“The Immigrant” vs. “The Exile”:

            In “Two Ways to Belong in America”, Bharati Mukherjee focuses on the varying reactions to America and the American lifestyle by immigrants. Mukherjee, an Indian immigrant herself, uses the views of her immigrant sister Mira and herself to show the two different approaches to living in America an immigrant can have. Mukherjee establishes in her title “Two Ways to Belong in America” (280), that there are two ways to approach American culture, however, she emphasizes why she believes her approach, the approach of adapting the American culture, works better than the approach of living as just an “expatriate Indian” (283). Through techniques such as metaphors, comparison, and contrast, Mukherjee effectively presents the different sides of an immigrant experience while further detailing her own experiences.

            Throughout the essay, Mukherjee uses the similarities and differences between her sister and herself to accent the divide between immigrants on how to adapt to America. Using the experiences of two sisters is especially effective as it establishes how differing immigration experiences can instill different views of the country for even two people who started out with identical beliefs. Mukherjee explains how initially both her sister and her dreams were almost identical as they both planned to “endure our two years in America, secure our degrees, then return to India to marry the grooms of our father’s choosing” (280). She then concentrates how their paths began to differ as she explains, “we probably pitied one another. She, for the lack of structure in my life, the erasure of Indianness…I for the narrowness of her perspective”(281). By first establishing the sisters’ similar dreams and then contrasting their future ideals, Mukherjee shows how drastically immigrant beliefs and attitudes towards America can change due to differing experiences.   

            Mukherjee brings in a metaphor to further describe the two different ways to exist as an immigrant in America. Mukherjee first uses the literal example of either marrying or not marrying ones country as she speaks of her own marriage to an American citizen and her sister’s marriage to an Indian. She then compares her immigrant experience of completely adapting the American culture to a loving marriage as she says, “America spoke to me—I married it—I embraced the demotion from expatriate aristocrat to immigrant nobody” (282). On the other hand, Mukherjee compares her sister’s immigrant experience to a “long-enduring comfortable yet loveless marriage” (282) to show that her sister never accepted American. By using this metaphor of a “loveless marriage”, Mukherjee is able to emphasis her point that immigrants cannot expect to be “loved”, or accepted into a country if they themselves do not “love”, or accept the country.  

            Mukherjee’s use of comparison and contrast is effectively tied into every single part of the essay contributing to a tone of severe divide over this topic of adaption of immigrants to the American culture. Additionally, the use of metaphor comparing marriage to adaption to American culture is effective as most readers can either fully identify to the idea of either a loving marriage or a loveless marriage. Through these techniques, Mukherjee fully establishes the two different ways an immigrant can exist in America: as a transformed citizen or as a reluctant exile.