Many of the book’s characters are Indian-Americans growing up or raising children in Ohio, both of which Sreenivasan did. The exchange occurs in “Revolution,” one of eight short stories and a novella in “These Americans,” a new collection by Columbus author Jyotsna Sreenivasan. The grandfather’s annoyed response - that his region of southern India was never directly colonized, and that he didn’t have time to participate in protests against the British, anyway - is at once funny and awkward, speaking to a generation gap and the confusion many second-generation Americans feel about their identities. Assuming that his grandfather must have contributed in some way, he asks him in an interview for the school newspaper,“What did you do for India’s independence?” After his history teacher piques his interest in Mahatma Gandhi, an Indian American teenager seeks to uncover his own family’s connections to the anti-colonial movement.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |