Introduction
The issue of national and mental displacement carries with it both negative and positive experiences. While some enjoy their lives in their new conditions, others suffer beyond explanations. Suneeta Peres da Costa’s Homework and Hsu Ming Teo’s Love and Vertigo provide informative pieces of work which clearly address the Diaspora experience. In her book, the 22-year Suneeta pictures the life of the abnormal Mina, the central character, born with feelers on her head. Mina is a young girl whose parents migrated from India to Australia, a place where she feels uncomfortable with in relation to her previous, a case that makes her long for her past life. On the other, Teo’s book is a real life experience.
Born in Malaysia, Teo narrates her life as an Australian immigrant giving the reason behind her immigrant novel characters. In her novel, she majors on Grace Tay, the central character, who migrates from Australia to Singapore. In this new country, Tay wants to carry on with her previous life but this turns out problematic owing to her relocation and the cultural gaps. Though, written at different times, the two books centres on the subject of family life. The two characters bring out the conflicts and the way of life associated with national and mental dislocations. In the two books, Diaspora experience stands out in these, among other characters, through their relationship with their families before and after migration as expounded below.
Diaspora Experience
In the book Homework, Mina stands out as a character that is going through a Diaspora experience. In relation to her family, she is of her own kind. She is the only ‘abnormal’ girl in the sense that she is born with tentacles on her head. She tries comparing her self with the rest, friends inclusive a case that reveals the problem she is going through. “…to complicate the already complex life of Mina even further, the girl is blessed with a genius sister who simply knows too much…whereas Mina has to cope with a physical disability” (Costa 79). Mina suffers owing to the difference between her and her sister. She feels that her antennas are the cause. According to her, she experiences ‘discomfort’ in relation to her family members. In addition, Mina’s childhood stories indicate the memories of her loving mother.
Following her (mother) death, she experiences ‘mental displacement’ in life, which is worse than before. The antennas are an indicator of this disconnection between her and her mother’s love. Her yeaning for past or simply her dislike of the present is represented by her frequent childhood stories and the surgical operations she undergoes to rid herself with the tentacles. Moreover, following her poverty stricken family, Mina feels that this is not the kind of family she ought to be in. She long for a family dominated by love and riches as it was during the reign of her mother.
This longing for a better state of her family is seen when Mina attempts to give her solace. “I ran crying and tearing those rotted knobs from my scalp. Gone for good my umbilical cord to the world! Gone my chrysalis! My antennae ripped forever from my skull, I finally knew while I ran what it was to feel the blood that might previously have surged to those organs flowing in predictable patterns only through my veins” (Costa 254). This is no more than Mina’s dislike of her present state. The tearing of the antennas signifies her efforts to restore ‘originality.’ This is no more than a Diaspora experience. Grace Tay’s relationship with her Chinese mother in law in Teo’s book Love and Vertigo pictures a Diaspora experience as the following paragraph expounds.
Among the problems encountered by Grace in Australia are cultural owing to the fact that she stays with her traditional mother in law. She stands as an illustration of cultural troubled women migrants face. “… Screams had attracted the attention of Japanese soldiers looking for kuniangs: comfort women they would take away to the Yoshiwara, or red light district, for the duration of the occupation.
Even after the war, some of those women never returned to their families or friends, so ashamed were they, of what they had been forced to do during the war” (Teo 28). Having encountered a variety of cultures in Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia, Grace narrates her painful episodes of trying to accommodate all these to her original culture. The responsibilities associated with women vary per culture. Grace, after the death of her mother, is exposed to a life of varied and worse life styles in her mother in-law’s home. Her mother in law stands out as a traditional woman whose ways of live cannot be tolerated by Grace as illustrated next.
To illustrate the ‘extend’ of her ‘cultural difference’ sufferings, Grace opts to migrate further with her husband from Singapore through Malaysia to Australia. “…racism and the problems that come with a new life in a new country are the main events in the novel” (Diez Para 3). This is no more than what grace suffers after migrating to Singapore. In fact, she relates herself to her mother and directs the observable problematic changes to their migrations. It reaches a time when her live differs in relation to that of her mother and relatives.
Addressing to her mother, she says, “These Singaporean roots of hers, this side of her – and possible of me too – were unacceptable” (Teo 2-3). She finds no relation between her and her family members, a case that fails to please her. She terms the differences ‘unacceptable.’ Grace’s education culture is not spared. She says that, “Those Singaporean schoolgirls tried to transform their Chinese beings into English souls” (Teo 64). The successive migrations, based on cultural differences show Grace’s yearn for a culture that suits her.
As Tamara puts it, “Grace and her brother Sonny experience ideals of assimilation and later multiculturalism and exotic hybridism at their worst” (Para 4).This shows how Grace struggles to come into terms with the diverse cultures. These attempts are no more than symbolic. The death of her mother implies a loss of culture and since death is a permanent incidence, her attempts to find this culture fail to be fruitful and this dictates her Diaspora experience since she feels disconnected from her desired culture. This experience is still standing in Suneeta da Costa’s homework as the next paragraph highlights.
Following the migration of Mina’s family to Australia, Mina feels homeless in the sense that she is a foreigner. She feels that her original home is better than the current, a situation that makes her own suitable world within Australia, aimed at overcoming the prevailing refugee experiences depicted by her mother. She is the least pleased with what her unhappy mad mother does as a refugee. She has extended her previous culture of stealing food. Her father illustrates their original political culture when he arrogates Goa’s freedom from India.
This shows the height of cultural difference that Mina is going through. She is confused of the various Indian myths because they are strange to her. In fact, she posits, “I felt I may have been hallucinating, had, like Alice, perchance drunk some strange elixir and this was its potent side effect” (Costa 55). Her evident hunger for her true culture stands out when her parents die when she rids herself with the tentacles which signify the results of her struggles. This death symbolizes the end of the confusing Indian culture possessed by her parents and at the same time the shooting of a new ‘Australian self’, a culture that suits her, free of confusion.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Teo and Costa succeed in bringing up the subject family life in their works. The conflicts and way of life associated with migration stand out in these works. Grace Tay and Mina Pereira provide illustrations of characters, which have gone through a Diaspora experience because of their migrations. While Grace’s mother in-law’s traditions violates with hers, she opts to migrate further, welcoming more and more cultural conflicts. Mina on the other hand, feels disconnected from her mother’s love following her death. These, among others represent some of the Diaspora experiences that people face as a result of mental or national dislocation.
Works Cited
Costa, Peres. “Homework.” India: Bloomsbury Pub Ltd, 2008.
Diez, Charlotte. “Is Love and Vertigo Mainly a Novel about Whiteness or a Novel About Immigrants?” Berlin: Hausabeit, 2003.
Tamara, Wagner. “Frame-Stories and Historical Backgrounds in Love and Vertigo.” Singapore: National University of Singapore, 2005.
Teo, Hsu. “Love and Vertigo.” St. Leonards:Allen & Unwin, 2000.