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South Asian-American people and cultures are both immensely complex and beautiful. Because of this, literature encompassing the stories of these men and women are classified as a genre of its own, with colorful authors like Jhumpa Lahiri, Kiran Desai and Arundhati Roy filling the writing space with emotional precision.
Some of the most fascinating stories about America come from the perspectives of immigrants. These diverse men and women are often able to perceive the cultural nuances that are sometimes blind to those raised in the U.S. Because of these differences, both large and small, it is difficult to be both South Asian and American, which means some men and women suffer identity crises while acclimating to the new culture.
However, “Jasmine” by Bharati Mukherjee is a good book to read that speaks not only to immigrants, but to the children of immigrants. In this much-loved novel, protagonist Jasmine, born Jyoti, is a young woman in India whose fate as a “widow in exile” seems sealed by the prediction of an astrologer.
As a young woman, Jyoti meets and marries a man named Prakash, who endearingly calls her “Jasmine.” When the two immigrate to the United States in the early stages of their marriage, Prakash tragically dies, leaving Jasmine alone in the country with no family or financial means with which she can support herself.
Jasmine is taken in by an American woman named Lillian Gordon, who calls her “Jazzy.” Jazzy lives with three Guatemalan women as an unpaid cleaner until she is forced to flee to avoid deportation. After she gets her permit, Jasmine begins working as caretaker for a Manhattan couple named Wylie and Taylor Hayes, who call her “Jase.”
Taylor and Jase slowly develop feelings for each other, but she is forced to leave before they can start a future together. She travels to Baden, Iowa, to remake herself once more.
In Iowa, she is called “Jane.” She is 24, married Bud Ripplemeyer, a 53-year-old banker, and pregnant. They live together with their adopted son Du, a young Vietnamese refugee.
After years of running away from her past, Jane finally has a chance to settle down and create a new life. But then she learns she has a choice. Will she look up at the stars and defy the fate foretold by the astrologer? Will she demand, “Watch me re-position the stars”?
Grove Atlantic says, “Jasmine’s metamorphosis, with its sudden upheavals and its slow evolutionary steps, illuminates the making of an American mind; but even more powerfully, her story depicts the shifting contours of an America being transformed by her and others like her—our new neighbors, friends, and lovers.” As Jasmine experiences an evolution in her identity – as evident by her multiple name changes – the reader is made aware that she changes not to fit in, but to survive as a recent immigrant to the United States.
But now she has a chance to make a new home. Will she relinquish her identities – Jyoti, Jazzy, Jase, Jane – and become Jasmine once more?
