Multiculturalism and Feminist Concerns in South Asian Diaspora Novels

The importance of multiculturalism within the parameters of feministic theory has become a new element for South Asian diaspora writers. They are keenly interested in debating the issues of cultural conflicts, differences, identity, assimilation, integration, negation, oppression, sex discrimination and gender inequality in their works. This paper with a focus on Monica Ali’s Brick Lane, Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers brings out the features of female oppression that lead to their fragmentation on emotional, social, cultural and physical levels. Thus the focus of this paper is to analytically perceive how some prominent writers have shown feminist concerns about these situations.


INTRODUCTION
Deriving from Beauvoir's existential worldview as exhibited strongly in her La deuxième sexe (Powel 2006), feminists have debated the secondary status of women in different contexts.They explicate how gender roles in societies are determined by cultural and social norms with reference to femininity and masculinity (Mohanty 2003, Narayan 1997& 1998).Keeping the hierarchical, andocentric paradigms of society in view, various feminist theorists have tried to give voice to all those voiceless minorities, ‗the women' who have been treated as non entities within the society.These women are never free from inhibitions.First there is the societal control and male dominance in the form of oppression, paralleled by their personal parameters of cultural training that lie submerged and ready to strike whenever any aberrant behaviour is perceived.In the Third World especially, in the South Asian region, situation for women generally consists of problems caused by cultural and economic strains.However, it is also observed that the same problems in a subtler way are faced by migrant women who live a life of double oppression; first as second rate citizens and then as Diaspora entities.Okin (1999) identifies these problems as a result of unequal structures of society and practices of the family life, as well as the parallel nonexistent empowerment of women in relation to men in the public and private spheres (p.3).Banerjee (1990) is very vocal in her stance that all possible efforts have been made to silent female expressiveness in any art form.Referring to the late nineteenth century elite, Bengali nationalist stance concerning women expressiveness, she argues that these elite men, influenced deeply by their British mentors and self righteous male hegemony, tried to suppress the local form of women's' popular culture inclusive of songs, poems, dances and theatrical performances commonly shared by numerous classes.The declared purpose of suppressing these art forms was emancipation of Bengali women from the sexuality expressed indirectly in these art forms.They were condemned and castigated as nonsense and prone to sexuality; hence by the end of the century, women folk performers stopped performing in Calcutta (Banerjee 1990, pp. 130-32) The novelists writing about women in the above scenario re-enact the South Asian Diaspora women who are victims of this confusing situation.Interestingly, it is not the upper class women who are the subject of these novelists; rather they depict the lives of the class which has migrated to the West for economic or political reasons.They have been oppressed in their own country, but re-live ironically the same experience in the liberal/democratic West.These women are generally semi-literate and unaccustomed and unfamiliar to the ways of the liberal, multicultural West and therefore remained deprived of the opportunity to progress and this is constantly implicated in their men's fear of probable negative Western influence on them.Chakravarty (2007) in her profound argument in Feminism and Contemporary Women writers states that the route to the attainment of self -realization and development by these women is intertwined with re-negotiation and understanding of those diverse forces which might be cultural or economic and play a pertinent role in shaping and limiting their experience in their peculiar contexts.In this context it is also interesting to observe that Western feminism and its philosophy are not as universal as assumed by them.Hooks (1990) candidly observes that there are divisions created among women based on race, religion, culture, nationality, region, sexual orientation, language and the barriers that it creates, especially with reference to South Asian diaspora women.These factors are in fact ignored by Western feminists but taken up by South Asian diaspora novelists.
This paper argues what possible correlation could be drawn between multiculturalism and the diaspora women predicament and how multicultural notion of equality appear farcical for diaspora women.The analysis is particularity based on Monica Ali's Brick Lane and Nadeem Aslam's Maps for Lost Lovers.Within the parameters of feministic approach and feminist struggle for equal rights in the world, this paper focuses on the conflicts in androcentric culture at the micro and macro levels.

