Migration, Memory, and Mobility in Vassanji’s No New Land

“We are but creatures of our origins, and however stalwartly we march forward, paving new roads, seeking new worlds, the ghosts from our pasts stand not far behind and are not easily shaken off” (Vassanji 1991, 8).

The rampant migration of individuals is a global trend in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This tendency to move and find a new home is both voluntary and forced. In other words, the movement of individuals across borders can be politically or economically motivated, and sometimes it is both. Unfavorable political conditions amplify the economic benefits of migration to another country. This pursuit of better prospects intersects with the challenges of acculturation and acclimatization. As Rukhsana Ahmed and Luisa Veronis comment, "The process of migration represents a transition in place, space, and culture for immigrants." As immigrants strive to integrate with the foster culture, they also experience the strain of their own culture.

This essay will attempt to examine the environmental and cultural conflicts that Asian and African immigrants confront in Canada, followed by the triumph of their socio-cultural mobility. It intends to highlight the immigrants' efforts to reconstruct a similar land that lies in the past using collective cultural memory, and their ability to find a connecting line between both their homeland and their foster land. It will study the interplay between assimilation of the present and preservation of their past. The essay will address the question of how immigrants strive to strike a fine balance between their past and present and how they reclaim their culture in memories and everyday lives. The present essay aims to find answers to the above-mentioned questions with reference to M. G. Vassanji's No New Land in the light of immigrant experience. As Sadan and Pushpendra ascertain, "The idea of belonging encompasses home, memory, place, intersectionalities with identities, becoming, and heterogeneity" (19). This essay attempts to connect these points of home, memory, belonging, and mobility.

The essay will incorporate concepts such as memory, social capital, diaspora, secularism, and more. Nergis Canefe argues that "In the diaspora, exile leads to a particular and highly political genre of remembrance of personal, communal, and national histories" (156). However, the need to integrate also becomes urgent and important. As a result, the immigrants' journey ahead is dotted with both memories and hopes. Furthermore, the society that absorbs the immigrants, in turn, saturates them with its culture and values. François Héran claims, "All societies face a major problem: how to absorb the constant influx of two categories of newcomers, namely children on one hand and immigrants on the other. This presupposes in both cases a work of socialization and integration, which can be accomplished through habits over time or by more forceful (policy) interventions" (160).

Moyez G. Vassanji is a writer who writes for a large audience. His literary works span across centuries and travel across continents. Vassanji is the author of nine novels, three non-fiction works, and two collections of short stories. His work has gained international acclaim and has also been translated into a few other languages. Vassanji embarked on writing his first novel, The Gunny Sack, in 1980, which was published in 1989, and it is the first novel about Indians in Africa. Ariel Bookman (2014) remarks, "In his novels, stories, and travel writing, which recreate the lives of South Asian migrants in India, East Africa, and North America from the nineteenth century to the present, Vassanji examines how subjects whose lives have been shaped by migration narrate their individual, familial, and communal pasts" (189). He scrutinizes themes of identity, displacement, individual vs society, cultural hegemony, and race relations. Moreover, he attempts to preserve and resurface oral histories and mythologies that have long been submerged.

No New Land, written in 1991, is set in Toronto and portrays a group of immigrants from East Africa and other parts of the world trying to adapt to life in a new land. The novel exhibits an array of immigrants' lives with a special focus on the Lalanis, their past, present, and future aspirations. Although the narrative is centered on the Lalanis, other characters such as Esmail, Jamal, and Nanji also represent the major theme and contribute to the experience. It is an insightful narrative juxtaposing an individual's ability to "try and triumph" alongside "adapt or perish." Michael Thorpe, in his review of the novel, says, "No New Land, with quiet humor and wisdom, gives deep insight into the strains and promises of immigration" (757). Undoubtedly, it is also a sort of fictional documentary rendering the lives of minority immigrants and Canada's multicultural policies.

