Two Ways to Belong in America --- Bharati Mukherjee

 

Two Ways to Belong in America

--- Bharati Mukherjee

This is a tale of two sisters from Calcutta, Mira and Bharati, who have lived in the US for some thirty-five years, but who find themselves on different sides in the current debate over the status of immigrants.

 

"Two Ways to Belong in America" tells the story of an Indian woman and her sister immigrating to the United States. Their plan was to stay in America for two years, earn their degrees, then return home to India to marry grooms chosen by their father. However, things did not go as planned. The sister, Mira, who studied to become a teacher, married an Indian man earning his business degree and has remained in the states for years, though she wishes to return to India to retire. The author, Bharati Mukherjee, married an American-Canadian man and has lived in every part of North America. She celebrates the word "mongrelization", a term used to describe the subjects of the books she writes. Though Mukherjee and her sister are still close, they both have diverging opinions on the topic of Americanization and what it means to be an American. Mukherjee's sister feels that she is still attached to India in an indescribable way that she does not feel for America. Mukherjee, however, embraces jeans and the variety of music American has to offer.

​This story shows the parallelism between what different immigrants think of moving to the United States from their home country. Some embrace the change and are excited to adopt new cultures, while others are scared and wish to hang on to their culture. However, there are also a few who do not know where they belong; they have embraced enough American culture, but still have some connection to their home culture as well. To Mukherjee, she needs to "put roots down, to vote and make the difference that [she] can. The price that the immigrant willingly pays, and that the exile avoids, is the trauma of self-transformation." She believes that she needs to, metaphorically, plant her feet on the ground, and find her true home.