MULTICULTURALISM AND FEMINIST CONCERNS IN THE DIASPORA NOVEL
-Arguably the most urgent social and psychological challenge of political societies in the contemporary West‖, writes Nesbitt-Larking (2008) -is that of accommodating ethnoreligious diversities and dealing with more or less entrenched differences within the context of highly permeable states and liberal democratic political cultures‖ (p.352).Three core terms implicated in this challenge are diaspora, multiculturalism and dialogue with each being a contested domain in the Western political and cultural discourses.For instance, multiculturalism that aims at emphasizing equality, tolerant acceptance of cultural diversities and ethnic cleavages has been contested by the sceptics.-The changing nature of global migration, new social formations spanning nation-states and the persistently poor socioeconomic standing of immigrant and ethnic minority groups‖ writes Vertovec (2010) suggests the end of the older models of multiculturalism.Added to these conditions, writes Vertovec -there has emerged in public discourse across numerous settingsespecially in Europea broad backlash against multiculturalism.From the political Right many critics now see multiculturalism as a foremost contributor to social breakdown, ethnic tension and the growth of extremism and terrorism.From the Left, where numerous commentators were long dubious of a seeming complicity with Empire and willing blindness to class-based inequalities, even previous supporters of multiculturalism came to question the model as contributing to a demise of the welfare state and the failure of public services‖ (p.84).
To a great extent, a member of a diasporic community is always an outsider, a representative of the other, lacking in full citizenship and cultural immersion.To regard and to refer to ethno-racial and religious minorities in Canada as Diasporas would be to privilege a certain reading of precedence of arrival in the geographical space of Canada that promotes an insider versus outsider hierarchical view of what constitutes a true Canadian.Moreover, among certain individuals and communities, an ascribed diasporic identity can exacerbate the continued existence of tensions and feuds originating in other parts of the world and resonating among those who have settled elsewhere.The contested nature of both concepts complicates intercultural dialogue.
From a feminist point of view, the ideology of multiculturalism reverses.Picher and Whelehan (2004) assert that feminism and multiculturalism can be posited as oppositional in the context of andocentric cultures as women are victimized by the andocentric modes of culture, which even under the umbrella of multiculturalism continues to negate the very ideals of equality, tolerant co-existence, respect and regard for ethnicity and minority.The South Asian diaspora women stand on the lowest strata.Ironically, while the white native female of a multicultural society enjoys all the privileges, the picture of South Asian women in their native societies and their position as diaspora identities of South Asian region is pronouncedly bleak.This feminist perspective of the suffering of women due to cultural conflicts has become the current debate for South Asian writers.Therefore the importance of multiculturalism within the parameters of feministic theory has become a new dimension for South Asian diaspora writers.They are keenly interested in discussing the issues of cultural conflicts, differences, identity, assimilation, integration, negation, oppression, sex discrimination and gender inequality.

MONICA ALI'S BRICK LANE (BL)
Monica Ali, a diasporic writer represents prevalent dichotomy of freedom and repression in her novel Brick Lane.The women of the Muslim ethnic minority here are twice marginalized.Firstly as diaspora identities living on the peripheries of civilized society of Britain, and secondly as a victim of their own specific cultural order that enshrines men dominance over women.Thus the novel represents in various ways the plight of female oppression and subjugation in a multicultural world.The female protagonist Nazneen here gets married to Channu and settles in England.Her marriage envisages a typical male need for finding a useful partner.She was chosen by Channu, not for beauty or character, but for her usefulness in taking care of routine domestic duties.But for Nazneen there are many predicaments in this situation.Firstly her departure from her homeland is a kind of loss, she has to undergo after marriage.Then as a diasporic entity, she is plagued by class distinction in restrictive and peculiar ways.
Ali further explicates the multicultural issues of identity, diaspora, assimilation and the differences among the different subgroups of ethnic minorities and majority residing in England.On one hand are the -Towers of Hamlet‖(BL, p.18) which are termed by Nazneen as life in a -Big Box with muffled sound‖ (BL, p. 18) and on the other hand, she portrays vivid scenes of Nazneen' birthplace Mymensingh District.This contrast has been drawn purposely by Ali, because she has to explain the typical alienation of women in the context of diaspora throughout the novel.Their condition is of double imprisonment.It is the forced imprisonment of the women by their men, bounding them in their homes, afraid that they might outsource them, as well as a metaphoric imprisonment as outsiders to this alien culture.The monotony, the broken pavement and the dead grass of the ‗Tower of Hamlets' along with its excruciating closeness and proximity of existence in those box like flats where one is always a stranger reflects this peculiarities there.In all her past eighteen years in her homeland Nazneen could scarcely remember a moment, she had spent alone.Until she married and came to London -to sit day after day in this large box with the furniture to dust, and the muffled sound of private lives sealed away above, below and around her‖ (BL P,18) In contrast the memories of homeland haunt her, the beautiful landscape of the Bangladeshi village flashes through her mind day and night.-The pull of the land is stronger even than the pull of the blood…They don't really leave home.Their bodies are here but their hearts are back there.And anyway, look how they live: just re-creating the villages here‖ (BL,.Nazneen feels herself locked in the Towers of Hamlet; doing household chores all day long she yearns to get out of the -box‖ (BL, p. 18).
