Understanding Oppression and Internalized Oppression within and Across Racial and Cultural Identities

AbstractThe present study intends to examine the link between clothes and cultural identities in Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Hema and Kaushik” (2008). It will argue that Lahiri explores her protagonists’ cultural displacement through their items of clothing. We want to suggest that the protagonists’ clothes are employed in each narrative as signifiers for the characters’ cultural identities. The study will further show that each item of clothing could be loaded with the ideological signification of two separate cultures. In other words, it aims to demonstrate how ideology imposes its values, beliefs, and consequently its dominance through the dress codes each defines for its subjects. Moreover, it intends to suggest that the link between clothing and identity is most visible and intense in the case of female immigrant characters rather than men. Drawing on Luptan’s structure of the Cinderella line, we will explore Lahiri’s protagonists’ cultural transformation from simple ethnic girls to stylish American ladies through their items of clothing. The study will conclude that the “Cinderella line” does not work in Lahiri’s realistic stories the way it does in fairy tales and romance fiction.

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Narrative Strategies Regarding Japanese Ethnic Origins and Cultural Identities in Japanese Middle-School History Textbooks

Journal of Educational Media Memory and Society ◽

10.3167/jemms.2010.020106 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 97-112 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Ryôta Nishino

Keyword(s):

Middle School ◽

Ethnic Group ◽

History Textbooks ◽

Cultural Identities ◽

Narrative Strategies ◽

Long Period ◽

School History ◽

Middle School History ◽

Japanese Identity ◽

Ethnic Origins

This article examines how middle school history textbooks published between 1951 and 1995 explain the origins of the Japanese as an ethnic group (minzoku). The analysis shows that despite the relatively long period from which the sample of textbooks was taken, these texts continue to emphasize two categories of Japanese identity: a biologically heterogeneous people through prehistoric immigration and a unified language. Building on the latter theme, the textbooks continued to treat the innovation of the kana as a quintessential development underlying the Japanese cultural achievement. The analysis reveals that the narrative tone shifted from being emotive in the early 1950s texts to somewhat muted in later decades.

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