Daniel Alexander Apatiga
Reading Response #3
“Imaginary Homelands” by Salman Rushdie
“Report from the Bahamas” by June Jordan
A few key sentences strikes me as I read them in Rushdie’s “Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism.” One is when he talks about his father, on page 9, and the “unmentionable country” of which I have no idea what he is referring to since he does not indirectly or directly reference a country except maybe his own. I assume he is referring to his homeland since he’s exposing the reader to his own experiences as a transnational. The idea of an “unmentionable country” is interesting since it implies a certain dislike of it by others. Though, it could also mean his homeland’s historic rival, or enemy, Pakistan, in terms of culture and nuclear power, both of which have the same racial identity, and Pakistan is not viewed as a rival of India by many. Rushdie makes a claim that novels are inspired by memories and present reenactments of the past. This implies that as an artist, we at least (through the mind) attempt to relive our life’s best moments when contemplating what to write next. I agree with Rushdie since in my own creative writing I try to not to make things up completely, then, in this mode, it might lead to serious absurdities that conflict with what should be the intention of the creative author. This intention, Rushdie explains carefully like how Danticat does in “Creating Dangerously: the Immigration Artist at Work”. If novels for the general author are reenactments of the past, then the displaced transnationalist writers have to recreate their prior homeland anyway, despite being assimilated, in his or her works. Rushdie makes an important reference to England’s historical and current diaspora, which may have been what perhaps attracted him to the language of English, psychoanalytically. I was reminded of what I learned in the Intro to English gateway course about how England is made of up Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, etc., who invaded Britannia and settled there. These people may have left or gone to war because of dissatisfaction at home or the desire, the desire to conquer land and become rich, or simply to attain a higher, nobler status.
In Jordan’s essay, “Report from the Bahamas,” which has story elements in it since she recounts what actually happened in her past, was interestingly about two women—one was ignorant, Cathy, the other was the author herself. I completely agreed with Jordan’s criticism of Reagan’s plans to remove government aided student loans, which would have damaged her son’s likelihood of going to college and beyond. There are emotional moments in the story in which Jordan comes to difficult realizations about her status in the United States, and ignorance that surrounds her of her culture that seem to envelop and crush her. For instance, she makes a most cunning observation that women of different appearance/race have a tougher time of making it to the canon of well-respected women’s literature than do whites. In the middle of the essay, she has a developmental section (or B section if this essay would be viewed as a work of music) before the recapitulation or A prime, where she says that if we don’t help one another, we won't get along. As a Hispanic, I understand where she’s coming from, although I do not profess my writing to be great by any stretch. Her allusions to important religious teachings, such as, Christ’s famous line, “love thy enemy,” served as the founding basis for her interaction with Cathy in section A prime (the denoument). Cathy’s husband’s alcoholism that’s threatening her life is a way for them to share a commonality: both Cathy and Jordan are both women and both experience problems from problematic men in their lives, which should be fixed. I in the end found Jordan’s essay to be about the importance of political activeness in women’s rights and the inequalities that people of different race still face today.
