The Identity Chasing Process Of Indian Immigrants In Jhumpa Lahiri’s Short Stories

Indian-American writer Jhumpa Lahiri is a famous writer of contemporary American literature field.She has published five works so far,besides The Pulitzer Prize,she has won several important awards.In her short stories,Lahiri meticulously describes the changing process of the identity of Indian immigrants.She enshrines her multicultural outlook,diaspora experiences and cosmopolitan ideas into her works,meticulously depicting the transition of identification of Indian immigrants and fully showing the complexity of immigrant identity.This article uses a combination of textual reading and theoretical analysis,taking Jhumpa Lahiri’s short stories collection as the research object,with the help of identity-related theories,Homi Bhabha’s “hybridity theory” and cosmopolitanism,in order to explore the evolution of identity of Indian immigrants.This article is divided into three chapters:The first chapter analyzes the different identity choices taken by two different generations of Indian immigrants.The first generation of immigrants have deep feelings with India which is their home country.In the early stages of immigration,they use their ethnic culture to resist assimilation of American culture,by insisting on Indianess and building Indian diasporic communities.The second-generation immigrants feel shame of their ethnic identity when they are young.They love American culture and like building relationship with the white,trying their best to enter American mainstream society.The second chapter discusses the identity dilemma of Indian immigrants.Both generations of immigrants have been discriminated against by the white because of their race and cannot integrate into the mainstream society.What’s worse,Indian women who follow their husbands to move to America even do not have the opportunity to leave the family and merge into outside world.With time goes by,there is less and less connection between immigrants and India,therefore,they deeply feel a sense of loss of ethnic cultural root.The third chapter discusses the new identity-constructing process ofIndian immigrants.Suffering from identity crisis,the Indian immigrants begin to find balance between Indian and American cultures.They not only build a mixed identity of Indian-American in the fusion of these two cultures,but even get rid of the constraint of single cultural choice between India and America,keeping fluid identity through multicultural shuttle,finally becoming global citizens.Lahiri encloses her diaspora experience and identity demands into her works.Her short stories show the tortuous identity chasing process of Indian immigrants,highlighting the fluidity and inclusiveness of identity.She hopes that immigrants can transcend the boundaries of nations and countries,move among different cultures to gain international perspective and get real freedom among diverse cultures.