THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN ETHNIC AND NATIONAL IDENTITY OF IMMIGRANTS IN SAMIRA AHMED’S INTERNMENT

Abstract

The post-9/11 has inspired a great deal of scholarship in the discipline of ethnic and cultural studies, and young adult fiction is no exception to this. Exploring the problems of identity, this article seeks to explain the interplay between an old ethnic and the newly acquired national identity in Internment, a political fiction by Indian American writer Samira Ahmed. Combining Homi K. Bhabha’s model of national identity with Stuart Hall’s model of cultural identity, this article argues that national identity is also shaped and affected by one’s ethnic identity, but prominent nation-states like the limitations of the US to nationality are germane to its racist policies, which in turn cause identity conflicts, especially in second-generation migrants who take themselves as both US nationals and Indian Muslims. In this way, the paper discusses the thematization of oppression of an ethnic minority by national politics questioning their social and political efficacy and their rejection into the mainstream culture. The nuanced understanding of the novel about identities allows us to conclude that the failure to integrate minor ethnicities into the mainstream is also expressed in real-world political decisions and has become a pertinent issue in Young Adult fiction.