TOWARD A POST-RACIAL READING OF

HYBRIDITY IN WHITE TEETH

A Thesis

Presented

to the Faculty of

California State University Dominguez Hills

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

in

English: Literature

by

Cicelyn Turkson

Spring 2009
 UMI Number: 1466467

Copyright 2009 by
Turkson, Cicelyn

INFORMATION TO USERS

The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy
submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations
and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper
alignment can adversely affect reproduction.
In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript
and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized
copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.

UMI
UMI Microform 1466467
Copyright 2009 by ProQuest LLC
All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against
unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

ProQuest LLC
789 East Eisenhower Parkway
P.O. Box 1346
Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346
 Copyright by

CICELYN TURKSON
2009
All rights reserved
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to the Department of English, specifically to Dr. Chin for his guidance on this

project. In addition, I would like to thank my parents for their encouragement,

inspiration and for always instilling the value of education and independent thought.

IV
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

COPYRIGHT PAGE ii

APPROVAL PAGE iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS v

ABSTRACT vi

CHAPTER

I. AN INTRODUCTION TO POST-RACIAL AND POST-NATIONAL THEORY 1

II. ROOTS AND POST-NATIONAL THEORY: THE IDENTITY

IMPACT OF MIGRATION 8

III. THE ROUTE OF IDENTITY: POST-RACIAL THEORY AND THE SECOND

GENERATION 15

IV. THE DESTABILIZATION OF RACIAL CATAGORIES 26

WORKS CITED 35

v
 ABSTRACT

Questioning what constitutes Englishness in the twenty-first century, Zadie

Smith's White Teeth deconstructs the established markers of race, roots and origins.

Expanding upon this and incorporating the work of Stuart Hall, Rinaldo Walcott and

Molly Thompson, I further interrogate concepts of origins and cultural homelands to

illuminate identity as a process of constant transformation. Rejecting the concept of

identity as a fixed essence engages an understanding of'routes' over 'roots.' Thus, a

post-racial/post-national theory focuses on the effects of hybridity. Such theories reveal

twenty-first century definitions of home as becoming less distinct. Therefore, labeling

the youth of White Teeth as the harmonious result of blending race and culture is too

reductive. Exploring the problematic relationship of straddling the conflicting racial and

national identities of White Teeth reveals that Englishness in the twenty-first century is

about accepting a multiplicity of equally valid hybrid voices articulating the English

experience.
 1
CHAPTER I

AN INTRODUCTION TO POST-RACIAL
AND POST-NATIONAL THEORY

Zadie Smith's first novel, White Teeth, is a complicated narrative that reflects the

implications o f being English' in the twenty-first century. Smith's debut novel garnered

critical acclaim and her timely success places not only her literary work in the spotlight,

but her racial hybridity as well. Although she has been labeled by some literary critics as

the new Black British voice, it seems more appropriate to view Smith as simply the new

British voice. Born in London to black Jamaican and white English parents, Smith's

ability to capture the issues central to White Teeth are clearly a result of her literary talent

and her own lived hybrid experience. As such, White Teeth questions what constitutes

Englishness in the twenty-first century; how should the English identity be determined,

when the limitations of race, roots and origins are deconstructed? Is it possible to balance

traditional notions of homelands and the reality of hybridity in the new millennium?

White Teeth expands and implodes traditional notions of identity by illustrating

genealogy alone cannot provide a stable grounding for the concept of identity. Instead,

the text presents the combined factors of race, nationality and culture as unstable and

shifting markers that provide a route toward rather than a root for identity.

The inclusion of the various cultures, religious beliefs, races and ethnicities that

compromise the central realm of the novel collide and become a tangled, hybrid

representation of the English identity. Centering on three families in North London, the

Joneses, the Iqbals, and the Chalfens, White Teeth poses unanswerable questions
 2

connected to the influence of genealogy, origins, roots and their complex influence on

identity. Contributing to the confusion of articulating the English identity in the new

millennium, the patriarchs of the Jones and Iqbal families are particularly rooted in all

things historical, in part due to their service together in the British Army of World War II.

Post-war, settled in North London in the mid 1970s, Archie marries Clara, a young

Jamaican woman. Samad, ever the traditionalist, marries Alsana, through a traditional

arranged marriage. Although considered old men, Samad sires twin boys, Millat and

Magid, and Archie fathers a daughter, Irie. The Chalfens, a third generation family of

lapsed Polish Jews, become involved when their son Joshua, in an attempt to impress, is

caught smoking marijuana behind the school with Millat and Irie. The real questions

regarding hybridity and origins are found in the cultural clash between migrant and post-

migrant identities brought to light as the second generation questions the concepts of

homelands and the reliability of roots.

