In “Rhode Island,” Jhumpa Lahiri wrote about her life experience as an immigrant. Coming to Rhode Island as early as when she was three. Considering her hometown Rhode Island, she holds a different attitude towards this place from her parents. My emotional reactions identify more with her father, as I attend college in the U.S that is remote from where I was born and raised.
Lahiri’s mother achieves neither a sense of belonging nor identity in Rhode Island. When American mothers were lying and talking in bikinis, Lahiri’s mother who would get fully dressed and cook alone in the house. (Lahiri 105) One cannot treat this as a mere difference between people’s lifestyle but essentially a cultural distinction. It is this distinction that prevents her from getting prepared to live in the new environment. Feeling unsafe, she cannot obtain a sense of belonging, which makes her further isolated from the local community. For example, when she received hate notes from the local, she chose to “keep them to herself” (109) at first instead of seeking for help from the others.
Compared to the conflicts and struggles Lahiri’s mother faced, her father was more accustomed to the life in the U.S. When taking a first look at his situation, one will find that nearly each element in his life is satisfying to him. He had a pleasant job in the library; he was content with the living environment and climate; he even adopted both practical and spiritual ways of America to live like an original American. (107) With these scenes, it seems like Lahiri’s father kept a decent life in Rhode Island.
Although no conspicuous words prove he is not adaptive after immigrating to Rhode Island, he was nostalgia still. Despite that he had been living in Rhode Island for more than twenty-seven years, he still refuse to be buried there after passing away. (111) In other words, in his mind, Rhode Island is not the place where he would regard as home or the place he would rather stay forever. Thus, when he had referred Rhode Island as “paradise,” (107) Lahiri’s father, the “global traveler,” (107) is more likely to have commented from the view of a tourist rather than a citizen.
Reading through the story, I feel sympathetic and recall my own experience. Initially I thought Lahiri’s narrative includes too much of triviality. Gradually I understand that it is those pieces of fragment that form an integral person. I often think of my life in Nanjing after coming to the U.S for undergraduate study since last August. My five senses get active when I started recalling. Sometimes I saw the evenings I walked and talked with my mother on the street which is always busy near my home. There I heard kindergarten children giggling and singing in the dialect with which I am familiar. I smelt the fruit store whose owner used to test me arithmetic questions. These individual smell, sound and views have become part of me. I indulged in recollecting scenes while they are trivial to other people. Yet it is them that taught me to reach out to the world.
Lahiri’s mother achieves neither a sense of belonging nor identity in Rhode Island. When American mothers were lying and talking in bikinis, Lahiri’s mother who would get fully dressed and cook alone in the house. (Lahiri 105) One cannot treat this as a mere difference between people’s lifestyle but essentially a cultural distinction. It is this distinction that prevents her from getting prepared to live in the new environment. Feeling unsafe, she cannot obtain a sense of belonging, which makes her further isolated from the local community. For example, when she received hate notes from the local, she chose to “keep them to herself” (109) at first instead of seeking for help from the others.
Compared to the conflicts and struggles Lahiri’s mother faced, her father was more accustomed to the life in the U.S. When taking a first look at his situation, one will find that nearly each element in his life is satisfying to him. He had a pleasant job in the library; he was content with the living environment and climate; he even adopted both practical and spiritual ways of America to live like an original American. (107) With these scenes, it seems like Lahiri’s father kept a decent life in Rhode Island.
Although no conspicuous words prove he is not adaptive after immigrating to Rhode Island, he was nostalgia still. Despite that he had been living in Rhode Island for more than twenty-seven years, he still refuse to be buried there after passing away. (111) In other words, in his mind, Rhode Island is not the place where he would regard as home or the place he would rather stay forever. Thus, when he had referred Rhode Island as “paradise,” (107) Lahiri’s father, the “global traveler,” (107) is more likely to have commented from the view of a tourist rather than a citizen.
Reading through the story, I feel sympathetic and recall my own experience. Initially I thought Lahiri’s narrative includes too much of triviality. Gradually I understand that it is those pieces of fragment that form an integral person. I often think of my life in Nanjing after coming to the U.S for undergraduate study since last August. My five senses get active when I started recalling. Sometimes I saw the evenings I walked and talked with my mother on the street which is always busy near my home. There I heard kindergarten children giggling and singing in the dialect with which I am familiar. I smelt the fruit store whose owner used to test me arithmetic questions. These individual smell, sound and views have become part of me. I indulged in recollecting scenes while they are trivial to other people. Yet it is them that taught me to reach out to the world.