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two ways to belong to america bharati
Jodiann
Professor Onkowo Emeka
English comp I
08 October 2013

In the story “two ways to belong to America” the author and narrator Bharati addressed an issue of images of immigrants in America, and what it truly means to belong to a country. In Bharati short story “two ways to belong to America” she talks and her and her sister experience as first time immigrants migrating from India to America. At their arrival to America they were similar in a lot of ways, appearance and attitudes-views and sentiments. They were both seeking degrees-Mira in child psychology and pre-school education, bharati went on to peruse a degree in creative writing. After they obtained their degree’s they were to return to India and marry, a man of their fathers choosing.
The second part of this plan the two sisters aborted –Mira, after successfully gaining her degree in child psychology and preschool education and Preferring to be set in her ways married a young Indian man pursuing his business administration degree at Wayne’s university. Bharati while obtaining her degree in creative writing married a fellow American student of Canadian heritage. Both of them then would be successfully married for thirty plus years and still maintain contact with each other; however, the narrator Bharati sees that as the only similarity that they have as immigrants coming from India to America.
Bharati being the more outgoing and open-minded sister of the two, choose to welcome as much change as a new continent could offer, obtaining her green card then later her citizenship. She welcomed the difficulties of marrying a man from a different culture, wanting all the challenges that were accustomed to adapting to the American culture. She moved around in to different states, and even went to live in husband family’s homeland-Canada. She wanted to set roots in the country she lived in, vote and make a difference in any way that she could. She simply wanted to feel like she belonged.
Mira

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