Exploring the Identity of First and Second-Generation Bengali Diaspora in the United States - A Personal Account

Exploring the Identity of First and Second-Generation Bengali Diaspora in the United States - A Personal Account

Stuart Hall once said, “the diaspora identities are constantly producing and reproducing themselves and becoming new through transformation and difference.” The article A Personal Narrative: Reviewing the Identity of First and Second-Gen-eration Bengali Diaspora in the United States will discuss the issue of culture & identity in the lives of the Indian/ Bengali diaspora in the United States. It is important for us to understand that the locations in which diasporas live are fundamental for the understanding of diasporic constructions of the homeland and self-identity. This chapter will discuss how culture and identity form a “contact zone,” (A Sense of Belonging and Who Belongs to Diaspora) where the emigrants experience identity issues and are also forced to adjust their cultural practices to those of the hostlands. Consequently, their emigrant culture becomes a hybrid, and a kind of cultural hybrid and Indo-American hovering goes on and those results in the need for cultural mediation or translation. Next, the chapter will discuss how the first-generation immigrants transmit the cul-tural patterns of their native countries to their U.S.-born children (A Home Away from Home and A Second-generation Banglamerican Perspectives), while the latter translates the American cultural patterns to their parents, thereby examining the complexities and the relationship dynamics that either hinder or promote the well-being of the first and the second generations. Finally, the chapter will explain (When does a Place of Residence become Home) and conclude how the second generations adapt to the culture of the hostlands and play the role of cultural translators interchangeably between the adopted culture and the culture of the motherland.