The Importance of Returning to One’s Roots: An Illusory Concept- Sankalp Malhotra

I was reading the Washington Post a few days ago and I came across an article entitled, “To Africa, for Culture and Credits.” The sub-heading read, “U.S. born students are going back to their family roots.” Essentially, first generation Nigerian immigrant parents are sending their American-born children to study in International schools in Nigeria in order to teach them about their origins, to build their connection to the African continent as a whole, and to give them “some perspective about life in America.” A central idea emphasized by the article is that many of the children complain of being teased in their American schools because of their differences in appearance, accent, and overall culture. The more I thought about this article, the more it began to agitate me. Not only was the concept of returning to one’s “roots” to find answers about the fundamental question “Who am I?” troublesome, but also that thinking about the article brought me back to Aimee Liu’s “masterpiece,” Face- a book that was so perplexing that I vowed I would never seriously dwell on it again.

Nevertheless, the novel seems to indicate, as the article does, that those brought up in multi-racial, multi-cultural houses can find the answers to their qualms regarding self-identity by returning to where they are from. The “where” is different for everyone, but the line of self-doubt and the journeys are portrayed as the same. For the Nigerian children, who have been largely motivated by their parents’ desires, the journey leads to Africa. For Maibelle, the protagonist of Liu’s novel, the journey pushes her to Chinatown in New York. Although the stories of Maibelle and the African children are different (Maibelle was a mixed race individual brought up in Chinatown, while the Nigerian kids growing up in a bicultural environment, have only been raised hearing about Nigeria from their parents), the societal narrative of the search for identity ties both of the set of circumstances together.

I firmly believe after reading Liu’s novel and the Washington Post article that the idea that it is necessary to “return to one’s roots to define one’s identity” and “find answers” has been overplayed by society; it is largely exaggerated and primarily an illusory construct, similar to race. Maibelle did not learn to deal with her many issues (including her identity crisis) by going to Chinatown. Many other integral events took place by which she was able to reconcile her internal and external “affairs” (no pun intended). She was pushed towards Chinatown to find answers by people around her, including Tommy “Tai” Wah, just as the Nigerian kids are being told by their parents to find answers in Nigeria. I do not believe that the Nigerian children will find answers regarding their identity, and more importantly the answers to the conundrum of how others view them, by flying all the way to Africa- my personal experiences substantiate this contention.

Yet, Liu’s novel, an archetypal representation of racially-motivated books that America enjoys reading, places Maibelle’s trip to Chinatown at the center of the plot development. It takes the Jade Maiden half of the book to decide whether or not she has the courage to return to the place of her origin- and this is precisely the journey that readers want her to take. There is a constant feeling for the reader that Maibelle may find the cure for her numerous problems (which initially seem like quirks) in Chinatown. The book’s preview on the cover alludes to this type of resolution as well: “Lured by inner needs…[Maibelle] returns to the community and family she left behind…to strip away layers of illusion to expose the bare bones of her life-stark, dangerous, and shimmering with painful truth.” The preview makes it seem as if the author desires for the reader to see the connection between Maibelle’s journey to Chinatown and her ability at the end of the novel to find peace with herself and the circumstances she continues to face.

The facts of the novel, however, paint a very different picture. Mai Mai is pushed into Chinatown by Tai who states in his first letter that Uncle Li, a man who could not be illustrated as any more susceptible to the notion of returning home, always thought she would have to return (page 1). The fact that her decision to go back to Chinatown is influenced by others shows how prevalent this idea of returning to one’s origins (to find answers) truly is. Nevertheless, Maibelle does not sort out her crises by visiting Chinatown, but rather through a very different series of events. For instance, her father’s confessions near the time of his death help her to understand not only why she was brought up in Chinatown, but also the many demons that have plagued her enigmatic, hermit-like dad.

The “climax” of the book which comes with the revelation of Maibelle’s rape that occurred in Chinatown also has very little to do with her trip back to her old home. She doesn’t remember this memory that she buried deep inside of her by re-visiting Chinatown, but she is pushed into re-living it by her sister. Neither she nor her sister even mentions her decision to return to Chinatown with Tai (p. 313-317). Though the inhibitions that she had with going to Chinatown again are explained by her trauma from the rape, she does not find her “answers” or “healing” by going back. It can be argued that her developed love for Tommy is the reason she is able to let go of her past suffering.

