Inherited Melancholia

[luna_saadawi]

Nitin Sawnhney’s song Nostalgia opens with both the mother and the father of the singer talking about their experiences with immigration and their feelings with leaving it all behind. Her mother tells her that she has thought of bringing her children back to her home country, where she would tell stories to her children, of what they lived and what they left behind. There is a sense of attachment to a past life, to something that was “sacrificed” for the sake of a better life and opportunity for their children, and wanting to pass down their memories of their old lives. We can see that no matter how integrated or settled in a new country they might have been, there will always be the thought of going back and sharing the past with their children. This brings up this point of passing on memories through generations; passing down the melancholia and attachment to their homeland. Even though children of immigrants might have never been to the country where their parents grew up in, they will also have this melancholia toward another place. This inability to let go is seen in Sara Ahmed’s text when she talks about the father in East is East. The father’s desire for his children to be good Muslims, and his inability to let go causes unhappiness in both his children’s’ lives and his own (Ahmed, 147). There is a clash of identities, with both the desire to hold on to culture and tradition and being able to integrate and find happiness in your current environment. In Nostalgia, the singer’s words “I can almost feel the hopes you left behind” showcases her trying to understand her parent’s feelings but finding it difficult because she can only experience them second-hand, through her parent’s words, she can almost feel her parents’ nostalgia, so close because she can hear it directly from them, but so far away because she never experienced it. Both Nostalgia and Ahmed’s analysis of East is East showcase this complex experience of the immigrants and children of immigrants trying to find their place somewhere while their hearts are somewhere else. With children trying to understand their parents’ feelings of nostalgia and with immigrants struggling to find balance in a dual identity.