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Voice and Self in Immigrant Stories No unread replies.No…
Voice and Self in Immigrant Stories
No unread replies.No replies.
Voice and Self in Immigrant Stories
Assigned Reading/Viewing:
“America, Say My Name” by Viet Thanh NguyenLinks to an external site.
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link : https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/09/opinion/sunday/immigrants-refugees-names-nguyen.html
“Valieria Luiselli, at Home in Two Worlds” by Concepcion de LeonLinks to an external site.
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link : https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/arts/valeria-luiselli-lost-children-archive.html
Mohsin Hamid on Home, Identity, and Exit WestLinks to an external site.
link: https://youtu.be/Wvp5cf9Vc_I
In this unit, I want to continue to use our discussions to put the themes of our readings in context, to show how they line up with what contemporary writers are grappling with today, and, perhaps most importantly, how these themes are drawn from our daily life in the modern world. These three pieces I’ve listed above come from (or are written about) up-and-coming, award-winning authors, one a Vietnamese-American, brought here as a refugee in the 1980s, another a young Mexican-American journalist and novelist who has spent the past few years immersed in the turmoil at our southern border, particularly as it relates to the experience of children, and finally, a Pakistani author who has lived much of his life in America and England whose latest novel took a sort of Chronicles of Narnia approach to the global refugee crisis.
As you consider these figures – their personal stories and their writing – I want you to keep in mind one of the less familiar terms from your Literary Diagnostic Quiz in Week 1. Think about the term liminal, which is an adjective meaning, “relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process,” or “occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.” The noun form, liminality is a term used in anthropology to mean “the transitional period or phase of a rite of passage, during which the participant lacks social status or rank, remains anonymous, shows obedience and humility, and follows prescribed forms of conduct, dress, etc.” We have seen, and will continue to see, this sense of being stuck between two worlds, or waiting for the next phase to begin, or being two things at once, pop up in our readings. We saw it with Mrs. Mallard transitioning from wife to widow to wife again, with Elisa, letting the tinker cross over past her fence into the flower bed, in Alce’s entrance into Calixta’s home and closing of all windows and doors. We certainly saw the father in Cline’s story sensing himself having passed through the time of usefulness as a father and into later middle age, unsure how to navigate the new territory, and at the opposite end, the young mother in “The Midnight Zone” not knowing how to fully and securely occupy any one area of her identity – woman, mother, or wife. (That title, just like Hamid’s, screams liminality).
In this week’s reading, you will have stories that, on their surface, are about people in (or avoiding or falling out of or fleeing) relationships, and in that sense you will see these liminal motifs. But each of the stories this week is also a story of immigrants – from Mexico, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and India. And while that seems, in many cases, to be irrelevant, if you look closer, you will see how complicated and nuanced their relationships to others, their adopted home, and to their very selves, really are. So let the content in this introductory thread help prep you to keep an eye on the multiple levels you’ll see at work in this week’s stories. And again, take this as I intend it, not as a flood of tasks to overwhelm you, but a guidebook of content to spark your ideas and creativity.
Read and watch the links above. First try to just enjoy. Then choose THREE QUOTES and/or specific details that you find particularly compelling. I want to see AT LEAST TWO of the three options reflected (so you can do one from each or two from one and one from another). Then, for each of your three chosen quotes, write a SUBSTANTIVE AND POLISHED paragraph explaining why this struck you as important.
