race and identity
... been known. When he writes that he had a city and a history to reclaim, he shows us that he is determined not to hide or cover up his identity, just because he want to fit in a certain place with certain people. He is trying to get those memories back by thinking about them, imagine how life was in India when he still lived there. A strong point here is alienation, how the narrator by feeling alienation by his own country prefers to create an imaginary memory instead of a live one. The narrator also writes how the Indian culture is good; well past along, very cultural, with Muslim people who eat pork in their culture. He shows us that loosing our heritage may be a reason for loosing also our religion and breaking tradition and therefore as an immigrant may result in alienation. The second story, Fraternity, written by Garrett Hongo, in 1995, talks about a Japanese boy who fell in love with a Portuguese girl named Regina. They both attend a bilingual school in which as he writes - we didn’t fraternize much across the races, though our school was supposed to be an experiment in integration, that shows us that racism is dominant. The story line follows the boy falling in love and willing to do anything for the loving little princesses, and sacrifice himself for the sake of love. On the other hand they could not see together in public because of their differentiation in race. So this shows us a point of segregation or in similarity with the story From Imaginary Homeland alienation. Racism’s roots lie deep within the foundation of our society. These roots undoubtedly are the source for many of racist groups and convert racism ideas found thought-out our society He gets beaten and destroyed both mentally and physically from deep hurting pain of hate. The story ends with the tragic separation between the two lovers and the pain that follows him through for quite some time. That shows us that racism is related with traditions, like the religion for the Indian narrator. Race and religion are part of our heritage those are ideas and traditions that are feed to us from our parents, community and environment. Both stories are written very clear as to where they want to hit. They both are written in first person, charting psychological state of protagonists. In addition they both are in a memoir format and narrator’s inners reflections are exposed. The only difference between these stories is that Fraternity talks about strong religion, people practicing with deep love and strong belief until one day they give up because of the racism. As for the story, From Imaginary Homeland the narrator talks more about his inner feeling when he went back in time, at his childhood to reclaim his heritage and is identity. These stories...