After all, her inability to let go of Johnny, an obstacle that she faced for her entire life, also had no connection with returning to Chinatown. Upon his death, her notion of an attractive man was shaped by her image of Johnny. She purposefully slept with men with blonde hair and blue eyes. She let go of men like Jed Miffet and other previous lovers who fit the profile of Johnny when she met Tai and realized that he is not a bad person. She also begins to see that Tai is nothing like the Chinese men who raped her, though she initially compares his looks with Winston Chang, a fellow-conspirator of the Dragonflies. Although Tai and Maibelle’s actual meeting is linked to Chinatown, their most intimate moments of connection occurred outside of the context of Chinatown (for instance, in Tai’s house making Chinese food).

In essence, Maibelle’s trip to Chinatown has nothing to do with her growth as a person in the novel. The sensationalist author has jumped onto the bandwagon of the societal narrative that says if a person returns to the place of her “origin,” she will find answers about her identity and her most serious crises. There is, however, a fundamental difference between causality and parallelism. Maibelle’s ability to finally deal with her crises was not caused by her trip to Chinatown; rather, her trip to Chinatown occurred in same time-frame as the point in the book where she began to sort out her internal conflicts.

Through my own “soul searching,” which has more effectively occurred within the confines of my dorm room rather than in India (the place of my origin), I have come to believe that one must live in the present, and define oneself in the context of the present; race, ethnic identity, origin are not important in the “big picture.” Society has made these ideas important and one manifestation of this idea (other than Aimee Liu’s book) is the Washington Post article about the Nigerian children. Their situation correlates directly to the situation I faced when I first came to the U.S. as a first generation immigrant. I was also teased by my American classmates and my parents also gave me mixed messages as to how to deal with the “culture shock.”

They said I should continue to take my Indian food to school (despite the fact that kids made fun of what I ate) and be proud of who I was. Simultaneously, they also asserted that I should learn to adapt to my new surroundings, so they bought me the latest brands of clothing that kids were wearing in school. It seemed to me (at that time) that they were asking me to become American by adapting and also remain Indian by resisting change. As a fourth grader, I was perplexed. Because I confessed my confusion to my parents, they decided to take me to India.

I was born in New Delhi, India but when I was just two years old, my father got a job in Papua New Guinea and we immediately moved abroad. My younger brother was born on that tropical island, and seven years later, we decided to move to the United States. Both sides of my extended family-grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins- still live in India. Just within a year of living in the U.S., my family decided to visit India for a month.

I suppose my parents thought I would come to certain life-changing, self-defining conclusions in India that would help answer my questions about my identity. Unfortunately, there is not much one can gain by going from house to house of relatives for one month; wrapped up in this constancy, I found myself not only seeing the absurdity of the “family traditions” but I also found that I felt no connection to my homeland by hearing my relatives talk about how unhealthy my brother and me were: “You don’t feed them enough,” they said to my parents. “How can you live in America and have kids that look as malnourished as Ethiopians?”

In the end, I returned to America with the simple conclusion: As Henry says in Face, “life is too short to have an identity crisis.” I began to believe that. I knew that I had to live in the present, not in the world of my origins. I identified my problem of not fitting into American society and began to fully adapt to my new surroundings. For instance, I began by eating food from the school cafeterias. I remedied my problems myself having seen the extent to which my parents’ attempted remedy had failed. Going to visit the land of my origin may have given me a concrete representation of my nationality, but it did not fix my problem of fitting in within American Society, just as Maibelle’s trip into Chinatown didn’t “fix” her major problems. This is also why I believe that the Nigerian children will never find the answers they seek in Africa. Their issues with adapting to American society can never be fixed by returning to the place of their origin, though their parents and the rest of society believe this to be true. As Carrie Latet said, “junk mail, junk food, our society is full of junk living, period.” It seems that society continues to perpetuate junk ideas as well.

The Washington Post Article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/22/AR2007092200582.html?hpid=topnews