become a ________’
‘to dress, to blend in or she’d become a target’
- Winsome’s (Shirley’s mother) precautions about her daughters safety in England
- Position of immigrants in a new country, forced to diminish themselves or risk discrimination/prejudice
‘Girl, Woman, Other’
‘you can’t _____ here… you can’t ____ here… you can’t ______ here’
‘you can’t work here… you can’t eat here… you can’t drink here’
- Clovis + Winsome’s experience in England, during a Clovis’ search for employment
- Face heavy discrimination and rejection
‘Girl, Woman, Other’
‘people wasn’t just _________, they was down-right ________’
‘people wasn’t just unfriendly, they was down-right hostile’
- Experience of Clovis + Winsome from the English
- Faced blatant hostility, criticised/treated badly based on their skin
‘Girl, Woman, Other’
‘why don’t we return ________ where we ________?’
‘why don’t we return home where we belong?’
- Winsome’s suggestion after Clovis consistently fails at finding employment
- Reality of immigration compared to the expectations of opportunity/advancement
- Disappointment from the host country
‘Rice ________ and Planters ___________’
Ashima mixes ‘Rice krispies and Planters peanuts’
- to form and approximation of an Indian street snack
- Attempt to sustain heritage in American society
‘Chen felt at _______ and yet not at _________.’
‘Chen felt at home and yet not at home.’
‘Sour Sweet’
- Lack of roots, both disconnection and connection to host country
- May feel at ‘home’ physically but not at ‘home’ emotionally
‘something which ________________ her from her _____’
‘something which separated her from her son’
‘Sour Sweet’
- Lily feels distant/disconnected to her British-born son (Man Kee) due to the fact that he can speak English
- Intergenerational conflict
‘I took off our _____________ and wore my __________ so that others would _______ my face, and therefore ________’
‘I took off my language and wore my English so that others would see my face, and therefore yours’
‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’
- Learns English in order to assimilate and to be understood better
- By doing this his mother can also assimilate through him
‘Dog ________ and excrement ____________ in the snow bank’
‘Dog urine and excrement embedded in the snow bank’
‘The Namesake’
- Ashima steps out of her apartment and sees America for the first time
- Negative impression
‘If you have ________, they will think you are ________________’
‘If you have braids, they will think you are unprofessional’
‘Americanah’
- Aunty Uju’s attempt to look ‘professional’ for her interview, by taking down her braids + relaxing hair
- Inability to fully express/display cultural identity due to the discrimination and judgement it will provoke
‘I only became _______ when I came to ____________’
‘I only became black when I came to America’
‘Americanah’
- Realisation of America’s racial prejudice/discrimination compared to the belonging in Nigeria
- Is now defined by her race
