Assimilation Among Second Generation Native Americans

It is safe to say Shukumar misunderstands the flexibility of the nuclear family. He fails to see the nuclear family can stretch only as far as the inside of a 1,000 square foot home in Levittown, but not as far as India. He views the nuclear family or the American dream as a way to prove belonging – a couple adhering to South Asian identity, while also fitting into the American fold – but the American Dream is really about assimilation. The Oxford English Dictionary defines Assimilation as “The action of making or becoming like; the state of being like; similarity.” In the context of Ethnic American Literature this meaning becomes much more sinister. It means to scrap away the home culture from the immigrant and force them to adhere to the American way.
He does not want assimilation, he wants to keep his Indian heritage, but he completely overlooks the attitude of American society towards immigrants. In “Negotiating Identity Among Second-Generation Indian Americans: A Collaborative Ethnography,” Kelly Murray describes the understanding of assimilation among second generation South Asian Americans. The participants thought of assimilation as an “‘unintended consequence of the pursuit of ‘success’ in the United States’ (Sinha 2010:1). There seems to be a straight-line trajectory: pursue economic success in the U.S., lose your Indian Identity”