Although the Lalanis belong to the fictional Shamsi community, which is an Asian-African shopkeeper community, they represent all minority immigrants in Canada, especially those from Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean who are new to the country. These immigrants often feel like outsiders due to the foreign and intimidating nature of their new surroundings. Even before arriving in Canada, the Lalanis are anxious about their future, which is compounded by their previous humiliation in London and their subsequent flight to Canada. As they adjust to their new home, they fear that "every step [will be] a mystery and trap, fraught with belittling embarrassments, and people waiting to show you up" (35). Their struggles are rooted in their unfamiliarity and cultural alienation, as they stand out due to their appearance and ways of life. As a result, they are intimidated by the new ways of their adopted country, given that their lifestyles are markedly different.

However, the Lalanis conquer their fear in the hope of better prospect. As soon as they arrive, they are confronted with the bitter cold winter of Canada. Despite this, they carry their resolve to attain their Canadian dream. This immigrant dream is reflected through Zera’s eyes as she takes stock of her sister’s apartment. “The next morning, in Roshan and Abduls Don Mills apartment, the sun shining brightly, deceptively, through the balconys sliding doors, an abundant breakfast on the table - with toast and eggs and juice and jam and parathas - Zera practically danced through the two kitchen doorways, going out this one and in the other, saying wow, this is big, gorgeous, a refrigerator, a television, new sofas, dinette” (Vassanji 37). This breakfast spread not only shows measure of superiority of the Asians settled in Canada, but also the mixture of two different cultures, where toast represents one, and the parathas represents the other. This maiden breakfast in Canada also assures the Lalanis the coexistence of past and present in their future. Furthermore, the cold winter of Canada is metonymy for the social climate also, and the ‘sunshine’ in Roshan’s apartment indicates warmth and optimism.

The Sixty-nine Rosecliffe Park where the fictional narrative is principally set is of considerable significance. It is the abode of the immigrants that provide them shelter, community, and courage. It can be compared with the towers of Brick Lane by Monica Ali where the Asians immigrants live. However, there is one contrast where Ali deliberately identifies the limitations of the Brick Lane accommodation, Vassanji in No New Land glorifies the Rose Cliffe Park buildings. In fact, he is able to convert the drabness of the decrepit buildings into the bustling and animated edifice. He describes, “On the side facing the valley the drive itself is lined by apartment buildings identified only by their numbers - the famed Sixty-five, Sixty-seven, Sixty-nine, and Seventy-one of Rosecliffe Park whose renown, because of their inhabitants’ connections, reaches well beyond this suburban community, fuelling dreams of emigration in friends and relatives abroad” (1). Vassanji romanticises osecliffe Park and treats it as an important character. The physical concrete structure stands for hope, promise, and warmth for the minority immigrants. Vassanji annotates:

Sixty-nine Rosecliffe Park. The name still sounds romantic, exotic, out of a storybook or a film. Sometimes it’s hard to believe you are here, at this address, sitting inside, thinking these thoughts, surrounded by luxury: the carpeting, the sofas, the telephone, the fridge, the television - yes, luxuries by Dar standards things you could not have owned in a lifetime. (58)

The immigrants toil hard to achieve socio-cultural integration in all aspects of life. Zera tries to wear Western yet modest clothes in order to fit in the society. Besides clothes, food habits, and other socio-cultural idiosyncrasies, the immigrants also modify their thoughts and actions. For instance, Fatima works in a drug store after school, not only for income but also to become independent in a Canadian sense, “Her mother Zera had phoned her at the drugstore, where she worked after school, to tell her it had arrived, meaning the long-awaited letter from the university, and Fatima took off” (Vassanji 2). The letter is a metaphor for Fatima’s aspirations and limitations. She is very hopeful and eager to know and build her future. However, the letter disillusioned Fatima.

The immigrants strive for social recognition. Gottfried Schweiger observes, “A good life is therefore a life with sufficient recognition, and a just society should not only pay attention to a fair distribution of material goods but also make recognition possible for all and protect against experiences of misrecognition and nonrecognition” (3). Shopping is a Canadian ritual which the immigrants intend to practice religiously. They frequent malls just to socialize. It is not just to purchase the essentials, but also they find it a recreational habit for assimilation. Though the immigrants are market shocked by the high prices, they are able to find comfort in the different denominations:

What would immigrants in Toronto do without Honest Eds, the block-wide carnival that’s also a store, the brilliant kaaba to which people flock even from the suburbs... The dazzle and sparkle that’s seen as far away as Asia and Africa in the bosoms of bourgeois homes where they dream of foreign goods and emigration. The Lalanis and other Dar immigrants would go there on Saturdays, entire families getting off at the Bathurst station to join the droves crossing Bloor Street West on their way to that shopping paradise. (Vassanji 40)

