This week discussion dealt with ethnic and immigrant identities and examples of assimilation, diversity, the melting pot, and particularly Americanism. My point of interest and the thesis of this blog will focus on how Americans tend to view the rest of the world by analyzing the story written by Jhumpa Lahiri entitled Interpreter of Maladies.
I learned in my anthropology class last semester, that we as American citizens tend to exotify* everything that is different from our culture, everything from language, to their way of life, and in the story, the author beautifully expresses American thought. The character, Mrs. Das in the beginning of the story seemed disinterested and inattentive before and even during the tour, but she quickly changed her tune when she learned that Mr. Kapasi was an interpreter to the local doctor. As soon as Mrs. Das learned this she begin to exotify his job by saying, “But so romantic,” (50) where Mr. Kapasi thought of it simply as a job. I thought this point was unique, because in the United States, we have interpreters for hospitals, but the author makes it seem that Americans make a big deal about the littlest things. As if to say that the United States is the only country that has interpreters of medicine. The author makes it seem that Americans are all ethnocentric in view. Admittedly, most Americans are ethnocentric but I feel that as educated people we need to go beyond this point of view.
I do believe that the author is expressing the feelings of many immigrants, and I find myself being what I have just spoken out against. I have a fiancé from the Philippines, not a mail-order bride, but a person who I met on my travels, and when she started a piggery I was amazed that she wanted to do that, and I thought it was interesting and neat, although pigs and cows are quite common in my community.
This will conclude my thoughts of how we as Americans tend to exotify different cultures and a different way of life.
* note the word exotify is not a word in the dictionary, this is a word that Professor Shope anthropology teacher uses, so i too will use it.
1 comment:
You argument about the interpreter is unclear. Why would Mrs. Das consider the interpreter "romantic" if the US is the only country that has interpreters?
Your idea about exotifying other cultures is a good one, however, you did not develop this point, nor did you apply it to the text.
I"m not sure how your theme of exoticism relates to the story about your wife and your own relationship to the exotic.
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