Book Recommendation: "We Need New Names" By NoViolet Bulawayo

One of my FAVORITE books: "We Need New Names" By Noviolet Bulawayo

image source: http://www.revolutionbooks.org/2015/08/noviolet-bulawayo-we-need-new-names.html

The author truly does interpret globalization in an interesting way. Please let me know what your favorite books are and if you have any book recommendations. I'll read almost anything! Here's a piece I wrote about Bulawayo's book.

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In the second half of Noviolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names, she beautifully depicts the feelings of an American immigrant, through Darling, by navigating out of Zimbabwe into a contrasting second half in America, a place the narrator struggles to identify as home. Her strong use of figurative language is not only prevalent in every page, but also vividly conveys struggles and impressions left on Darling as she experiences the real America versus her America, which she calls “My America”. Personally, I was most impacted by the idea of America as a living being that swallows all it comes in contact with, which connects back to Tim Brennan’s fourth definition of Globalization, which he shares in his paper is the idea that Globalization may just be larger scale Americanization.

Immediately following Darling’s arrival to America, she discusses the consuming-nature of snow. She states “It is a greedy monster too, the snow, because just look at how it has swallowed everything” and then she goes on to list off things the snow covers. While in this specific part she refers to just items such as nature, throughout the second half I found there to be repetition of the idea of American ideas and concepts swallowing others that seems to further prove that this personification of snow was intentionally placed to supplement her message. It is also interesting because snow is something that is obviously very white, which makes it a possible representation of white Americans.

In order to understand the point of the white snow being personified to represent America as swallowing, one must address page 250-251, which was part of the text that impacted me the most, as I felt that it conveyed a struggle that anyone that comes from outside of America feels as they assimilate. On page 250, She refers to America as “the greedy monster that swallowed their children, swallowed their sons and daughters of other lands and refused to spit them out,” which she continues into the idea that the customs, such as proper burials, and parts of their culture, such as their names, began to become lost or swallowed when one entered America.

When discussing these passages in regards to globalization, they align with Brennan’s fourth definition of globalization, where globalization is not completely real, but the ideas of America are pushed as the norm. In the case of these passages, American culture swallows whatever enters America, rather than there being an even exchange of ideas/culture. Quite obviously Bulawayo shows the spread of goods, which was seen through the fact that both Darling’s rich boss’s daughter and Bastard were able to wear shirts with the same Cornell logo. Despite this spread of material goods, there is lack of those around Darling in America learning about her culture, or even acknowledging it as separate term from “Africa”. Instead, as shown through the customs that Noviolet describes as being lost overtime in America in this specific portion of the text, America consumes her ideas and culture.

Both Darling and Bobby become spectators of globalization rather than the one’s impacting the change. For example, in the bathroom scene, Darling refrains from educating the women about the complexity of Zimbabwe. To her both of her bosses, at the gas station and in in the house Darling also refrains from educating them, despite their ignorance. Yet, American and Western ideals have no problem re-framing her identity and outlook. She becomes what she so strongly opposed when she cites CNN as a way to understand what Chipo is feeling in Zimbabwe. There is an intrinsic unfairness in the system of globalization. While the idea of the this transfer of information, knowledge, culture is supposedly so evident and accessible, there is a course of barrier after barrier that individuals from places other than America and Europe are faced with. Bobby despite his ability to make it to America and provide for his family has reached a point of understanding that he does not have social mobility and he fails to see hope in fighting the system.