The Lalanis, like others, soon fall in step and march towards a better future. They live in the realization that "After their initial excitement, the days of wonder when every brick was exotic and every morning as fresh as the day of creation, came the reckoning with a future that they’d held at bay but was now creeping closer. They had come with a deep sense that they had to try to determine it, this future, meet it partway and wrest a respectable niche in this new society" (Vassanji 42). They are determined to learn, adjust, and adopt new ways in order to become Canadians. However, like others, they encounter several challenges in settling down economically and socially. As a part of the Rosecliffe Park community, they navigate their way forward with moral support and recommendations. M. Reza Nakhaie and Abdol Mohammad Kazemipur explain the significance of social capital, "Social networks and associational membership with shared identity and interests, which are often found in clubs and informal groups, are all incubators of social relations and depositories of social capital" (419). The Lalanis and their friends build up their new lives on this social capital.

The community solidarity acts as a fulcrum in supporting and giving the immigrants’ sanity. Despite rejection from Canadian employers, economic desperation, and racism, they find solace in telling and listening to each other. "Canadian experience is the trump they always call, against which you have no answer. Or rather you have answers, dozens, but whom to tell except fellow immigrants at Sixty-nine" (Vassanji 43). For adult immigrants, language fluency becomes a challenge. Nurdin is unable to secure a job because of his lack of Canadian experience and poor English language skills. Andreea Cervatiuc observes, "Immigrants do not have the luxury to interact with whom they choose, as their opportunities to practice English are generally limited. Nurdin, Romesh, Nanji, Jamal, and others all struggle to find economic means" (254). However, Jamal, a professional lawyer, also improvises to earn his livelihood. He sells samosas to retailer shops, "Someone who had advised on the criminality of shady shopkeepers and corrupt cabinet ministers, helped to produce amendments and draft papers on emergency procedures, was now emerging from a Don Mills elevator, clutching the same briefcase that had hidden secrets of the state but was now hiding samosas destined for sale at the nearest tuck-shop" (Vassanji 71). This characterizes the common struggle of immigrants to find better opportunities.

In the process of assimilation, immigrants undergo disillusionment and deconstruction of their value and ideological systems. In addition to various changes in the lives of immigrants, one of the noteworthy characteristics of this assimilation is the reversal of gender roles, where the woman of the house becomes the breadwinner, and the man of the family assists in household chores. While Zera goes out to work, Nurdin tries to find a job and compensate for his unemployment by being complacent and helpful at home. "You clean up, do laundry, do anything, so as not to appear useless" (Vassanji 44). This not only reveals the tendency to embrace change but also the negotiation between tradition and transformation.

Gillian Brock perceives, "immigrants are often eager and highly motivated to belong, and keen to embrace the national identity in efforts to integrate" (38). Vassanji depicts how immigrants evolve as proud and tall Canadians, despite the hurdles and ordeals. He narrates the arrival of the Lalanis, "Three years had passed since that blustery winter night when the Lalanis stood outside the Toronto airport, contemplating a mode of transportation. Much had happened in that period and there was, in a sense, no looking back. The children were well on their way, Canadians now, or almost" (Vassanji 115). Fatima and Hanif, the Lalanis' children, find their way in their new world. They make friends, and going to school gives them an advantage in integrating and assimilating. The children, who represent the new peer group and generation gap, occupy an important space in Rosecliffe Park. Fatima and Hanif grow beyond their past and labor to assimilate and not stand out. They also succeed in their acclimatization, "One envies these children, these darlings of their mothers, objects of immigrant sacrifice and labor, who speak better-sounding if not better English: one envies them their memories when they are grown-up" (Vassanji 63). Nonetheless, the young generation of immigrants feel trapped between two worlds and two lives as they try to balance their private and public lives.

The children outmanoeuvre their parents and outgrow their family traditions. The children feel caged in their past and their families. For instance, Fatima despises and resents her life, “She was ashamed of this little Paki-shitty-stan of Don Mills, as she called it. She didn’t belong here, she would pull herself out of this condition: everything about her attitude suggested that. … Where had she picked up this abrasiveness, this shrillness, this hatred of her origins? ” (Vassanji 166).  Fatima stands for the aspirations and frustrations of all immigrant children who yearn to distance themselves from their past and coalesced with the future of their foster country.

