Invigorating the Dislodged Roots in an Unwonted Land: Immigrant Narratives in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth

Abstract

This study aimed to explain the challenges faced by immigrants by analyzing the short stories written by Jhumpa Lahiri. Through the framework of Homi K. Bhabha's theory of hybridity, the paper investigated immigrants’ experience of establishing their roots in new territory after relocating and relinquishing their own cultural identity in order to assimilate into a foreign culture. The study used qualitative methods and textual analysis in order to dissect the themes, characters, and literary devices employed by Lahiri to depict the immigrant experience. The findings of the study revealed that occasionally, individuals integrated their cultural values with the cultural norms of people from different backgrounds, while maintaining their own ethnicity and cultural identity and mimicked the colonizers or those in positions of power. An individual who refused to adopt the lifestyle, language, religious values,
ethnicity, norms, and culture of the host society would have a feeling of alienation from that society. These consequences lead to an individual feeling nostalgia since they are unable to maintain their own cultural identity. The study concluded that individuals
must achieve a harmonic balance between their own cultural values and the foreign culture in order to alleviate concerns and challenges such as identity crises, and to flourish in a new setting.