Monday, July 16, 2018

295 Blog Post 3

When visiting the British Library this past week, I made sure to stop and take a close look at the Windrush exhibit. It was full of the many different works created by the people who were on the ship Empire Windrush. Mostly literature/manuscripts, songs, and speeches which were all amazing to see and experience first-hand.  One of the main things they kept coming back to in the exhibit was how this generation of immigrants shaped the future of immigrant culture, British culture, and the generations that followed them.
    The idea of how this group from the Caribbean affected the generations that came after it has been an important topic we keep coming back to in class. Specifically, the kids of the Windrush migrants. Mostly it’s the issue of not belonging in either culture or race that is talked about. Not being born in the Caribbean but not looking like a “normal” Londoner creates a pressure to find somewhere you fit in. They don’t have the same upbringing their parents did, but they also don’t have the same home life as the people around them.
    Not feeling like you fit into one singular group due to being the child of immigrants is not just a problem faced by the generation following the those who come to England on the Empire Windrush. It is a struggle that most people like them face as well. Being split down the middle, not enough of one or the other, has left many feeling abandoned and separated. However, through literature, they have been able to create their own community, just like those originally from the Windrush. They have cultivated their own culture, their own experiences and share what they create
     This can be seen clearly in Daljit Nagra’s book of poems British Museum. Certain poems like “Aubade” and “Cane” both relate back very closely to the idea of both belonging and not belonging. They range from discussing the fear of losing culture, to the disconnection between generations, to the contrast between peoples.
    In his poem “Aubade,” the speaker is talking about the loss of culture both in terms of their parents’ homeland and of life in England. Nagra uses words like “absorbed, “dissolved,” and “adrift” in the first stanzas of the poem which helps to set up this theme of culture being lost straight away. And the fact that they not only mention the culture from India but also that of England shows that this speaker too struggles with their sense of identity much like the children of the Windrush generation.
    “Cane” is another poem in British Museum that deals with this same culture confusion. This one more closely looks at the speakers’ relationship with their mother and how moving to England and learning English has created a divide between them. He has built his life off of the “language/ that stole her life.” She is unable to understand his desire to speak, learn, and be English while he can’t imagine what it is like to be from Punjab or understand how she doesn’t learn to blend with the other cultures around her. Again, this is a poem that relates back to those who followed the people from Empire Windrush. The divide between generations—parents and sons—grows bigger and bigger the more the kids find their own roots. Unable to connect with each other on some cultural level, from movies to significant others the divide grows.
    While this divide between generations due to a change in culture is not something I can relate to personally, it is something my Nana and dad could understand, though not quite in the same way. My nana met my grandpa when he was stationed in Japan some 10 years after World War II. They moved to America after getting married, but where the Windrush generation tried to proudly flaunt their culture, my Nana hid hers. My dad and uncle were taught hardly anything about Japan or its culture which created a different kind of divide between their generations.
    Knowing hardly anything about her past or how to speak her first language created a small but significant gap between them. One that doesn’t exist for those lucky enough to get to stay in their homeland; to grow up with the same cultures of their parents. But, for those who didn’t end up so lucky, there are ways to find others like them. And for the Windrush Generation and those who came after them, literature was a popular and productive way to connect.

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