The conflict between past and present is a very important slice of an immigrant experience. Nanji represents the inner ordeal of the immigrant in assimilation, “It seems," he told Jamal, "that to become westernized, which is what we’ve opted for by coming here, we have to go back and battle by battle relive all their battles - spiritual struggles. How can you otherwise assimilate generations of experience - only now we’ve reached the Age of Reason ... But isn’t that better, Nanji? Our God is not dead, we are better off - Can we survive here, with our God ... Can He survive?” (Vassanji 76). This dialogue between Nanji and Jamal forms the base for the rest of the essay where the Shamsis and other Asian immigrants endeavor to preserve their past.

The conflict reaches a climax when the immigrants establish consensus between their nostalgia and aspirations. The intriguing trait of the minority immigrants is how they want both to assimilate and to stand apart. This is explicit in Esmail’s footwear, “Esmail, a little over average height, looking taller for the thick-soled shoes, which many Dar men wore for that purpose, and in a very conspicuous beige Kaunda suit, which they had all bought in a frenzy of African patriotism in Dar but now wore proudly in Toronto to set themselves apart” (Vassanji 94). Esmail intends to showcase his ethnic origins in civic space like many others.

The gregarious tendency of the community keeps the members warm against the cold climate outside, both literally and metaphorically. The Sixty-nine Rosecliffe park is more than a concrete structure. It is made up of people, their cultural habits, belief systems, and their aspirations. The inhabitants amuse each other, care for one another, share each other’s memories and fears. They create an ecosystem of heterogeneity in harmony. They represent a microscopic view of the macrocosm. Vassanji catalogues their quotidian lives:

If you are suddenly out of toilet supplies, you can ton down to the first floor and buy them at almost all hours from an apartment there. There are places to order snacks or go and eat them. There is an open house on the eighteenth floor every Saturday night, where over a spectacular view of the valley, with its orange-lighted highway, you can play cards, chew the fat with compatriots, or tease the women, and consume tea and samosas, which you have to buy there. There are babysitters on every floor, and housesitters; accounting or legal advice, a nurse, a genuine practitioner of folk medicine who will pray or knead your pains away. (Vassanji 62)

The immigrants try to reconstruct their old lives in their new world. They create their socio-cultural symmetry by constructing figurative spaces, “Of course, the Shamsis of Dar had recreated their community life in Toronto: the mosques, the neighbourhoods, the clubs, and the associations” (Vassanji 170). In addition to recreating, the immigrants also realize the urgency of preserving their tradition and past. It is not just their present they are careful about, but their future as well. Their children symbolize their future, and consequently, they also keenly protect their children from culture shock. “This is the kind of thing we have to steer our kids from, Zera said, elaborating on her previous remark” (Vassanji 54). This does not only signify their insecurities but also their endeavor to preserve their cultural legacy.

The Mukhi and the makeshift mosque of the Shamsis represent their religious and moral capital. It assures the newcomers and keeps the community together, “on weekend evenings most Dar Shamsis went to the mosque, held at a school gym on Eglinton Avenue, a destination every bus driver on the 26 routes had come to recognize, at which he would let off nervous newcomers whether the stop button had been pressed or not. ... At the mosque a mukhi sat presiding from under a basketball ring” (Vassanji 67). The mosque becomes a place for gaining social capital and sharing their common beliefs.

Bender Courtney and Pamela E. Klassen quote Charles Taylor, “Taylor’s A Secular Age, in which he argues that a secular "modern social imaginary" robustly undergirds and shapes the conditions through which people can be religious in both intimate and public arenas, has inspired academic blogs and much scholarly rethinking of the structures of religious identity in secular societies” (10). The immigrants try hard to cling to their religious and cultural roots. The Hijab is a religious capital – as Vassanji portrays a girl wearing Hijab to her Quran class, and deconstructing the stereotypical image by her Canadian accent and her views on hockey. Vassanji observes, “Take this girl in hijab, standing in the elevator, head covered, ankles covered, a beautiful angular face, long body, who could have come straight from northern Pakistan. But when she unveils her mouth, out flows impeccable Toronto English, indistinguishable from that of any other kids, discussing what? - Last night’s hockey game. In her arms, covered with a decorated green cloth, is a heavy book also apparently in hijab. ... She’s on her way to Quran class, on the fourteenth floor” (Vassanji 64). The Quran class symbolizes a community-specific space which they construct to foster and tend their inherited value system.

