Displacement

I will do a presentation on family separation at the border and using the separation of Native American children example to present a solution.

I moved to the United States three years ago, the clash of cultures was intense. I am glad I had my extended family’s support or it would have been a different story. Everything was new, from the littlest thing like Disney shows that some of my American friends have never seen, to customs like kissing people as a salutation, and the food. I remember occasions where it felt like I’ll never learn English. I didn’t have friends my first year becasue of the language barrier. In popular culture videos, the protagonist always has something special. I’ll say my special power was that I am smart which led to getting good grades and learning and speaking English in a year. Like these heroes, I had a guide, which was my family, and obstacles to overcome. This feels like I am tooting my own horn by describing myself like that, but I am genuinely proud of my self and my accomplishments.

I think my experience relates to displacement because it was a new country, culture, language totally new environment. It also follows the model of displacement in popular shows. The ending to my series would be that I finally found my place by adding my American experience to my other various identities to create a new fitting identity. Now, I don’t feel out of place anymore, because I accepted that an American, especially a New Yorker, it doesn’t ideally matter your background and I personalized my experiences. We come in all shapes, forms, genders, ethnicity, races.

This a clip from the sequel of the Disney movie, Pocahontas. Pocahontas travels to London to represent her tribe to advocate against the war. This video relates to displacement because Pocahontas is a stranger in London. She doesn’t understand the culture and social norms of a foreign country. Their differences keep clashing, but she tries to adapt to her new environment. This is similar to the video of Fresh Prince of Bel Air because the conflict is the same.

RM, AKA Kim Namjoon of BTS wrote this song while going through a lot of self-reflecting the past two years. The Korean name means falling short of expectations, but the English name is “Uhgood” which gives a false positive vibe to the song. He states that it hurts to be out of place in your own mind/body and one needs to find their real self. The theme of displacement relates to this song because he doesn’t know how to incorporate his public image into his regular person which results in him feeling out of place. I chose this song because Namjoon’s lyrics are always so poignant, comforting, and can help you through anything. I think displacement in oneself, and issues related to self-love, are so important and need to be taking more seriously. You can’t ignore them, they’ll just pop off in unexpected ways and you can’t fix them in a week like an episode of Queer Eye.

In the last verse, he mentions how you need to accept all your different identities because they make you who you are. This is so relevant in today’s society, where people will label you, put you into boxes and forget that you’re never just one thing. This results in people feeling out of place in their own communities and questioning themselves. The labels and the judgment lead to some people assuming they are not enough. I hope everybody can reflect on their own displacement and learn to love and fully accept themselves.

1. How does gentrification differ from displacement?
2. Wouldn’t rent control help outweigh the disadvantages of gentrification?

This story brought out a mix of feelings for me, the turn of events was really unexpected. I liked the title “interpreter of maladies”; it is a really poetic way to explain his job. Lack of communication and displacement in your own life seems like the theme of the story. Mr. Kapasi feels validated by Mrs. Das because he doesn’t receive any from his wife and kids. Unfortunately, his daydreams and anticipations ended as quickly as they started when he found out Mrs. Das “malady”. Mrs. Das is guilt-ridden, she feels out of place in her own family and marriage.

Some meaningful moments to me were when Mr. Kapasi started daydreaming about a relationship with Mrs. Das. He did not even realize how unhappy, he was until he could see his situation, reflected by the Das family. I relate to having a dysfunctional function, but one thing I am sure of is that we love each other. I found it really sad that their family will never be okay because Mrs. Das will keep holding on to that secret. Another memorable moment is how Mr. Kapasi contemplates his hopes die, at the end of the story, as the paper floats away.

1. An experience in which my family was displaced was when we moved to America.
2. For the third prompt, I want to write about my hometown and how it helped raise me.
3. For language and family, I thought of writing about how being trilingual affects my daily life.

1. On page 22, Aciman talks about some psychological effects of displacement like the need for things to remain the same or to rescue things. How has displacement affected you?
2. In page 30, the author mentions how people like to compare but don’t necessarily like the things we compare. Why can’t he/we feel without comparing? Why can’t he/we appreciate what we have?
3. In page 34, the author says that he left part of himself in the old Straus Park. Do you have memories and feelings attached to a place?