When first reading Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahirie it was difficult for me to relate. I obviously couldn’t read from the position of ethnic background, and since many of the stories had female driven characters I couldn’t use that as my position either. So, the lens I tended to wear while reading was really one of family. For instance I was not able to relate to the Indian culture in the first short story Unaccustomed Earth, but I was able to relate a bit to the identity and location in life of the character Ruma. Now connecting to her identity was a bit of a stretch because one I am not a female/daughter, and two I am not a parent, but I am in that location in life where I am partnered and am dealing with aging parents. Jones states in her book, “through opening ourselves to learn from others with whom we may share little understanding.” (Jones, 2006) I noticed that I began to learn a bit about the Indian culture by reading some of these short stories. I couldn’t necessarily relate, but I definitely began to develop some insight.
While reading the assigned chapters in Jones book, the running question that plagued me throughout was, “If I didn’t grow up poor, like Jones had, how can I tap into my students that are and try to relate to them?” The common thinking I did while I was reading Unaccustomed Earth was trying to put myself in the characters’ shoes in regard to feelings. How would I feel if I were in the situation regardless of culture? This made me realize how important giving my students opportunities to write about their lives is. I can learn and empathize with their stories, just as I am able to do with Jhumpa Lahiri’s work. Just like Jones says, “We are faced with such opportunity for learning each day; novels and persuasive essays in the form of our students, their families, and the communities from where they come…materials for learning about the world more broadly. (Jones, 2006) I definitely don’t think I have taken enough time to really research my students’ world through their work. How silly, especially with all of the work we do in writing workshop with personal narrative.
I also believe sharing the experiences I have been having with the book Unaccustomed Earth would be quite beneficial for my students; explicitly modeling for them how even though I can’t relate to the Indian culture and how they grow up in this country, I can relate to the fact that Ruma is torn on whether to ask her widowed father to come live with her and her family or not. It is a thought that sticks in the back of my mind as my parents, who live in close proximity to me, are aging and having troubles and both of my older sisters live far way. Responsibility for them seems to weight heavily on my shoulders. I can also tell them that I may not understand the familial and friend relationships in the Indian culture, such as sleeping with your children till they are married, but I can relate to characters experiences such as the girl in the short story Once in a Lifetime. In the beginning she has close family friends who her family sees on a regular basis, and then for reasons unknown to her that particular family disappears from her life. I can recall different friends of my parents who spent great deals of time with us that they almost felt like family, and then mysteriously they were no longer part of us.
Even though I feel a huge disconnect with the book Unaccustomed Earth I have a strong enough sense of my own identity that I can step out of it for a little while to explore a completely different one. I fear that one of the problems with our ‘poor’ socio-economic students is that they don’t have a strong sense of their own identity, so how can they even begin to explore another’s without the knowledge of their own? I almost feel like our poor students are lost because they don’t feel poor or privileged. As Jones says the media, which is a huge influence in our society, is feeding this problem. “Children living in poverty can distance themselves from the stigma of being poor…Television images, advertisements, children’s books, and media in general do not reflect the realities of working-poor children. “ (Jones, 2006) This has been a small window for me into looking at the lives of the various social classes in my classroom and how to try and begin to meet their needs. Analyzing my experiences with books like Unaccustomed Earth is just a small start to understanding how to try and help these students in a better way.
Works Cited
Jones, S. (2006). Girls, social class, and literacy: What teachers can do to make a
difference. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Lahiri, J. (2008). Unaccustomed earth. New York: Random House, Inc.