This box is symbolic of a prison, where one is in the constant gaze of the neighbours.She is surrounded by eyes and no friends.This relegation to the attic box is a symbolic imprisonment, because her husband is insecure in letting her go.Nazneen's diasporic sense becomes stronger when she walks across the narrow streets of Brick Lane and comes to the realization that her existence as a female in a multicultural alien society is neither acknowledged nor recognized.This condition is in a way not much different from what she to experience in her homeland.As a woman, she was a non entity there, and in the outside world too she is a marginalized ethnic minority.Her sense of loss continues to widen with each passing day.She is unable to communicate with her husband because of typical cultural contexts that does not allow women to be on par with men even in routine affairs.Then her status in the household is more or less of an unpaid servant that necessitates her to suffer indignities.
Another reason for her loneliness is that Channu does not like Nazneen to have friendship with ‗menial class' females; discrimination within an already discriminatory set up; thus widening the sense of desolation in Nazneen's consciousness.This internalization of feelings shows how women always have to exist in a vacuum.Ali describes this painful conflict of existence that the immigrants, especially women experience in these words, -to be an immigrant is to live out a tragedy‖ (BL, p. 77).For women, it is a double tragedy that they have to experience perpetually in an alien and unfamiliar setting.Nazneen is unfamiliar with the new system, new language, with the multicultural world around her.However, the most challenging task for her is to get used to her husband.She has to submit to him totally, shed all her dreams becoming a robot.Continuously she feels depressed and as an inferior being within the household, subject to the male gaze.Being an alien to the world she has come to inhabit, she asks Channu if she could leave the flat.Reflecting secondary female situation, he replies -Why should you go out‖?(BL, p. 45).Living in London, in a liberal multicultural world, she is metaphorically a prisoner, satisfying the male yearning to possess.Her interest to learn English is rejected because language gives power and power is one thing men would never give to their women.His rebuttal, -where's the need anyway?' (BL, p. 37) explicates his insecurity and fear of losing control.
The dominance of Channu and strangeness of the outside world limits her possibilities to gain exposure living under Channu's gaze forever.Nazneen culturally learns to be submissive but on the other hand she feels an entrapment within her psychic pattern of mind.Nazneen's suppressive existence can be gauged through her words -trapped inside the room, inside this flat, inside this concrete slab of entombed humanity‖ (BL, p. 76) she is the Lady of Shallot who would cease to live, if she comes out of this entrapment.Later when Channu's dreams of becoming prosperous are shattered, confronted with unemployment for long periods, he buys a sewing machine for Nazneen so that she could make money through sewing.The sewing machine is important in the context of her life because it becomes a symbol of freedom and empowerment for her.It is a turning point in her married life, because it provides her space to develop socially and economically.When she makes money, she sends some to her sister Hasina living in Dhaka, a symbolic act of independence comparing it to her earlier dependence upon her husband.Roles have been switched, as she takes on the role of a ‗male' for a short period of time.She becomes conscious of this fact and feels stronger.She challenges the cultural and social order and finds a gateway to get equal rights as men, through economic means.The symbolic empowerment frees her emotionally too.At this juncture, she gains acquaintance with Karim, an immigrant from Bangladesh, who like other immigrants from Asia, is struggling in London for better opportunities.
