A Tornado Hitting the Homeland: Disturbing American Foundational Myths in Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine

Henriette-Juliane Seeliger

doi:10.3390/h9030112

Abstract

Historically, the United States has always been a country of immigration. Yet, in light of recent political events, a form of nativism and sedentarism is re-emerging that seeks to preserve what is generally perceived as essentially American: an ethnically white and male identity that has its origins in the foundational myths of the pastoral, the frontier, and the West. The American Midwest is where the allegedly “real” America lies: it is what Anthony D. Smith has termed an 2ethnoscape”: a landscape imbued with historical and cultural meaning that has come to represent true “Americanness”. In her 1989 novel Jasmine, Bharati Mukherjee uses the figure of Jasmine, an undocumented female immigrant from India, to disrupt this traditional trope of “the West” as the perceived location of American cultural identity. She liberates the land from its national, historical, and ethnic inscriptions by subverting the very foundational myths of the pastoral, the frontier, manifest destiny, virgin land, and the melting-pot, that are so crucial to the justification of this exclusive as well as exclusionary identity… This article analyzes the processes and mechanisms through which Mukherjee liberates the landscape: Firstly, she satirizes the ideal of the American pastoral and exposes the assumption of a stable, uniquely American landscape as purely imaginative. She then subverts the notion of the global city as the ideal location of immigrants, where “the other” can be safely contained outside the homeland and instead makes the Midwest ethnoscape the space where her protagonist uproots American national identity. Through her presence in the American heartland, Jasmine disturbs and challenges naturalized notions of America and constructs a new homeland that is open for all immigrants following her. Mukherjee thus shifts the perspective away from seeing the American homeland as a pre-existing place in need of defense, and proposes a fluid understanding of home that has acquired new relevance in light of recent political events.

Highlights

President Trump has declared his plans to build a wall on the Mexican border, for example, signed an executive order temporarily suspending entry for citizens of seven Muslim countries, and attempted to terminate the so-called “Dreamer” program, which protects the children of undocumented immigrants born in the U.S from deportation
Bharati Mukherjee’s novel Jasmine (1989), is not as yet among the novels to have been rediscovered. This is surprising given the fact that the book deals with the very fears right-wing populists stir: Jasmine, an undocumented immigrant from India, disrupts rural America and turns the lives of its inhabitants upside down, while the American-born inhabitants of the American heartland struggle to deal with the changes globalization is enforcing on them
The undocumented immigrant, seems the very embodiment of populist fears, as she disturbs through her very presence the supposed stability of the American homeland

Summary

Introduction

A major argument in Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign and a recurring theme in the first months of his presidency has been the immigration to the United States and how to keep unwanted people out of the country. In the wake of increasing public and political concern about. Through her presence in iconic spaces, such as the Florida coast, New York City, and the Midwest, Jasmine challenges traditional ideals of stability, permanence, and belonging She strips bare the land as the perceived location of cultural identity from its national, historical, and ethnic inscriptions and opens it up to minority presences. Through her disturbance of the American homeland, Jasmine metaphorically liberates the ideal of “Americanness” from its ethnic, religious, and gendered burden, forcing her readers to re-evaluate their ideas of a stable, permanent, and unchanging home and national identity—a task that seems overdue in the present age

From India to Iowa

A Tornado Shaking the Homeland

Conclusions