مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - Cultural Identity and Social Stigma in “Pomegranates” and “My Father and the Fig Tree”

Abstract :

The aim of this study is to explore how the fathers in Persis M. Karim’s poem “Pomegranates” and Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem “My Father and the Fig Tree” reveal their need nature to overcome the problems and to heal psychological disturbances caused by their acculturation process after they immigrated to the USA. As reflected in these poems, the meanings of pomegranates, figs and fig trees that the poets and their fathers attribute to play important roles in understanding their feelings on their cultural identity and experiencing social stigma when the members of the host culture reject them. Karim, who is of Iranian heritage, and Nye, who is of Palestinian origin, focus on their fathers’ emotional attachment to these components of nature. This paper discusses how their attachment to the fruits and their motives behind it in relation to their immigrant status are assumed to be better explored through two perspectives: some theories on the psychology of immigrants and the assumptions of the biophilia hypothesis. It is observed that the poets and their fathers go through some of the aspects explained in the theories of the psychological acculturation process and innate satisfaction as asserted by the biophilia hypothesis. Some of the psychological results of the immigration are explored in aspects of the self and reconstruction of the identities of their heritage culture in the new cultural context via these fruits and trees.