Two Ways to Belong in America Summary

Author Profile: Bharati Mukherjee

Bharati Mukherjee was born in 1940 and raised in Calcutta, India. She immigrated to the United States in 1961, earning an M.F.A. and a Ph.D. in literature. She is the author of novels such as Tiger’s Daughter (1972), Jasmine (1989), Desirable Daughters (2002), and The Tree Bride (2004), as well as the collection The Middleman and Other Stories (1988). She is a professor emerita at the University of California, Berkeley.

Context and Core Conflict

The essay ‐‐ ‘Two Ways to Belong in America’ ‐‐ originally appeared in the New York Times. It addresses a 1990s congressional movement to revoke government benefits from resident aliens. The narrative centers on two sisters from Calcutta, Mira and Bharati, who have both lived in the United States for approximately 35 years but maintain fundamentally different views on American citizenship and identity.

The Sisters' Initial Trajectories

• Mira arrived in Detroit in 1960 to study child psychology and pre-school education.
• Bharati followed in 1961 to study creative writing at the University of Iowa.
• Both initially intended to return to India to marry grooms chosen by their father.
• Mira married an Indian student in 1962 at Wayne State University and secured a green card.
• Bharati married an American fellow student in 1963 in Iowa City, bypassing the race-related "quota" system of the time.

Mira's Identity: The Expatriate

Mira has lived in Detroit for 36 years, working in the Southfield, Mich., school system. She maintains Indian citizenship and intends to return to India upon retirement. She preserves her original culture, appearance, and social structures, viewing her relationship with America as a pragmatic contract rather than a personal transformation. She is a voice for legal immigrants who stay rooted in their ancestral culture while providing professional service and paying taxes.

Bharati's Identity: The Immigrant

Bharati chose political and cultural assimilation. She identifies as an American citizen and celebrates "cultural and psychological ‘mongrelization.’" By choosing her own husband and adopting American lifestyle markers like blue jeans, she renounced 3,000 years of caste-observant culture. She considers self-transformation the price of belonging to her adopted community, having previously felt the sting of exclusion during her time in Canada following the government's ‘Green Paper’ on immigration.

Questions & Discussion

Dialogue Regarding Immigration Legislation:

Mira expressed intense anger over proposed laws targeting legal immigrants. ‘I feel used,’ she stated. ‘I feel manipulated and discarded. This is such an unfair way to treat a person who was invited to stay and work here because of her talent.’

Reaction to Potential Citizenship:

When asked if she would become a citizen to protect her benefits, Mira replied: ‘If America wants to play the manipulative game, I’ll play it, too. I’ll become a U.S. citizen for now, then change back to India when I’m ready to go home.’

Conclusion: Immigrant vs. Exile

The essay concludes by distinguishing the immigrant from the exile/expatriate. The immigrant (Bharati) pays the price of the "trauma of self-transformation" to gain a voice and vote in a new society. The exile (Mira) avoids that trauma by maintaining a static original identity, finding themself at odds with the shifting political landscape of their host country.