The acquaintance has its own complexities.It leads to Nazneen erotic awakening for handsome Karim.But she always remains disturbed by the realization that such an act could result in stoning to death in her native land, though practised with discretion in a liberal multicultural society.She can neither adopt the Western dating practice nor have an adulterous relationship.In her unconscious lies the realization of all those inhibitions that like an iceberg lie submerged beneath the conscious.Karim gives her social and political exposure in the multicultural society of London.This freedom is important for Nazneen.Attending a political meeting with Karim, she feels a new sense of power.She votes for Karim when he contests election.She participates in his victory by raising her hand.She feels a new sense of joy caused by the realization that she could alter the course of events.This incident makes her aware of her role in society that she can influence important decisions of society.It fills her with possibilities of empowerment and provides her chance to be herself and be loved.It signifies more than sexual freedom for her.She has been trained to negate herself and to submit, first to her father, then to her husband.She has lost her freedom by submitting to the male dominance and as a result had become a non -entity.In a very peculiar way, Karim offers her an anchor, which Nazneen in Towers of Hamlet never found.These Towers of Hamlets symbolize rejection and exploitation.She keeps on oscillating between Bangladeshi loss and England's denial.Ironically she remains suspended, not finding an anchor even with Karim whom she leaves ultimately realizing the fact that there is no future for them.This is a sad explication of a woman's condition according to ethnic culture from which she cannot free herself though living in a liberal society.The Bengali women's alienation and diaspora within a cultural context is twofold as it is complex as well as bidirectional.
Taking an economic view point regarding female perspectives, Brick Lane represents economic degradation of women.Hasina is unable to pay the rent of her home.Women are discriminated professionally from men as they do not seem to have the same working conditions as their male colleagues have.Hasina's life is greatly influenced by male power, dominance, physical violation and sexual exploitation.Domestic gender sexual division extends even to the public arena of paid work, resulting in gender discrimination.In the garment factory, she is discriminated because of her gender.She was earlier exploited at the hands of Malik, her husband as he used to beat her and interestingly how women are trained to be slave minded can be judged by her landlady's consolation -better get beaten by your own husband than beating by a stranger‖ (BL, p 58).Later Chowdhury comes into her life with the masked relationship of ‗father-daughter'.He later degrades her in every way just because she is working in a male environment; vulnerable to male lasciviousness.The episode of Abdul and Chowdhury changes her course of life as she becomes a prostitute in order to survive.Like ‗Jane Eyre, she is restless and longing to participate in the world around her': -She'd have to propel herself into the future by whatever means possible or she'd be trapped forever in a place whose time had already passed‖ (BL, p. 54).So her predicament is permanent, and the change of context from a rigidly patriarchy social order to a liberal, multicultural Western one does not affect any substantial change in her life and existence.
ASLAM'S MAPS FOR LOST LOVERS Nadeem Aslam's Maps for Lost Lovers highlights similar themes like the cultural conflicts through feminist perspective, where women have to face oppression, subjugation, and physical violence which complicates and contradicts multiculturalism.They are never treated equally or even as human beings, and marginalized even in the multicultural world of ‗West' or ‗East'.They remain at peripheral borders within their cultural surroundings.Aslam ironically presents the two major institutions of society responsible for violence and discrimination against women.They are culture and conventions.The main story of the novel is concerned with the disappearance and presumed killing of Jugnu and Chanda, who in violation of explicit sacred commands and cultural conventions had lived in a sinful relationship.But their condition is not contrary to the ideals of self fulfilment, liberalism and freedom of the social and multicultural order of the West.
A web of sub-plots is built around specific feminine concerns especially in the context of South Asian diaspora.The issues highlighted are the outcome of the impact of ethnic culture in contradiction to multicultural norms on the female lives.Women are the most obvious victims of the whole scenario.Chanda, Suraya, Mahjabin, Kaukab are troubled in the name of culture and are the exact examples of how women have to suffer in this order.Masculinity in the overall context means that a man has to show his egoism in relation with woman; he must be domineering, hostile and brutal.Surraya's husband is an exact reflection of this type of ‗manliness'.Likewise Mahjabin's husband is an example of a creature that prefers to resort to physical and mental torture in his relation with wife.These types leave a negatively significant impression on women's lives and establish the link between violence in the public sphere being transferred into the private sphere culturally (Talbot 2007).
