Tuesday, 28 March: Indian & Pakistani American Literature

Poetry reader: Cynthia Stone

Poem: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, “Restroom,” UA 21-23

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an award-winning author and poet. Her work is widely known, as she has been published in over 50 magazines, including The Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker, and her writing has been included in over 30 anthologies. Her works have been translated into 11 languages, including Dutch, Hebrew and Japanese.

She was born in India and lived there until 1976, until she was nineteen, at which point she left Calcutta and came to the United States. She continued her education in the field of English by receiving a Master's degree from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Divakaruni currently teaches in the nationally ranked Creative Writing program area at the Univ. of Houston and divides her time between Houston and Northern California. She serves on the board of Maitri in the Bay and on the Advisory Board of Asians against Domestic Abuse in Houston.

Books
Fiction
 Queen of Dreams
 The Conch Bearer
 Neela: Victory Song
 Vine of Desire
 The Unknown Errors
 of Our Lives
 Sister of My Heart
 The Mistress of Spices
 Arranged Marriage
 Poetry
 Leaving Yuba City
 Black Candle
 The Reason for
 Nasturtiums
 Anthologies
 California Uncovered

© 1995-2004 Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni: http://www.chitradivakaruni.com/

Poem

Divakaruni’s poem “The Restroom” Pg. 21-23

Objective 2. To chart variations and stages of the immigrant narrative

  2a. Basic stages of the Immigrant Narrative

·        Stage 1: Leave the Old World (“traditional societies” in Europe, Asia, or Latin America).

                        Memories of leaving her home and her child

·        Stage 2: Journey to the New World (here, the USA & modern culture)

                        The plane trip, customs, and waiting for her husband

·        Stage 3: Shock, resistance, exploitation, and discrimination (immigrant experience here overlaps with or resembles the minority experience)

                        Not knowing where to go or what to do, worry over her husband

  Objective 3. American Dream versus American Nightmare: 

                   Learning that her husband was shot in a store robbery, not only is she in a strange place, her husband is injured, and her livelihood in jeopardy

Questions:

1. Do you think that all immigrants have the same reactions that the lady in the poem has on traveling from to old world to the new?

2. What do you think her first impression of America and American’s are compared to her ‘safe’ homeland?

3. What do you think the ‘redness’ is? I.e. “I keep my eyes open so the redness won’t cover me” And “The redness is far now”.