Answering Questions Assigned

16. The stories in Unaccustomed Earth offer a moving, highly original perspective on the clash between family and cultural traditions and the search for individual identity. How does the sense of displacement felt by the older, immigrant generation affect their American-born children? What accommodations do the children make to their parents’ way of life? In trying to fit in with their American friends, do they sacrifice their connections to their heritage? In what ways are the challenges they face more complex than those of their parents?
The immigrants and the elders are not willing to give up their own identity and culture. They are not willing to embrace new (American) culture, and they are not willing to let their children to do so. The children think that their parents are old-schooled and they are not willing to talk to their parents about what they new things they encounter at school; as well, children view traditional Indian culture their parents brought with them as old-fashioned and strange, thus they are not willing to go back to India. By trying to fit in with their American friends, the Indian kids usually cover-up what they did to prevent their parents from knowing. Unlike their parents, the Indian children has to face the discrimination at school, the culture difference between school and home, and learn not to forget their own culture at the same time.

14. What does the reunion in Rome reveal about the ties that bind Hema and Kaushik despite their many years of separation? What does it illustrate about their attempts to escape from the past and their parents’ way of life? What do they come to realize about themselves and the plans they have made as the intimacy between them escalates?
The reunion in Rome reveals that both Hema and Kaushik are not able to forget each other and their friendship, despite many years of separation. Another thing the reunion reveals is that both Hema and Kaushik are not able to find a suitable partner in life. By doing what they do in Rome, they are trying a new style of life, a life their parents forbid them to have. As they stay in Rome and meet each other, they realize that their plans in life are not really what they want, like the way their parents planned their life.