Countless first generation Americans find themselves caught between holding onto their family’s culture and assimilating into an American lifestyle. In Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, Nikhil Ganguli demonstrates this point. Lahiri, being a first generation American herself is able to accurately express the yearnings and emotions felt by children of immigrants across the United States. I am able to relate to Nikhil’s inevitable conformity to the American culture.
My family expects me to carry on the traditions of their culture. I find some of the habits and mentalities of my parent’s culture irrelevant, and even limiting. Chinese culture teaches introversion, keeping my feelings and emotions bottled in. During my english class this year, my teacher, Ms. Brown assigned us to read and discuss a controversial article called Paper Tigers. It discusses how Asian-Americans deal with their lives in their post-education years. In the article, Yang writes that Asians are known to be “devoid of any individuality,” and are “a mass of stifled, repressed, abused, conformist quasi-robots who simply do not matter, socially or culturally.” Yet he does not wish for people to label him as such. Ms. Brown knew this article was relevant to our class, largely composed of Asians. I rose my hand, distressed at the sight of my fellow students staring straight back at the board with blank looks. Simultaneously, I am conflicted because people others cannot understand the Asian culture. I realize the advantage of maintaining a balance of both Chinese and American values.
Growing up in an Indian household, the Indian culture is entrenched in Nikhil and Moushumi. In their Gramercy Park apartment, they rarely eat Indian food. “But sometimes, on a Sunday, both craving the food they’d grown up eating, they ride the train out to Queens and have brunch at Jackson Diner, piling their plates with tandoori chicken and pakoras and kabobs” (229). Usually when my stomach growls, Chinese food hardly comes to mind. Instead, I’ll go to my favorite French café or burger joint. Yet like the two of them, when my parents home for dinner, I’ll whip up some ginger-fried rice and top it off with a fried egg, sunny side up.
Making strawberry soufflé at home.
