In the dry desert of Denver, I once discovered a small stretch of water in the middle of a suburban neighborhood. Surrounded by houses on almost all sides, this small lake hardly the size of a standard swimming pool was the world to me. The cool waves of the water set against the dark background of the lake reminded me of the Arabian Sea outside my apartment in Bombay. This lake was my “quiet, watery spot” (Aciman 156) for reflection, and like Andre Aciman’s fountain in Italy that reminded him of Egypt in his essay
“Arbitrage” in the book Essays on Exile and Memory, this lake always revived the clear memories I had of Bombay and brought nostalgia of a home I left five years ago. The nostalgia created by these memories continues until a first generation immigrant returns to her homeland.
The Arabian Sea in Bombay is spectacular. As I remember the omnipresent sea that had become more than just a part of my life,
Wordsworth’s poem written at the Tintern Abbey as remembered by Aciman comes to my mind:
“Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur…” (Aciman, 150-51)
In Bombay, not only did I have a life full of pleasure, but also in the moments I spent near the Sea, I stored memories for my future. Whenever I visit any body of water, these memories are instantly revived and nostalgia for my homeland returns. First generation immigrants carry a burden of memories of their homeland with them when they migrate. I did not know then that these memories would have such a strong impact on my present or future – that these memories would create a strong feeling of nostalgia in me for home that would continue until I returned. In Denver, like Aciman’s Egypt, Bombay had become “an entire world I longed to recover” (Aciman 156).
I am in a sense like Carl and Lotte Hirsch from Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer’s article “
We would Not Have Come Without You: Generations of Nostalgia.” Just as Czernowitz was “a core constituent of their identity,” (Hirsch & Spitzer 254) Bombay is ever-present in my memory, not as a vague idea but rather as a very concrete and clear memory that continually influences my present life. This memory of Bombay creates a feeling of nostalgia within me, similar to the feeling of anticipation Carl and Lotte felt on their journey home.
However, first year immigrants from countries like China, India, and Mexico feel a different kind of nostalgia for their homeland than do victims of the holocaust. In many ways, the nostalgia for victims of holocaust is much more complex, as their homeland is “home in a way, but… also hostile territory” (Hirsch & Spitzer 256). Many holocaust victims are exiles or refugees who fled from their land to escape persecution. Therefore, the positive memories they have of their childhoods and their homelands are stored in juxtaposition to the “very negative and bitter memories with them–traumatic memories of times when they had suffered virulent discrimination and oppression” (Hirsch & Spitzer 259). Most of the immigrants from China, India, or Mexico are not fleeing persecution or trauma of that sort at all. Many of them come to the United States as they look forward to a land of opportunity. Thus, they carry with them mainly positive memories of their land, which makes the nostalgia they have for their homeland much deeper and more intense.
Aciman discusses the idea of arbitrage with respect to memory; an idea of the world in which we make “purchases at the Exchange of Time what [we] sell… at the Exchange of Place, knowing that, at the end of the transaction, [we’ll]… borrow from Place to purchase from Time to sell back to Place all over again” (Aciman 151). Aciman believes in a form of world in which the places that remind of the homeland become as important to the immigrant as the homeland itself. Unlike Carl and Lotte Hirsch who have nostalgia for Czernowitz specifically, Aciman seems to have lesser nostalgia for any particular place; instead, he simply seems to long for his childhood or other memories associated with different places. His nostalgia, although potentially more complex, is weaker than the nostalgia experienced by first generation immigrants such as Carl and Lotte Hirsch.
Aciman’s weaker nostalgia stems from his having spent very little of his childhood in Egypt. His “nostalgia was rootless” (emphasis not added) (Hirsch & Spitzer 263) in a way, because he had few concrete memories of Egypt. The only memories of Egypt he really seems to remember are the idea of his being close to his brother, his tutors having taught him in Egypt and his leaving Egypt with his father. He casts doubt on most of his other memories, and admits to having mixed fiction with reality. He himself indicates doubt regarding the memory he has of Egypt as he states: “although it gave every indication of having been lost, there was scant evidence it had ever existed” (Aciman 160). He seems to be attached more to the idea of Egypt, and in a sense, to the idea of his childhood, than to his homeland Egypt itself. Thus, Aciman is in many ways more like a second-generation immigrant with a vague idea of his homeland, but with few memories that continually haunt him.
What joins Carl and Lotte Hirsch’s experiences to those of Aciman is their experience of being an exile. Aciman, despite having a royal background, was driven out of Egypt due to his Jewish religious beliefs. Therefore, although he does not discuss this subject much in “Arbitrage,” he shares having negative memories juxtaposed with the nausea for his homeland with Carl and Lotte Hirsch. Aciman’s, Carl Hirsch's and Lotte Hirsch’s exile-refugee experiences, albeit at different ages, differentiate them from the immigrants who come from China, India, or Mexico in search of economic opportunity to the United States.
The idea of arbitrage is consequently very different for first generation immigrants who came to the United States to simply gain economic opportunities. The memories are more entrenched and concrete than those of second-generation immigrants. They are also generally very positive, especially when compared to those of exiles or refugees. First generation immigrants consequently feel a much stronger nausea due to the strong positive memories associated with their homeland. Similar to the significance of Czernowitz for Carl and Lotte Hirsch, the homeland’s memories and their nausea for it becomes a core part of the identity of first generation immigrants. Thus, arbitrage for first generation immigrants becomes a form of borrowing from place at the exchange of time, and then being stuck in that time or memory until a return of place takes place. First generation immigrants migrate on credit and carry a heavy loan in holding on to the memories of their homeland and paying with nostalgia until a return to their homeland can set them free.
Nostalgia is in the very traditional manner a
“languishing for home… triggered… through sights, sounds, smells, tastes–any of a number of associations that might influence them to recall the homes and environments they had unwillingly left behind” (Hirsch & Spitzer 258).
Hirsch and Spitzer point out that in the older days, soldiers who had the disease of nostalgia were thought to be cured only by returning them to their homeland. For Carl and Lotte Hirsch, “a physical return [to the homeland] can thus facilitate the process of working through” (Hirsch & Spitzer 260) the nostalgia. Even Wordsworth needed to return to the Tintern Abbey to realize the power of memory and the impact it would have for his future years:
“While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years…” (Aciman 150-51).
When Wordsworth returns to the Tintern Abbey, he realizes that his experiences and the memories he stores of them are powerful enough to create nostalgia for the past in future years. For first generation immigrants, the century-old cure of returning to the homeland due to the disease of nostalgia still applies; only by returning to the homeland can an immigrant truly recover from nostalgia. Until then, as Paul Celan said: “in the air your root remains, there in the air.” (Hirsch & Spitzer 253)
For first generation immigrants, it is necessary to return to home to reconcile with the powerful memories that create a sense of nostalgia for the homeland. Like Aciman, I often tried to write about Bombay over the past five years, but every time I began, I would only fill the pages with a series of memories of my homeland, and not be able to draw any conclusions from them. Like Aciman, “my inability to write this story mirrored my inability to return to” (Aciman 159) Bombay. However, as I entered college, I realized that I was in control of my destiny, and that I could return to Bombay after finishing my education. My nostalgia for Bombay became a source of motivation to succeed in college and then return to India to help my fellow citizens. As Hirsch & Spitzer define the more positive definition of nostalgic memory: “a resistant relationship to the present, [and yet] a ‘critical utopianism’ that imagines a better future” (Hirsch & Spitzer 258). When I now visit the Hudson River in New York, my heart fills with warmth as nostalgic memories from the past point me towards my future.