The difference between preservation and protection is erased eventually when the immigrants begin to protect their religious and cultural identity. The immigrants deem it as their duty to protect their God, culture, their memories, and so on. The immigrants become more possessive of their religion and God. When the proselytizers visit Rosecliffe Park with Bibles, the residents welcome them but discourse their religious views with endorsements and fortitude, “We also have a God. We have a Pope too” (Vassanji 49). They do not antagonize the foster country, nevertheless, attempt to hold their socio-cultural and religious identity.

Remembering the past becomes one of the conscious endeavours of the immigrants. Emma Bond observes, “The body at once occupies the here and now of lived embodiment, but also functions as a carrier of memories and imprints from other times and spaces” (15). The immigrants bring memorabilia and tokens from their past to remind them who they are and where they have come from. For example, Zera brings Haji Lalani’s photograph to her new home. Typically, photographs are significant tokens from the past. Haji Lalani’s photograph is a portal which teleports Nurdin to his past, “The photograph on the wall, its face, intruded into his consciousness at this moment, eyes boring into him from the side, and he shuddered. His father’s photograph, taken in the 1940s, was one of the prized possessions Zera had brought from Dar” (Vassanji 83). The gaze of Nurdin’s father in the photograph performs a mystic surveillance and increases his sense of guilt.

Similar to the fixed gaze of Haji Lalani from the photograph, the serene gaze of Goddess Lakshmi helps the residents in self-regulation. The Goddess Lakshmi idol also acts as a religious icon and anchor to her believers. Her watchful gaze keeps the residents reassured and balanced. Vassanji describes the statue of Goddess Lakshmi overlooking the community, “Under the serene gaze of this Aphrodite or Lakshmi, some male inhabitants of Sixty-nine would gather in the mornings to discuss life and politics, while their wives or mothers would be out at work or rolling chappatis upstairs in the apartments or, to be fair, out on their own breaks. This was the Don Mills A-T, men sitting in a circle on the goddess platform, and standing around, sipping tea, sharing snacks, chatting” (70). This convivial habit makes the minority immigrants the center of a welcoming circle.

The necessity and strain to preserve one’s past and tradition becomes more difficult as the immigrant community is heterogenous – several religions and cultures. Therefore, the struggle of the immigrants is not just against the Canadian culture, but also to distinguish against all other diverse culture. Sixty-five Rosecliffe Park acts as a monument of multiculturalism and pluralism. It is a mosaic space standing for multiplicity and diversity. The inhabitants come from different racial origins and speak different tongues, “Here a dozen races mingle, conversant in at least as many tongues” (Vassanji 59). The food cooked in Sixty-five Rosecliffe Park also symbolise pluralism and variety. Vassanji lists out:

The cookers at Sixty-nine are on, full blast. Saucepans are bubbling, chappatis nest warmly under (cloth covers, rice lies dormant and waiting. Whatever one thinks of the smells, it must be conceded that the inhabitants of Sixty-nine eat well. I Chappatis and rice, vegetable, potato, and meat curry, rice cooked the Goan, Madrasi Hyderabadi, Guja Rati, and Punjabi ways, channa the Caribbean way, fou-fatu the West African way. (64)

Vassanji uses food as a cultural capital throughout the novel. From chappatis tiffins to chai and samosas, the narrative is dotted with gustatory imageries. It does not only confirm the identity of the residents of Rosecliffe Park, but also stands for a means of livelihood, religious taboo, and communal solidarity. The trade of food is remarkable as it denotes double sustenance – the seller and the buyer. For instance, Sheru Mama supplying chappatis for her family’s sustenance, “Now on the fourteenth floor, Sheru Mama dispenses chappatis at four for a dollar, cheaper wholesale. Sheru Mama makes hundreds of chappatis every day and babysits two toddlers at the same time, while husband Ramju helps with the dishes and puts the required dollop of margarine over every chappati. Her customers tend to be single men who will eat a chappati with a pickle, or butter and jam, or curry canned in the U. S” (Vassanji 60).

