Controversy of Citizenship in the Usa

Controversy of Citizenship in the USA

Bharati Mukherjee’s essay “Two Ways to Belong in America” is a true story based on her and her sister, Mira’s, real life experiences as immigrants moving from Calcutta, India, to the United States. Before the two had moved to the United States, Mukherjee and her sister were identical when it came to their own opinions and thoughts. This soon was to be changed, when Mukherjee chose to live the normal American life, which meant letting go her roots by marrying an American. On the other hand Mukeherjee’s sister, Mira, did the opposite; she married an Indian. In the USA, a new law was being enforced, which said that all legal immigrants must become U.S. citizens. This law brought disagreement between the two sisters. Mukherjee said, “I am an American citizen and she is not, I am moved that thousands of long-term residents are finally taking oath of citizenship, she is not” (263). Both sisters had divergent experiences in marriage and immigration issues. Becoming American citizen is everyone’s individual choice. It is difficult to adjust in between two different cultures, but once you are living in foreign country, you should assimilate that culture and obey that government rules besides with respect to your nation.

After college, instead of going back to their native land, Mukherjee and Mira were settled in the USA. They both married in a different way. Instead of marrying a man that her father approved of, Mukherjee decided to marry someone that was outside of her ethnic community and she married an American of Canadian parentage. She said “ By choosing a husband who was not my father’s selection, I was opting for fluidity, self-invention, blue jeans and T-shirts, and renouncing 3,000 years of caste-observation, ‘pure culture’ marriage in the Mukherji family” (264). After her marriage she struggled for cultural assimilation and acceptance. In 33 years of their marriage, Bharati and her husband lived in every part of North America. On the other hand, Mira married an Indian and made up her mind that she would not become an American citizen, in hopes that one day she would return back to her home country. Bharati noted, “After 36 years as a legal immigrant in this country, she clings passionately to her Indian citizenship and hopes to go home to India when she retires” (264). Now Mira lives in Detroit and works in the Southfield, Michigan, school system.

Mukherjee and Mira had different immigration experiences. Mukherjee describes their different experiences when she writes, “In one family, from two sisters alike as peas in a pod, there could not be a wider divergence of immigrant experience” (265). In particular, she describes their difference in terms of marrying America. Bharati Mukherjee not only married an American but also married an America; she “embraced the demotion from expatriate aristocrat to immigrant nobody, surrendering those thousands of years of ‘pure culture’ the saris, the delightfully accented English” (265). She accepted the government’s new law with excitement and joy, and she took the oath and became a US citizen. She said, “Having my green card meant I could visit any place in the world I wanted to and then come back to a job that’s satisfying and that I do very well” (265). Her sister, Mira, on the other hand, refused the oath of citizenship and decided not to give her Indian citizenship over to America. According to Mira’s belief that America had betrayed her by changing the rules mid-stream (according to Mira, these new immigration rules should just apply to new immigrants). For Mira, the correct way to respond to the government’s actions would be to disobey them until she and her husband were forced into becoming citizens. Instead, she took the peaceful way out of the situation and decided to become a citizen, later on when she retired, she goes to India where she will denounce her U.S. citizenship and become an Indian citizen once