Emotional expectations and the Melancholic migrant
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One of the key issues that stands out in these readings is how exclusion operates not just through obvious structures like borders or laws, but also through emotional and social expectations, particularly for migrants and marginalized groups. Sara Ahmed's discussion of "melancholic migrants" offers an important look at how national identity is often built around an idea of happiness that implicitly excludes those who don't conform to this version of social sameness. Ahmed highlights how migrants are often seen as disrupting this ideal, especially when they hold onto their cultural roots. But what Sara Ahmed doesn't fully explore is how the demand for emotional conformity, such a the expectations to be "happy" and assimilate, affect younger generations of migrants. In my own experience as someone who migrated during adolescence, this pressure to fit into a society while maintaining your own cultural identity can create a sense of emotional conflict. It's not just about being excluded from institutions but also feeling emotionally distanced from both the society you are in and your own cultural roots. There's a constant feeling of not being in either context.
Nisha Eswarans's analysis in "Mississipi Masala" further expands on how this emotional burden builds within diasporic communities themselves. The anti-Black racism within the Indian community depicted in the film is a result of both colonial trauma and an attempt to align with white supremacy, but what stands out to me is how this also represents an internal emotional fracture. The community's racism is tied to their need to protect a fragile sense of identity that has been shaped by displacement and exclusion. This protectionism doesn't just come from prejudice but from a fear of further fragmentation. Nitin Sawhney's audio "Nostalgia" adds an important aspect to this theme. The audio brings out a sense of longing and loss, not just for a homeland but for a coherent sense of self. The emotional landscape of the song resonates with the idea of the melancholic migrant Sarah Ahmed discusses, it captures the in between space of belonging to two places and yet feeling at home in neither. Listening to "Nostalgia", I was reminded of how, as a migrant, you often long for a past that doesn't fully exist anymore and simultaneously feel alienated in the present. This is something both Ahmed and Eswaran touch on, but the emotional depth of this longing and its impact on identity construction deserves more attention.
The theme that connects all of these works is the emotional complexity of belonging for migrants and marginalized communities. It's not just about external structures of exclusion but the internal emotional conflicts that come with trying to hold onto one's identity while navigating a world that constantly tries to redefine them. Today, society claims to value diversity, but there is still an unspoken demand that this diversity should be framed within limits of what is comfortable and recognizable to the dominant culture.