Why Must My Cultural Background Be SO Boring?

As you know I am in a University Writing class here at GW, and this week we started something new. We were given a healthy dose of readings to do. Usually when I am assigned readings for a class my mind splits the readings into three sections… 1. BS readings – My mind tells me, “Use the time you would spend reading this on something more useful… like a nap.” 2. Slightly useful readings – Mind says, “Laura, you might want to graze this over while watching Friends, pick out an intelligent point to bring up in class so you look smart.” 3. Necessary readings – Brain exclaims, “Get your ass to the library and read the damn things… I don’t care if you don’t like it… you’re going to make yourself like it… then grab some ice cream after, I’m hungry.” So, as you may have guessed, my readings for this week were in fact “necessary” which is fine by me… I actually respect this class and the professor quite a bit because she doesn’t give out pointless crap just for the fun of it (btw. Just for the fun of it? What, honestly is done “just for the fun of it…” lame.) Anyway, all of our readings lead up to something. This week our lovely selection of readings will serve as supplements to our next literary analysis paper (oh boy… more fun than a barrel of monkeys… which, unfortunately for the paper’s sake, aren’t really that much fun.) Ok, so, on to my point (which really is something I never achieve… but I promise I do have one… if you read between the lines.) This week we read some fine essays by Sara Suleri and Santha Rama Rau; we read their stories Meatless Days and Gifts of Passage.

Meatless Days was a massive metaphor with food as the symbol. A young girl told her story of growing up with both Pakistani and Welch roots. She explained her struggle of wanting to keep both cultures as part of herself, and she described these struggles with food metaphors. While the idea of food metaphors seems quite odd upon the first glance, it is actually quite affective. All of the food stories actually perfectly describe her encounters with people over the years.

Gifts of Passage was the other story, which I must say was my favorite of the two. It was such a good story! Her family was a very prominent one in the Indian society; her father was in the Indian Civil Service and later was an Ambassador, so they were constantly moving. The story starts with her starting at a new school with the British children. During this part of the book we see her struggle with wanting to hold on to her Indian heritage while also wanting to fit in. It later goes into her listening to stories about ghosts from her grandfather and ultimately ends with her falling in love with their gardener who was a nationalist. So the story deals a lot with identity and sticking to her Indian culture while still trying to please herself and her family.

Both of these stories deal a lot with culture and true identity. I love reading articles like this because I am so fascinated by other cultures and their way of life. As a boring white kid from Minnesota, there is no way for me to empathize with these women’s stories, but I definitely sympathize and respect everything they talk about. But the common issue I saw between these two stories was definitely the struggle to find their true identity.

In Meatless Days she is half Pakistani, half Welch, so she struggles in knowing which cultural path to follow. In relation to my life (I’m half South Minnesotan – half 15minutes east of there Minnesotan) I can’t empathize, but I have often wondered what life would be like if I married outside my cultural race. While I am extremely attracted to men of African decent, I’m not sure that I have the strength to try to break the cultural gap and give up my way of life to try to compromise with a different way. I think I am being very selfish in this mindset, but at least I’m honest. Suleri’s challenge with this is a very interesting one to read about, she showed a lot of courage in her story and is a truly determined young woman. I admired her a lot for making it work and for holding on to each part of herself.

In Gifts of Passage Rama Rau was struggling with the balance between cultures in a different way. She was an Indian girl living in a British world. Finding the balance between keeping her own cultural values and trying to accommodate to her surroundings was a truly difficult battle for Rama Rau. I must put on record that I am madly in love with diversity; it is one of the main reasons why I am here at GW, so I really enjoyed reading this passage. It always breaks my heart when I hear stories of discrimination. So, naturally I nearly cried when I read about her being discriminated against in school (I’m a big softy too.) But I thought her desire to hold on to her heritage and her customs was quite admirable. There are so many people in this world living away from their home country, and I thought it was great to hear from a personal perspective what it is like trying to hold on to your cultural beliefs.

As you can see I really got into these readings… I’m not always so good at seeing the “big picture” of stories, but from what I gathered these excerpts were great! I’m glad my mind told me to get my tush on over to the library, well worth it. Although, the one downfall of these readings was that in the end I left the table feeling bad about myself. I complain about stupid shit all the time… what for? So many people have been through so much more (read When Heaven and Earth Change Places) and they don’t even complain… they just tell their beautiful stories of struggles and accomplishments. No more complaining for me. Although, one last complaint… I wish I had more than just Minnesotan in me… I feel so boring. I’ll work on that.

Until next time… read some, laugh some, and go find your biological roots.