The assimilation of Indians to America is an important theme throughout each story. For example in the story Mr. Pirzada comes to dine, Lilia one of the main characters has parents who reflect back on their own experiences in India. Lilia is a American who would like to learn about the culture of India since her parents grew up there along with Mr. Pirzada. She is more concerned with Mr. Pirzada because he has certain customs when it comes to the purely American holiday, Halloween. Lilia is surprised to know that her parents and Mr. Pirzada share the same customs. But her father tells Lilia that Mr. Pirzada is no longer Indian which makes her very confused. In the story Lilia says, “ It made no sense to me, Mr.Pirzada and my parents spoke the same language, looked more or less the same…” (Lahiri 25). Her father responds by saying, “ Mr. Pirzada is Bengali, but he is a Muslim…Therefore he lives in East Pakistan, not India” (Lahiri 26). This creates a problem with Lilia and her father’s relationship because he believed that the American education was making her forget that she is Indian. Lilia’s father asks her what she in learning in school and she replies, “ We learned American history and American geography…studying the revolutionary war” (Lahiri 27). It seems as though her father is not impressed that her school isn’t teaching more about the …show more content…
The story this Blessed House is a perfect representation of accepting different cultures. Sanjeev and Twinkle a married couple discovered a Jesus mantle in their new home. But a problem arises when Sanjeeva and Twinkle aren’t Christians but Hindus and the wife seems to find more items hiding around the house. Sanjeev disapproves of keeping the christians items as they are not christian but his wife insists on keeping them. In the book it mentions the husbands response to the Virgin Mary on the lawn, “ Oh God, no Twinkle no… all the neighbors will see, they’ll think we’re insane… we’re not christian” (Lahiri 146). During the house warming party Twinkle gets everyone involved in finding more Christian items. Sanjeev isn’t very pleased with this idea but after the party was over he let it go. Sanjeev had accepted the fact that his wife wanted to keep the mantel pieces and in a sense accepted the culture. I believe that if he really wanted to get rid of the Christian mantels he would’ve from the beginning he laid eyes on the first