The Value of Cultural Identity and Heritage in American Society

Bharati Mukherjee’ “A Father”, Joy Harjo’s “The Path To The Milky Way Leads Through Los Angeles” as well as Mitsuye Amada’s “A Bed Time Story” present unique themes that all relate to the idea of heritage, and the influence of cultural identity in American life. Often times individuals in America are too caught up with money, work, or love and lose touch with their roots. Cities, especially in America are stereotyped as “melting pots” where people can live together, work, love and thrive without compromising their unique identities to conform. However, it is in the melding together that people ironically lose these precious roots, values, and ideals that were once part of a unique cultural identity. Each of these pieces explores this theme and presents a struggle that shows the obstacle of maintaining elements of heritage in cities and American society as a whole.
The short story “A Father” by Bharati Mukherjee appears in many ways to be the greatest illustration of this theme. The ending of the story lends it especially dramatic and disturbing qualities that further illuminate the importance of the story’s theme. The crux of the story deals with an Indian family struggling to live in Detroit. While the mother attempts to cast aside the ideals of her heritage and lead an American life, the father, Mr. Bhowmick tries to preserve his cultural identity and continue rituals such as daily prayer and paying homage to his Kali-Mata. In the meantime, both parents, but especially
Mr. Bhowmick observes the growth of his daughter, Babli, into adulthood from an American upbringing. Babli pays little attention to her Hindu roots, drives a flashy red sports car, and chicly dresses up the power suit she wears to her job each day as an engineer. Much of the conflict in this story is related to the great divide between past and present, heritage and conformity in a society where individuals like Babli, disregard their cultural ideals for an “American” identity.
“A Bed Time Story”, a poem by Mitsuye Amada explores a similar aspect of this theme. In this poem, the father is telling a bedtime story to his daughter with a slightly more serious moral. This poem tells the story of an old woman traveling from village to village looking for a place to stay although no one offers her shelter. Perhaps in this poem, the townspeople have lost touch with their ideals and the simple generosity of helping another human in need. Through this struggle the old woman finds a peaceful and comfortable place on a hill above the villages where she is mesmerized by the beauty before her. Overlooking the valley the woman sees goodness in the selfish acts of others. Moreover, the woman recognizes that by denying her a place to stay the townspeople have given her a much greater opportunity, the chance to witness the beauty before her from a hilltop above.
The last piece, Joy Harjo’s poem “The Path To The Milky Way Leads Through Los Angeles” provides great insight into the way cultural identity can be lost in a city like Los Angeles where Hollywood blinds people from recognizing the importance of their roots. While the author notes that in Los Angeles one can “buy a map of the stars’ homes, dial a tone for dangerous love, or choose from several brands of water” it is undeniably difficult to distinguish oneself from the masses of people and sea of glitz and glamour that envelops a city like L.A. At the end of the poem, the speaker talks to a mythic crows that squawks at American culture. Essentially the crows symbolizes the idea that individuals shape out culture and thus culture cannot change unless individuals are the propelling force behind that change. In L.A “the city of the strange and getting stranger” people sell their souls for money, material items, and commercial success which further leads to the notion that knowledge of culture and identity is a lost art.
Each of these pieces, “The Path Of The Milky Way Leads Through Los Angeles”, “A Father” and “A Bedtime Story” are successful in communicating the importance of heritage and identity in a society where individuals have lost touch of their roots in favor of money, power, material items, and selfish interests. Abandoning the cultural ideals of heritage is dangerous primarily because individuals lose several of the elements that make them beautifully unique individuals an American society that is at times very harsh and unforgiving.