What's in a Name?

Assimilation. There have been many immigrants, over the years, that when they migrated from various countries to America, they have had to undergo, some might say, some intensely strong assimilation. My best friend, who is also Japanese, told me that much like my own grandmother her grandmother no longer used her Japanese name, but an American one that she chose upon her arrival. Thousands of other such immigrants from other countries I am sure have had to do the same, or at least some very similar, things to ensure that they were assimilated into the American culture and society.

However, the main character, Jasmine as we primarily know her, in Bharati Mukherjee’s novel Jasmine, purposely seems to changer her name at the beginning of each new chapter of her life; rather than changing her name strictly on her arrival in America. In the beginning of this novel we see the main character as “Jyoti”, an Indian girl whose family’s primary concern is to marry her well off and so therefore must keep her physical form as smooth and perfect as possible. This is evident when “Jyoti’s” sisters proclaim, after she receives a star shaped wound on her forehead, “Now your face is scarred for life! How will the family ever find you a husband?” (p. 4-5) Showing that this character is subject to the code of the society of her origin.

When “Jyoti” finally gets to America we can see the assimilation she undergoes when she changes her name to “Jane” and she becomes very careful in what she says about her life in Punjab and “Jane” talks about her parents very circumspectly. Coming to America has changed “Jane’s” way of thinking for the people in her new home are afraid of the people of her previous home and culture. Later in the book her name was changed yet again, but this time to “Jazzy” the widow. With this identity it was as though she reverted back to her old life in Punjab while still in America. We, the readers, can ‘see’ this for not only does the wife of the family, she stays with have a job but even though “Jazzy’s” young she is a widow and so therefore “remarriage was out of the question within the normal community” (p. 147).

Throughout this novel we can see while the main character consciously changes her name for what might seem as a fresh or new start somewhere else, she is also owned by that name. For her name changes with her circumstances, place of residence and/or society change and the people within these limits are what dictates “Jasmine’s” way of thinking and/or actions. Much like the older generation in my best friend’s and my families did. Both of our grandmas no longer used their given Japanese names after coming to America. But now the controversial question that arises occasionally is: Is this kind of assimilation right? Even moral?