American Dreamer DJ

American Dreamer – DB 1

PASSAGES FROM ARTICLES & ESSAYS: Choose 3-5 passages from the reading assignment and write them below.
YOUR RESPONSE TO THE PASSAGES – Write your thoughts about the passage or why you found it interesting including questions, comments, reflections, ideas.
Pg.50, I am a naturalized U.S citizen, which means that, unlike native-born citizens, I had to prove to the U.S government that I merited citizenship. Which I didn’t have to was that I desired “America,” which to me is the stage for the drama of self-transformation.

Pg.51, My identity was viscerally connected with my ancestral soil and genealogy. I was who I was because I was Dr. Sudhir Lal Mukhejee’s daughter, because I was a Hindu Brahmin, because I was Bengali-speaking, and because my desh – the Bengali word for homeland – was an East Bengal village called Faridpur.

Pg. 51, 52 The years in Canada were particularly harsh. Canada is a country that officially, and proudly, resists cultural fusion. For all its rhetoric about a cultural “mosaic,” Canada refuses to renovate its national self-image to include its changing complexion. Canadian official rhetoric designated me as one of the “visible minority” who, even though I speak the Canadian language of English and French, was straining “the absorptive capacity” of Canada. Canadians of color were routinely treated as “not real” Canadians.

In this passage, the author describes what the meaning of “American” is and how much she wants to be an American. The word “American” does not means the country of United States of America. It means how great of being an American and what people hopes and expects from this country. U.S is a country who regarded as a country of promise land that mean where anything was possible and becomes whatever they want to be and not being limited. Because of that reason Mukherjee went back to U.S and naturalizes a citizen of America.

In this passage, Mukherjee describes how her life in India. The difference with America is it is very limited and everything was related. You can tell her religion, ethnic group and the language she speaks by her name and her homeland. She speaks Bengali because she is from Faridpur village and because from that village, she is Bengali and her religion is Hinduism. There are different cultures and races and ethnic groups in U.S, but they all speak the same language; English, and have the same equality and rights of U.S citizen.

In this passage, the author describes the way Canada government treated to the people who become Canadian by naturalization. The government of Canada opposes cultural mixture. Although Mukherjee speaks the same languages, Canadian look her as “visible minority” and treated her as “not real” Canadian. In the example of terrorist bombed the plane, the prime minister of Canada called the prime minister of India and expressed the sympathetic sorrow for India’s loss. These people were Canadian but the government didn’t treat them as Canadian because they are originated from India. Mukherjee felt she was an outsider because of race-related harassments in Canada. She knows that she can never be treated the same as the native-born Canadian if she lives at there, so Mukherjee decides to move back to U.S.