MIGRATION & DISBELONGING
INTRODUCTION
This website advances through the multifaceted stages of a migrant's journey: 'home', 'scattering', and 'diaspora.' Home represents the homeland of a migrant; scattering encompasses the bridging of a gap between the migrant's home and their destination; diaspora represents the migrant's destination.
During the semester, we have studied two books in depth, and this website exhibit connects the works to various themes and issues. Read on for summaries of the books, and click onto other pages to learn more about the process of immigration.
SCHIZOPHRENE
BHANU KAPIL
“And sometimes, as an immigrant presence in this country, I feel a complicated feeling that moves between contraction and the awareness of how much sky/sea text lies between my body and other bodies.”
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The novel Schizophrene by Bhanu Kapil navigates the trauma of migration and the movement of ideas in a post-Partition world from a second generation immigrant point of view. Kapil addresses issues of identity, gender, the meaning of “home” and feelings of belonging in a fragmented format, to mimic the traumatic memories associated with the South Asian Diaspora. Click here to learn more about Partition, Bhanu Kapil, and her profound book Schizophrene.
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THE GRAVE ON THE WALL
BRANDON SHIMODA
“Does this book end? Is there a sentence that closes it? Or does it keep being written and forgotten then written again, each time a reader opens it (the book) for the first time? I have never met this writer in person, and perhaps never will, but he has written a book that touches the bottom of my own soul.”
-Bhanu Kapil
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The book The Grave on the Wall by Brandon Shimoda is a memoir written in a fractured form, of the author himself discovering his own, as well as his cultural heritage through memories, history, and places. The novel slowly exposes the underlying ongoing racism experienced by Asian Americans, as he attempts to restore and understand his own contested citizenship and identity, while discovering his grandfather’s lifelong struggle. To learn more about the historical racism faced by Asians, Brandon Shimoda, and the novel The Grave on the Wall, click here:
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Hover and click to learn more about the stages of migration:
WORKS CITED
Books
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[A] Kapil, Bhanu. Schizophrene. Nightboat Books, 2011.
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[B] Shimoda, Brandon. The Grave on the Wall. City Lights Books, 2019.
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Home: Poverty
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[1] Ayukawa, M. (2010). Good Wives and Wise Mothers: Japanese Picture Brides in Early Twentieth-Century British Columbia. BC Studies: Women's History and Gender Studies, 105 & 106, 103-118. doi:https://doi.org/10.14288/bcs.v0i105/106.979
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Home: War & Conflict
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[1] Switzerland, United Nations Human Rights Council. (2016). Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2015 (pp. 2-3). United Nations Human Rights Council.
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[2] The New York Times. How Gang Violence Drives Migrants Out of El Salvador | The Dispatch. Youtube, uploaded by The New York Times, 06 Feb. 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oJB5QyC4vk
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Home: Society/Gender
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[1] Dalrymple, William. “The Great Divide; The violent legacy of the Indian Partition.” The New Yorker. 2015 3.
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[2] Shipway, Martin. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2008. PDF
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Scattering: Racism
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[1] Luibhéid, Eithne. “Immigration.” Keywords for American Cultural Studies, Second Edition, edited by Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler, 2nd ed., NYU Press, 2014, pp. 125–129. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1287j69.36. Accessed 21 July 2020.
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Scattering: Alienation
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[1] Karmakar, Chandrima. “The Conundrum of 'Home' in the Literature of the Indian Diaspora: An Interpretive Analysis.” Sociological Bulletin, vol. 64, no. 1, 2015, pp. 77–90. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26290721. Accessed 13 July 2020.
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[2] Kim, Heidi, editor. “Internment Camps.” Taken from the Paradise Isle: The Hoshida Family Story, by Franklin Odo, University Press of Colorado, 2015, pp. 73–82. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt163tckn.20. Accessed 13 July 2020.
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Diaspora: Assimilation
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[1] Xiaofei, Wang. “Movies Without Mercy: Race, War, and Images of Japanese People in American Films, 1942-1945.” , vol. 18, no. 1, 2011, pp. 11–36. , www.jstor.org/stable/23613118. Accessed 21 July 2020.
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Diaspora: Memory
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[1] Banwait, Kanika, and Kanika Banwait Kanika Banwait is a writer based in London. “An Apology to Our Daughters-in-Law: Patriarchal Family Dynamics in South Asian Households.” Brown Girl Magazine, 26 Jan. 2019, www.browngirlmagazine.com/2019/01/apology-to-our-daughters-in-law-patriarchal-family-dynamics/.
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[2] Pande, Amba. “Conceptualising Indian Diaspora: Diversities within a Common Identity.” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 48, no. 49, 2013, pp. 59–65. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24478375. Accessed 13 July 2020.