Diasporic playgrounds: how coming-of-age stories unsettle official multiculturalism in Carrianne Leung’s That Time I Loved You and Souvankham Thammavongsa’s How to Pronounce Knife

Raheja, Shruti (2022) Diasporic playgrounds: how coming-of-age stories unsettle official multiculturalism in Carrianne Leung’s That Time I Loved You and Souvankham Thammavongsa’s How to Pronounce Knife. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

[English] PDF - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. Download (475kB)

Abstract

This thesis examines how the perspectives of children in the short story collections That Time I Loved You by Carrianne Leung and How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa function to challenge government discourses on multiculturalism in so-called Canada. Through depictions of mental illness among immigrant and refugee families, acts of secret-keeping that keep hurtful information hidden, and rejections of heteronormativity, these coming-of-age stories resist attempts to assimilate migrants into an overarching storyline featuring success, gratitude, and transparency. The thesis’s introductory chapter contextualizes Canadian Multiculturalism, reviews pertinent scholarship in diasporic studies within English Canada, and considers the place of the bildungsroman genre in this field. Chapter 2 embarks on a close analysis of the primary texts, exploring how immigrants and refugees who express mental illness and/or die by suicide subvert discourses that emphasize the potential prosperity of those who come to Canada. Chapter 3 addresses secret-keeping among the children of immigrants and examines how withholding information is a radical act practiced by those who are meant to be legible and grateful to the nation-state. This chapter highlights literary techniques such as unnamed characters and sparse language which contribute to secrecy within these texts. Subsequently, Chapter 4 discusses immigrant queerness and how it stands in contrast to the linear temporalities embodied and projected by hegemonic rhetoric. The final chapter of this thesis offers concluding thoughts on the unique epistemologies of migrant children: how their knowledges, which reach across space and time, hold something greater than the sum of their individual inheritances. Among these children is the wisdom to imagine more equitable societies and futures that prioritize justice and kindness.

Actions (login required)

View Item