Problematizing ethnic, racial and national categories as a means of articulating

identity, White Teeth echoes the emergence of a new, hybrid voice in discussions

regarding English identity. White Teeth presents the certainty of origins, roots and

notions of singular imagined homelands as problematic; to fully decipher the way in

which these abstractions have become illusions in the twenty-first century, new critical

theories are needed. White Teeth's reconciling of race, nationality and identity in the

face of a multitude of cultures and histories all impacting the concept of Englishness

requires the introduction of a new critical framework. Consequently, I offer a

 3

combination of post-racial and post-national theory in an attempt to capture and

illuminate the shift between old concepts and new revelations in the discourse on race,

origins and identity in White Teeth.

Cultural theorist, Stuart Hall, contributes to the elaboration of a post-racial theory

by presenting identity as a production rather than a fixed essence. Hall rejects racial

absolutes. Instead of focusing on historical roots and genealogy, Hall acknowledges such

retrospective ways of forming identity are restrictive and do not allow for transformation.

"Cultural Identity and Diaspora" lays out his argument that identity is not a transparent

point of identification. Because identity is a production, it is always repositioning; it is

never completely established:

cultural identity is not a fixed essence at all, lying unchanged outside

history and culture. It is not some universal transcendental spirit inside us

on which history has made no fundamental mark. It is not once-and-for-

all. It is not a fixed origin to which we can make some final and absolute

Return. (Hall 226)

Hall not only articulates the imaginary coherence of singular perspectives of cultural

identity, he also indirectly supports the framework of post-racial theory. His claim,

identity is a politics of positioning, affirms the concept that there is no "unproblematic,

transcendental 'law of origin'" (Hall 226). By revealing the futility of endless desires for

lost origins and romanticized roots, Hall presents identity's constant transformation as an

opportunity to replace 'roots' with the notion of'routes.' Thus, identity is a 'route' of
 4

constant transformation belonging to the fixture as much as the past; it is more than

simply looking backward and attempting to make sense of a tangle of historical 'roots.'

Looking beyond racial origins and 'routes' requires re-examining cultural identity

and the limitations it involves in respect to national origins. Thus, post-national theory is

inseparable from post-racial theory. Together, they are an acknowledgement of

connections in a multiplicity of directions, while prizing no singular connection, racial or

national, as greater than any other. Post-nationalism creates room for identity to be more

than the sum of ancestral loyalties or historical implications. It clears space for the

influence of the immediate present to blend into and record a more ambiguous hybrid

look at identity.

Similarly, Rinaldo Walcott uses the relationship between Diaspora Studies and

Black Studies to question the authority of nationality and origins. In "Beyond the

'Nation Thing'" he argues that genealogy and origins are narrow, out-dated ways to

formulate ideas about identity. In many ways his argument echoes Hall's. However,

where Hall's argument foregrounds a post-racial approach, Walcott foregrounds a post-

national perspective by condemning limitations that conform to origins. Walcott

advocates a reading practice that is essentially post-national, although he names it

diaspora reading. His concept of diaspora reading lends itself to the same principles of

post-national theory: "the reading practice which I am calling a diaspora reading practice

is one which can bear to tolerate that what is at stake in our reading of any text has much

to do with our interactions within, across and outside our given localities, regions nations
 5

and continents" (Walcott 118). In this respect, Walcott argues the necessity to expand the

notion of community to a broader spectrum. The concept of cultural homelands should

not become tangible borders preventing the ability to view others as part of the same

community.

Both Walcott and Hall agree there is difficulty when dealing with genealogy

because of the "endless desire to return to 'lost origins'... to go back to the beginning"

(Hall 236). This type of exclusive and historical focus is an attempt to form an imaginary

coherence in place of the reality of fragmentation. This fragmented approach to origins is

also reflected in Walcott's distrust of such discussions: "Conversations concerning

origins seem to always insist upon neat and tidy borders, borders which often refuse to

acknowledge their permeability and most often their confinement and restrictions"

(Walcott 108). According to either critic, the issue of roots or 'routes,' cannot be

simplified or romanticized to a deceptively linear perspective. "Instead of merely

thinking of genealogy as a line of descent, we might think of genealogy as a line which is

fractured and therefore shoots off into many and varied directions" (Walcott 109).

Although post-racial and post-national theories focus on the effects of hybridity,

they are not an attempt to idealize the twenty-first century into a Utopian vision of

multicultural success, particularly not in the case of White Teeth. Furthermore, these

theories are not an attempt to diminish the importance of genealogy, origins, or roots.

Rather, post-racial and post-national readings are pivotal in revealing twenty-first century

definitions of home as becoming less distinct. The result is the second generation of
 6

migrants and their progeny must navigate a more problematic relationship with racial and

national identities; they must straddle two different, conflicting cultures of home, as seen

in White Teeth.