The cultural conflicts take on a different twist in the secular multicultural English society.These immigrants are torn between the East and West, struggling to retain their sanity, to retain some normalcy in their strained lives.This sense of insecurity and marginalization is replicated in the diaspora households where women become the butt of all frustrations as shown in The Maps for Lost Lovers.Diasporic families are always on the fringes of the urbane/civilized world of enlightenment, secularism and liberalism as ethnic minorities, instead of being amalgamated in the multicultural world, but the condition keeps on mounting on the female diaspora, as they are forced to be recipients of all those frustration that their men have faced in the society.One of the central characters, Kaukab is representative of cultural breach between the East and the West.She is the one who suffers in multicultural society of England, because she feels repulsed by Western culture and white people around her.She often curses Shamas (her husband) and blames him for the conflicts between her and their children, -You brought me here, to this accursed country.You made me lose my children… I hold you responsible for the fact that my children hate me‖ (Maps p, 328).From the feminist point of view it is all male induced misery.Often South Asian women lose all emotional, psychological and relational security in the multicultural society of England and in the West at large.
Kaukab's predicament is also the result of the universal phenomenon of female internalization of what they cannot express; transforming it into a churning hatred against everything that is incomprehensible, threatening and oppressive.The white woman Stella represents the white feminine world which in contrast to her own situation in life is independent, free to exercise her will and a symbol of feminine liberation.This liberation in Kaukab's context is extremely repugnant to her, but on the other hand it is free from male domination and subjugation in contrast to her life situation.An interesting contrast to her restrictive world is that men try to merge in this multicultural liberal world, absorbing themselves culturally in all those things that they consider reprehensible for their women.They drink; utter blasphemous nonsense to please the whites and indulge in all kinds of sexual liberty; a dichotomy to all their so called values that they impress upon their feminine counterparts.
The characters of Chanda and Surraya in the novel have similarities with the character of Hasina in Brick Lane as all of them have been exploited and deprived of their basic rights.Sterba (2002) (as qtd. in Doppelt 2002) states that -gender oppression goes way beyond sex roles and the division of labour in the family; it also involves a gendered division of power throughout social relations and imposition of a view of females as the weaker sex tied by nature to emotion, reproduction, dependence and subordination to male desires‖ (p.389).There are a number of examples in both the novels where atrocities have been inflicted upon these three characters because they are women and by virtue of that they are non entities, whose desires have been suppressed in every way.
Chanda's multiple marriages in quick succession point out another great and disturbing facet of female subjugation and manipulation.While a baby, she was promised for matrimony to a cousin.Therefore, as she moves into adulthood, her parent sends her to Pakistan, at sixteen to marry a first cousin.But the marriage was a disaster for her and it could only last for a year.Following this debacle in her life, another cousin in Pakistan, taking pity on her, agreed to marry her even though she was no longer a virgin.The second marriage too was a bitter failure.He divorced her a few months later and she had to return to England.Then an illegal immigrant was found for her to marry; his whole interest was to grab British nationality and was least concerned about her past marriages.As expected, he disappeared the moment he got the legal status in England.Chanda could do nothing, and in fact continued the marriage because there had been no divorce (Maps, p. 54).The whole episode was conditioned by the cultural stress on Chanda's parents of marrying their daughter off; thus making evident of the imposition of parental pressure and denial of the freedom to choose for a grown up girl living in the centre of English society.
This factor could be linked with the prevalent marriage practices among the Diasporas.Raj (2003) highlights the complex nature of the popular practices of arranged marriages and their implications for the families.She opines that it must be flexible enough to balance parent-children concerns regarding arranged marriages and allowing children greater right to integrate their own romantic affairs within the process (p.106).Besides, she writes how children use different strategies of subverting and resisting the process of arranged marriages to realize their aspirations even while agreeing in principle (Raj 2003, p. 129).This suppression of the basic human rights denied to women in the south Asian region is the concern of many feminist writers in the diaspora context.As Mohanty (1988) puts it, "more than a condensed symbol of the struggle between old and new worlds and between generations, arranged marriage has long stood as evidence of South Asian women's lack of autonomy, emotional contentment, and sexual satisfaction.Arranged marriage is blamed for a host of social problems facing South Asian women‖.Chanda is a victim of circumstances.She is a twenty five year old woman, married thrice, a kind of veteran in marriages, and troubled by bitter marital relationships.But living in a modern and liberal society which guarantees freedom to men and women to exercise their will, she is bound by the religious imperative of not being free to marry unless divorced, or the passage of stipulated time.She cannot choose the man of her choice, nor can she live independently with another man in accordance with the practice of the West.And if she develops an illicit relation with Jugnu, she is murdered in the name of honour killing (Raj 2003).
