Asian Diaspora Essay -- English Literature

Asian DiasporaAsian diaspora, or the personal and cultural implications of release unitarys homeland, is a central and reaccuring theme for Asian Americanwriters. Diaspora is Greek for the scattering of seeds(http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora), and its ancient denotationhas taken figurative meaning today as a feeling of seperation anddetachment. In some(prenominal) Fae Myenne Ngs Bone and Chitra BanerjeeDivakarunis Leaving Yuba City, a thematic thread of scatteredparts, outsiderness, and otherness link the characters in each, aswell as the two seperate works, together. This diaspora affects eachgeneration of immigrants in a slighly different, but no lesssignficant, way. As an aspect of diasora, W.E.B. DuBoiss notion ofdouble mind in The Souls of Black Folk, takes the shape ofa personal duality for the characters in Bone and Leaving Yuba City. Their lives looking done DuBoiss veil creates personal strugglein the characters relationship with America, maintaining two uniquecultur al identities simultaneously. The characters in Ngs novel Bone work to conceive a third identity,one that maintains old traditions while existence Americanized. Thisstuggle is not exclusive to the first generation Chinese immigrants,Leon and Mah, but has profoundly impacted their American raisedchildren, Leila, Nina, and Ona. However, the consequences of thisconflict is different between the generations. Leon cannot settleinto one place but is suddenly here, suddenly gone (54). Leonsstray jobs are often on a ship, and Leila concludes that the draw ofthe hollow and still center of the nautical for him is completion(150). The cause of Leons absense, or vacancy of personal wholeness,is his Chinese self trying to chan... ...haracters in Leaving Yuba City and Bone are connected throughcommon seperation from their homeland, or dual selves seen in allgenerations. This common diaspora creates a unique and painful familydynamic for the Leong family their incompleteness binds themtogether. For Sushma in Leaving Yuba City, she does not feelseperation from homeland, but lives denying a fundamental part ofherself, which is much like a homeland. Their is an incongruance orseperation between the person others can see, and the person shereally is. Sushma personifies DuBoiss veil. An revolutionary view ofdiaspora is The Maimed Dancing Men, having ghost limbs, and beingphysically incomplete. Ng and Divakaruni portray the same desperateand painful feelings that come with a seperation from both yourhomeland, and self, showing these two are inseperable and fundamentalto ones wholeness.