Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 09:25:29 -0700 (MST)
From: AMIT K GHOSH   <amit-AT-utep.edu>
Subject: Re: Mukherjee and multiculturalism


Is it possible that a multiculturist can be defined as someone who is able 
to articulate the odd co-existance of subcultures within cultures? I'm
specifically talking of Mr. Wallia's comment on Bharati Mukherjee.


This same multiculturist on a prudent and political level may believe in
assimilation in immigrant nations like US and Canada. She may even preach
it. Yet her own experience and hence her stories speak of that duality
which may over time become a part of the romantic past. 

Children of immigrants need to wake up and seek her advice. Staying
outside the fray may be ok for the 1st gen, not for the 2nd and 3rd.
That's called self-marginalization.

Hence multiculturism and assimilation aren't necessarily contradictory.
They are simply achieving two different objectives.

any comments are welcome

amit

On Wed, 14 Jan 1998, C. J. S. Wallia wrote:

> 
> 
> John Hoppe is right. Mukherjee described as a multiculturist astonished
> me.
> 
> She is an avowed assimilationist.
> 
>  I have interviewed her twice on this matter. 
> 
> Interestingly, she noted the irony of V.S. Naipaul's attempt to
> assimilate 
> 
> as an Englishman with his"skin the color of chocolate."
> 
> <fontfamily><param>Times</param>-------------------------------------------------------------------	
> 
> </fontfamily>C. J. S. Wallia,  Ph.D.
> 
> Publisher/Editor
> 
> IndiaStar: A Literary-Art Magazine
> 
> http://www.indiastar.com
> 
> Phone and Fax: (510) 848-8200 
> 
> P.O. Box 5582, Berkeley, CA 94705, U.S.A.
> 
> <fontfamily><param>Times</param>----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> </fontfamily>>Mukherjee a "multiculturalist"? Definitely not; at least
> she explicitly
> 
> >rejects the term in a 1994 op-ed in the Des Moines register called
> "Beyond
> 
> >Multiculturalism," where she wrote: "Multiculturalism emphasizes the
> 
> >differences between racial heritages. This emphasis on the differences
> has
> 
> >too often led to the dehumanization of the different. And
> dehumanization
> 
> >leads to discrimination. And discrimination can ultimately lead to
> 
> >genocide."
> 
> >
> 
> >Mukherjee's work generally emphasizes the need to free oneself from
> 
> >cultural or other fixed identities, to be almost infinitely amorphous,
> a
> 
> >position that is hardly "multicultural," at least according to my
> 
> >understanding of an admittedly fuzzy term. I wonder if the term still
> has
> 
> >any meaning, or whether, like "politically correct" or it has simply
> become
> 
> >a buzzword.
> 
> >
> 
> >In any case, I think Fred Pfeil's scathing read of Mukherjee's
> ultimate
> 
> >political conservatism is dead right. He says her stories "let
> specific
> 
> >conflicts dissolve into universal complicity, lift off from the
> 
> >determinations of the social, float up to a mirrored dance floor in a
> 
> >heaven of in-difference in which otherness and identity have merged."
> 
> >
> 
> >John Hoppe
> 
> >
> 
> >
> 
> >>I wonder whether people are just tired of always discussing Bharati
> Mukherjee,
> 
> >>as if she is the be all and end of all of South Asian writing in the
> broad
> 
> >>'diaspora'. Her seemingly wholesale acceptance of what passes for
> 
> >>"multiculturalism" is also rather irritating. I can't remember what
> the
> 
> >>comments were on the article in (I believe) Mother Jones accompanied
> by a
> 
> >>picture of her wearing a U.S. flag as a sari...
> 
> >>     --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 
> >
> 
> >
> 
> >
> 
> >
> 
> >     --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> <fontfamily><param>Times</param>-------------------------------------------------------------------	
> 
> </fontfamily>C. J. S. Wallia,  Ph.D.
> 
> Publisher/Editor
> 
> IndiaStar: A Literary-Art Magazine
> 
> http://www.indiastar.com
> 
> Phone and Fax: (510) 848-8200 
> 
> P.O. Box 5582, Berkeley, CA 94705, U.S.A.
> 
> <fontfamily><param>Times</param>----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> </fontfamily>
> 
> 
> 
>      --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 



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