Cultures strongly impact our lives. Culture in America greatly differs from culture in India and elsewhere. These differences are presented in the works “A Father” by Bharati Mukherjee, “A Bedtime Story” by Mitsuye Yamada, and “The Path to the Milky Way Leads through Los Angeles” by Joy Harjo. All of these works present an outlook on American culture from a foreign perspective.
The short story “A Father” presents the lives of an Indian family that moved to America. Despite their move, the father in the story remains strongly religious and superstitious in his daily routine. He ritually awakes every morning for his prayer and hygienic needs that he was taught growing up in India. His religious idol is a black figure completely nude except for a small loin cloth and decapitated heads draped around it. Later in the story, it becomes apparent that he never truly wanted to leave India. However, due to his wife’s insistence to move he decided to relocate to Detroit. It is obvious that over time he has adjusted to American culture because he learns that his daughter is pregnant while unmarried. While both American and Indian cultures look upon a situation such as this as bad, American culture is much more tolerable. For example during the argument between his daughter and wife, he states that she would never have become impregnated if they had not moved to the United States. Until this argument occurred, he never mentioned his daughter’s pregnancy to her or his wife. Instead he handled the situation in a much more Americanized fashion.
Harjos’ poem “The Path to the Milky Way Leads through Los Angeles” also deals with a conflict between cultures. The speaker in the story speaks about Los Angeles and the hypocrisy of the way the “The City of Angels” presents itself. She states “This city named for angels appears naked and stripped of anything resembling” (line 3). Due to her Native American roots, she is troubled with living in the city and feels closer to her tribal beliefs than to American culture. Her broken form and choppy sentence structuring contributes to the negativity she feels toward American culture. Additionally her tone changes to optimism towards the end of the poem when she speaks about her native culture.
Yamada’s “A Bedtime Story” speaks of a Chinese woman attempting to find shelter for an evening, but is refused everywhere she goes. Yamada uses no real rhythm or rhyme, but divides the poem up into three stanzas. The first stanza begins like a parent telling a child a story. The second and third stanzas are the actual story. After the refusal of shelter, the woman realizes that she is happy in nature, and that is where true beauty lies. The last stanza finishes with a light hearted tone as the woman enjoys the sight of the town she overlooks.
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