The use of immigration history and the question of assimilation in Bharati Mukherjee’s “Orbiting”

Iwona Filipczak

doi:10.18290/rh.2015.63.11-12

Iwona Filipczak University of Zielona Góra

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rh.2015.63.11-12

Keywords: Asian American fiction; assimilation; immigration; the Dillingham Flaw

Abstract

The goal of this article is to discuss the use of history in Bharati Mukherjee’s short story “Orbiting” from the collection The Middleman and Other Stories (1988). It is argued that Mukherjee refers back to the controversies that accompanied Italian immigration to the US at the turn of the 20^th century in order to provide the background for the present day immigrants (the post-1965 wave), and challenge the view that their assimilation is impossible. The historical context of American attitudes towards the so called “controversial” European immigrants is provided. The essay makes also use of sociological concepts of the Dillingham Flaw (Parillo) and assimilation (Alba and Nee).

References

Alba, Richard, and Victor Nee. Remaking the American Mainstream. Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2003. Print.

Barone, Michael. The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again. Washington, DC: Regnery Press, 2001. Print.

Cardichi, Victoria. “‘Orbiting’: Bharati Mukherjee’s Kaleidoscope Vision.” MELUS 20. 4 (Winter 1995): 91-101. Print.

Carter-Sanborn, Kristin. “‘We Murder Who We Were’: Jasmine and the Violence of Identity.” American Literature 66. 3 (1994): 573–593. JSTOR. Web. 13 Feb. 2014.

Dinnerstein, Leonard and David M. Reimers. Ethnic Americans: A History of Immigration. New York: Columbia UP, 1999. Print.

Drake, Jennifer. “Looting American Culture: Bharati Mukherjee’s Immigrant Narratives.” Contemporary Literature 40.1 (Spring 1999): 60–84. Print.

Edwards, Bradley C. “Saying Yes to Opportunities: An Interview with Bharati Mukherjee.” Conversations with Bharati Mukherjee. Ed. Bradley C. Edwards. Jackson, MS: UP of Mississippi, 2009. 141–182. Print.

Gabriel, Sharmani Patricia. “‘Between Mosaic and Melting Pot’: Negotiating Multiculturalism and Cultural Citizenship in Bharati Mukherjee’s Narratives of Diaspora.” Postcolonial Text 1.2 (2005): n. pag. Web. 12 Feb 2015.

Gabriel, Sharmani Patricia.. “‘Routes of Identity’: in Conversation with Bharati Mukherjee.” ARIEL 34.4 (2003): 125–138. Questia. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.

Higham, John. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism 1860-1925. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1955. Print.

Mukherjee, Bharati. “American Dreamer.” Mother Jones January/February 1997. Web. 15 Feb. 2014.

Mukherjee, Bharati. “Beyond Multiculturalism: Surviving the Nineties.” Journal of Modern Literature 20. 1 (Summer 1996): 29-34. JSTOR. Web. 20 Nov. 2014.

Mukherjee, Bharati. “Immigrant Writing: Changing the Contours of a National Literature.” American Literary History 23. 3 (2011): 680-696. Project Muse. Web. 21 Nov. 2014.

Mukherjee, Bharati. “Orbiting.” The Middleman and Other Stories. New York: Grove Press, 1999. Print.

Muller, Gilbert H. New Strangers in Paradise: The Immigrant Experience and Contemporary American Fiction. Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 1999. Questia. Web. 13 Feb. 2015.

Nelson, Emmanuel S. Asian American Novelists: A Bio-bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000. Questia. Web. 1 Feb. 2015.

Nyman, Jopi. “Ethnosexual encounters in the fiction of Bharati Mukherjee.” Post-National Enquiries: Essays on Ethnic and Racial Border Crossings. Ed. Jopi Nyman. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009. 148–169.

Parillo, Vincent N. “Diversity in America: A Sociohistorical Analysis.” Sociological Forum 9.4 (1994): 523–545. JSTOR. Web. 20 July 2015.

Waters, Mary C., Reed Ueda, and Helen B. Marrow, eds. The New Americans: A Guide to Immigration Since 1965. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007.