It is this duality, and thus perpetual lack of complete belonging that is central to

Molly Thompson's reading of White Teeth. Her literary critique of multiculturalism,

'"Happy Multicultural Land'? The Implications of an 'Excess of Belonging' in Zadie

Smith's White Teeth" exposes the effects of assimilation and the destructive effects of

attempting to negotiate a fixed identity in the face of multiple opposing cultural

standards. Invoking Hall's concept of no single origin, Thompson agrees with his

assertion that "we should perceive our ethnic identities as being connected with the

notion of movement, multiple origins and hybridity and advocates a replacement of

'roots' with 'routes'" (Thompson 133). Similar to Hall and Walcott, she positions the

search for origins and roots as futile. Presenting truth as an elusive concept, Thompson

focuses on the manner in which origins and history are problematic and untrustworthy.

In addition, Thompson warns against a reductive inter-racial harmonious reading

of the text: "White Teeth also tells a story of intergenerational tensions and cultural

conflicts within and between its protagonists. Indeed, the text suggests that, as a result of

belonging to different generations and holding a diversity of cultural beliefs, the

possibility of feeling at 'home' in this multicultural world is unlikely" (123). Hybridity

confuses notions of belonging. The result, according to Thompson, is both a lack of

 7

belonging and the seemingly contradictory experience of belonging to too many places

simultaneously.

To label Irie, Millat and Magid as the harmonious results of blending race and

culture would be an optimistic, but myopic view. With minimal idealism, White Teeth

provides a painfully humorous look at how a new breed of hybrid identities are never

quite at ease in any setting, never seem quite right under any label, and are never too

assured of any origin, within any group. Yet this estrangement is not unique or reserved

only for one ethnicity, culture, age or national history. It is both the migrants and the

second generation, in the setting of the final quarter of the twentieth century, that embody

England's struggle with the expansion and complex hybrid future of the English national

identity.
 8

CHAPTER II

ROOTS AND POST-NATIONAL THEORY:

THE IDENTITY IMPACT OF MIGRATION

White Teeth weaves together the migrant desire to adhere to fixed notions of

origins in the face of the uncertain influence of the English identity. There is a

simultaneous desire to be regarded as English and a resistance to doing so because of

concerns regarding origins and preserving roots. Hortense Bowden, mother to Clara and

grandmother to Irie, and Samad and Alsana Iqbal find England to be a land that

continually compromises their identities and the central aspects of the cultural and ethnic

identity they hope to instill in their children. Samad articulates the inner struggle and the

cost many immigrants feel they pay for the opportunities that come with making England

home: "These days it feels to me like you make a devil's pact when you walk into this

country.. .it drags you in and suddenly you are unsuitable to return, your children are

unrecognizable, you belong nowhere" (Smith 336). Hidden within Samad's complaint is

the fear of assimilation and the frustration that comes from beginning to doubt his own

belief in a fixed concept of homelands.

As immigrants, Hortense, Samad and Alsana are treated as secondary contributors

to English society. Their respective transnational connections to Jamaica and Bangladesh

are less influential in the formulation of their identity than their status as immigrants. As

Hall and Walcott suggest, as immigrants, Samad and Alsana's identities are already

hybrid, not understandable through any simple notion of origins. Instead of embodying
 9

identities based on their origins, Hortense's, Samad's and Alsana's identities are tied to

their status as immigrants and as Other within English society. Society's perception of

them as the Other prevents them from being seen simply as English. Thus, their

hybridity is comprised of conflicting societal influences; they feel their roots are

constantly compromised as they become significantly more English, yet they are not

being regarded as such.

The odd relationship that develops between Ryan Topps, Clara's white high

school boyfriend turned Jehovah Witness, and her mother, Hortense, highlights the

perpetual cultural conflict in which immigrants are expected to defer to the English,

regardless of experience, age or education. Ryan Topps learns about the end of the world

(according to the Kingdom Hall) and the principles of Christianity through Hortense, yet

his words, actions and opinions are valued over hers. This reveals the unfortunate way

identity is used to limit immigrants. Hortense explains her patient wait to be seen as a

valued contributor:

Mr. Topps and I, we oP soldiers fightin' the battle of de Lord. Some time

ago he converted to the Witness church, an' his rise has been quick an'

sure. I've waited fifty years to do something else in de Kingdom Hall

except clean.. .but dey don' wan' women interfering with real church

bizness. But Mr. Topps do a great deal, and 'im let me help on occasion.

(Smith 320)
 10

No thought is given to the immigrant identity, the possibility it may possess education,

intellect or a history that warrants greater responsibility than the cleaning of a church, or

in Samad's case, waiting on tables.

