Queering the Diasporic Experiences in The Lowland

This paper explores how Jhumpa Lahiri employs queer diaspora as a way of criticizing the Model Minority myth in The Lowland. Model Minority myth has become a widely pervasive idea in American society since the Immigration and National Act was initiated in 1965, which aims not only to produce a politically docile type of immigrants but to encourage them to reproduce another generation of highly functional citizens in economic terms. Subhash in The Lowland represents the myth; he tries to survive in the U.S. by remaining apolitical and creating heteronormative nuclear family with children. In contrast, Gauri is described as someone defying the double-bind task of Model Minority myth. As a queer diasporic subject, she disrupts the role imposed upon her by undermining the very concept of ‘normal’ Asian immigrant family: she disrupts the reproductive economy of child-rearing and care, and in doing so, she turns into an unruly diasporic subject trespassing the ideological boundary that Model Minority myth enforces. By closely following Gauri’s transformation from a South Asian immigrant wife/mother to a queer disasporic individual, this paper aims to show that The Lowland debunks the biopolitical aspect of Model Minority myth enforcing reproductive citizenship to Asian immigrants.