Origin

Bharati Mukherjee’s “A Father”, Joy Harjo’s “The Path to the Milky Way lead through Los Angeles” and Mitsuye Yamada’s “A Bedtime Story” all present the idea of origin. Mukherjee shows how his origin impacts his entire life, his culture, his ideas, his way of living. Harjo illustrates how no matter where you are from, no matter who you are, everyone is connected. Yamada depicts origin telling a tale about the Japanese woman and how she learned to appreciate where she lives by being rejected by her own people.
In Mukherjee’s story, Mr. Bhomick wants nothing more than to keep his Indian culture, and his Indian way of life while living in the United States. His wife and daughter on the other hand want nothing more than to leave the Indian way of life and embrace the culture of he United States and live like Americans. It is in these two sets of characters that we see a common conflict among immigrants when they enter the country, whether they should abandon what they have known all their lives to start anew or stay with the culture and what is familiar to them. So here the dillemna is presented of whether to embrace your place of origin or to forget about it in order to shape a new identity.
Horjo’s poem shows a different take on origin. In this poem we see how all the different cultures are connected through the eyes of this Native American speaker. The authors point in this poem was not to separate the places people come from but to unite them in a place, in Los Angeles. This shows that people do not need to let go of their origin but can embrace it and still survive and thrive in the United States.
Yamada’s “A bedtime Story” is yet another take on origin. The author here presents an old woman who is rejected by her people in a time of need, but yet after this rejection she is able to turn it into a positive experience. This Japanese woman is able to look at the situation as a way to appreciate where she came from and to appreciate what she has. She uses it as a humbling experience, and in this she appreciates her origin without ever having to leave it.
You can never erase the place in which you come from, you can try to forget or even deny it. But it is something that lives deep inside you, inside your heart, inside your mind and inside your soul. All three of these authors were trying to depict how important your origin can be because it makes such a strong impact on who you are and you will eventually become.