Another cultural conflict highlighted is that men prefer kill a sister who has lived in sin.Manliness demanded them to commit this horrible act for personal ego.Side by side with this false egoism, social respect in the sub-continent is analogous to honour related with feminine virtue.As her marriage failed, she came back to live in England.But her brothers instructed her to consider wearing an all-enveloping burqa (veil).Male honour and selfrespect is dependent on their female kin's reputation in the context of the subcontinent; thus it is considered imperative to keep women restricted to the four walls, ironically the immigrant males in multicultural West perpetrate those same culturally motivated constrictions on their women in the western multicultural scenario too.In her research work, Saharso (2008) illustrates that women are restricted to wearing the headscarf and they have restricted dress codes, -women may not freely enter the public sphere, women may not decide for themselves how they want to live‖ (p. 7).Women as Karla (2009) observes are culturally seen as unforgivable whether they live in Pakistan or England, and parents are more lenient towards the sons, if they commit a socially reprehensible or culturally unacceptable crime.This gender-biased behaviour, is in no way compatible to Islamic injunctions, yet it has become a part of the cultural norm (p.159) The act of retribution Talbot states is supposed to be applied to men and women but in a majority of cases it is women (p, 179).Chanda's murder is labelled as honour killing for bringing shame upon the family, subverting the male dominance, disrupting their life and social values and violating the sanctuary of home.
The plight of Suraya strengthens the above outlined predicament.She suffers due to her drunkard husband.In fact she represents women's plight in a larger cultural context for she is a British citizen denied the rights of a free liberal subject.Her struggle is against the distressing odds.Being a representative of that section of the society which is empowered by the cultures to strangle her voice, she would prefer to be emancipated than tied to a disturbing relationship with an egocentric male, provided the issue of the son was not there.Ironically Suraya's case is juxtaposed with Chanda; both are the targets of culturally conditioned circumstances.The impact of these imperatives on their lives is great.They have to carry on with societal reproach, shame and disparagement as well as face circumstances that could literally wipe them out.She is compelled to look for a suitable person who would marry her only for the sake of fulfilling a religious obligation, and she is desperate to have her will fulfilled.But the situation is rife with complexity.She becomes weak and susceptible to manipulation and coercion; susceptible to be deceived by men, and yet to fulfil her will, she is prepared even to take this risk too.Her first attempt to tempt Charag fails as he shares the same cultural reservation for unsanctioned relationships, despite the fact that he has illicit relation with White Stella.
This dichotomy in his conduct with respect to two women shows how situation, cultural context and social norms change in a foreign land.She is a woman abandoned and insulted by the drunken husband, attached to her cultural conditioned doctrines of submission to a husband who may ridicule and reject her at will.This factor increases her susceptibility; her son is used as a type of disturbing blackmail.She is caught in the grip of ethical and cultural quandary; overwhelmingly permeated by the culturally propelled philosophy that a divorced woman is a contemptible being.Her predicament is grave; she belongs to the Western cultural set up without being able to incorporate its cultural norms.It also reflects that the ethnic cultural norms are so strong that they can never be considered in multicultural ideals of mixture of cultures.Thus the women under these ethnic cultural practices continue to suffer even though she lives in the Western society.Talbot has very rightly pointed out that domestic violence, ranging from harassment, beating, and immolation or driving the person to suicide has increased (Talbot 2007) manifesting biases against women.CONCLUSION Both Ali and Aslam have drawn attention to the inherent conflict in the multicultural discourse.The plight of diasporic women in their respective works draw attention to the fact that women are doubly marginalized in the cosmopolitan centre of the liberal west.It appears in their works that the two terms feminism and multiculturalism are in conflict with each other because the disparity which exists between the two always differentiate women considering them sub ordinate to men.To achieve the feminists' rights, the circumstances need be changed; which does not mean the elimination of different ethnic cultures, but working out a way to redefine it in a non-gendered way.It would be best if a gender egalitarian society is formed in which women are granted protection through a supportive feminist discourse.It would be pertinent to refer to her to their specific Muslim identity.It needs to be stressed that religion as such has nothing to do with how men exploit women or manipulate their conditions to their advantage.It is because a typical and culturally conditioned mindset allows men to dominate and the change of environment from tradition to liberal does not affect any change in this already culturally conditioned mindset.