Similarly, Gulshan Bai is one of the residents of Sixty-nine Rosecliffe Park who uses her cooking skills to earn her livelihood. Vassanji accentuates by calling her trade a local industry, “On the sixth floor, well along the corridor and away from the bustle of the elevators, runs the major local industry. Here one Gulshan Bai prepares full meals for two, to take out” (Vassanji 59). This also helps the immigrants in buying affordable food which reminds them of their past.

Furthermore, this food acts as a token of several belief systems, like the ‘halal meat’ which some of the immigrants yearn for and, according to their habits from the past, try to perform in their back courtyard, “Apparently a gang of boys had come upon a site covered with blood and feathers in Rosecliffe Park, behind one of the apartment buildings” (Vassanji 60). This underscores both nostalgia and their struggle to keep up their practices against the altered present. Food also bestows individuals the opportunity to socialize and mingle.

Julianne Newmark argues, “senses of belonging as practice rely much more on the mutuality of experience in place than on any (impossible) melting down of ethnic, religious, and cultural differences” (3). The immigrants celebrate by coming together and talking about their past. Talking about their past becomes their pastime, “All this playing card and chatting and discussing silly topics while glugging tea by the gallon and eating samosas - is not Canadian” (Vassanji 128). The open house on the eighteenth floor represents a space where immigrant residents of the Rosecliffe Park can be their past selves and distance themselves from their everyday efforts to become a proper Canadian. It is a space of their own where they remember, relish, and rejuvenate their cultural ties, “they would go up to the eighteenth floor to the open house, to watch people playing cards and to chitchat over tea, to find out the news in Dar - the status of roads and food prices and the dollar price - all, reassuringly, bad” (Vassanji 68). The subject of their tête--tête reinforces their pledges with the former selves.

The immigrants’ insecurities and consternations are constant. They are afraid for their children's generation, and as a result, they invite Zera’s spiritual master, the Missionary. They summon him all the way from Tanzania. They feel lost and unhappy. Their invitation relays the immigrants’ mood, “An ardent request was submitted by Zera and his other former pupils, begging him to emigrate. We are desperate for guidance, they said. Life here is full of pitfalls. Children come home from school with questions we can’t answer. And want to celebrate Christmas” (Vassanji 67). In due course, the spiritually inclined members constitute a group and work a solution for their mystical qualms. This local chapter of the Missionary represents the keepers of moral responsibility. Vassanji narrates their preparations of the grounds, “The local chapter of Missionary’s followers, a group of women, had started regular evening meetings at the Lalanis’. They discussed and meditated, but mostly they liked to discuss” (175). This visit of the Missionary acts as a renewal of moral energy for the immigrant community in No New Land. Further, this fortifies them against their dilemmas and trepidations.

To conclude, as Lina Samuel ascertains, “The ways in which diasporic identities are constructed is dependent upon how 'traditional' culture is incorporated and how the group itself is inserted into the country of settlement” (95). The immigrants succeed both in assimilation and reclaiming their past. The novel ends with thoughtful lines summing up the immigrants’ resolve and approach, “Missionary had exorcized the past, yet how firmly he had also entrenched it in their hearts. Before, the past tried to fix you from a distance, and you looked away; but Missionary had brought it across the chasm, vivid, devoid of mystery. Now it was all over you. And with this past before you, all around you, you take on the future more evenly matched” (Vassanji 206).

In conclusion, this essay aimed to explore the experiences of Asian and African immigrants in Canada and their efforts to navigate the cultural and environmental conflicts that they face. Through the analysis of M. G. Vassanji's No New Land, the essay highlighted the immigrants' attempts to balance assimilation with the preservation of their cultural heritage. Concepts such as memory, social capital, diaspora, and secularism were examined to shed light on the immigrants' experiences of home, belonging, and mobility. The essay also discussed the challenges of integration and the role of society in shaping the immigrants' journey. Ultimately, this essay emphasizes the importance of understanding the complexities of immigrant experiences and the need for a more inclusive and supportive society that values and respects cultural diversity.