Immigration - Construction of identitiy

Construction of Identity:

1. VOICE-

• Language - Which one you, the difference to the Language which you assimilate with. The language you speak, creates an I.D which highlights you come from a certain place.
• Accent - I.D which highlights where you come from and social class.
• Dialect - Lexis/Tone

    2. PHYSICAL APPEARANCE- 

• Clothes
• Hair styles
• Skin colour
• Demeanour

Your physical appearance highlights your culture and the way you live. Many immigrants will be torn in physical appearance when they assimilate into a new culture or community. In 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' Changez wears a kurta an jeans. '...and wore a starched white kurta of delicately worked cotton over a pair of jeans.' (Page 55) This highlights his split self of America and Pakistan. The kurta represents his traditional and personal self which makes him feel comfortable. The jeans represent his 'American self' which is based around 'the American dream' many educated men follow. The kurta, is also an exotic piece of clothing which may have been worn to impress Erica as she's interested in his background and life in Pakistan.
    
     3. DOCUMENTS-

• Passports
• Age
• Generation of birth

Words are simply identities we choose to adopt and order in the way we wish to represent reality as we'd like it to be. Immigrant literature is an attempt to understand self and identity through language.