Unlike Hortense, Samad's struggle as the Other articulates the dismal frustration

of such limitations. Through Samad, Smith reveals not only the limited perception

society has of him, but also his resistance to such boundaries. Working as a waiter in his

cousin's restaurant, Samad wishes for a way to compel his customers to recognize him as

more than a well spoken immigrant. He daydreams of clarifying his identity by wearing

a large sign stating:

I AM NOT A WAITER. I HAVE BEEN A STUDENT, A SCIENTIST,

A SOLDIER, MY WIFE IS CALLED ALSANA, WE LIVE IN EAST

LONDON BUT WE WOULD LIKE TO MOVE NORTH. I AM A

MUSLIM BUT ALLAH HAS FORSAKEN ME OR I HAVE

FORSAKEN ALLAH, I'M NOT SURE. I HAVE A FRIEND -ARCHIE-

AND OTHERS. I AM FORTY-NINE BUT WOMEN STILL TURN IN

THE STREET. SOMETIMES. (Smith 49)

This wish, to challenge the confines of the immigrant identity, reflects the need for an

expansion of the English identity. Despite Samad's belief in the authority of cultural

identity through origins and notions of home, he also desires expanding the boundaries of

Englishness to allow his hybrid Bengali-English identity to serve as a valid representation

of one of the many faces of England. Revealing the things that are universal, such as his
 11

experience as a scholar, a husband, and a soldier, is an attempt to show Samad's

similarity to the English, instead of his Otherness.

But Samad's desire to reveal himself as more than just an immigrant, more than

just a waiter, is mocked by his fellow co-workers. A young Indian waiter, not yet

embittered by the perception of English society, mocks Samad's attempts to engage the

customers and be seen as more than a server:

I hear you trying to talk to the customer about biology this, politics that -

just serve the food, you idiot - you're a waiter, for fuck's sake... 'Did I

hear you say Delhi.. .1 was there myself you know, Delhi University, it

was most fascinating, yes - and I fought in the war, for England, yes -

yes, yes, charming, charming'...Samad, Somad...You are such a sad little

man. (Smith 48)

This struggle to force others to see Samad as the man he knows himself to be is the

impact of migration that unifies immigrants to a shared identity beyond that of Bengali,

Jamaican or any other nation. To be in such a position, to wish for a placard or a sign, to

wait patiently for years to do more than clean a church, to have the opportunity to be

viewed as more than someone from somewhere else is the unifying factor in the identity

of the immigrant Other. Grappling with this distorted identity creates a hybrid unity

among the immigrant population, regardless of roots to differing homes. Despite distinct

racial or national differences, their status as immigrants and their problematic relation to

both their countries of 'origin' and to England provide strong points of commonality.
 12

The migrant generation is also connected through the deep despair at the choices

their children make. There is an aching desire to see their pre-English identity preserved

through the prizing of a racial identity or an allegiance to a nation that is unknown to

their children. Despite their differing origins, there is a shared anguish in their futile

attempts to preserve their roots. It is this negotiation of identity that causes Samad and

Alsana to hold their tongues, both furious and saddened, with each non-Bengali girlfriend

Millat brings home. Likewise, Hortense makes it clear she strongly disapproves of

Clara's marriage to Archie: "Hortense hadn't put all that effort into marrying black, into

dragging her genes back from the brink, just so her daughter could bring yet more high-

colored children into the world" (Smith 272). As the genealogical line continues, Clara

also fears Irie's racial dilution as she flounders in "an ocean of pink skins ... she feared

the tide would take her away" (Smith 272). Similarly, Samad's disappointment in Millat

only becomes lessened by his greater disappointment in Magid, who returns from

Bangladesh fully embracing all things English.

This fear of the Anglicizing of their children unites Hortense, Samad, and Alsana

and even in some aspects, Clara. The self-inflicted diaspora of immigration leaves them

no option but to hope the identities of their children will not become foreign in relation to

their own. Hortense has gone to great lengths to counteract the white blood of her father,

and explains to Irie her initial opposition to Clara and Archie's marriage: "Him was never

my objection as such.. .But it more de principle of de ting, you know? Black and white

never come to no good. De Lord Jesus never meant us to mix it up" (Smith 318).
 13

Therefore, it is not only society projecting constraining notions of identity; the filial

influence must additionally be contended with. The power of the immigrant parent's

trepidation at the hybridization or weakening of their cultural identity is an immense

factor. Alsana's sleepless nights are filled with the nightmares built upon the evolution

of Hortense's philosophy about the mixing of races:

Even the unflappable Alsana Iqbal would regularly wake up in a puddle of

her own sweat after a night visited by visions of Millat (genetically BB;

where B stands for Bengaliness) marrying someone called Sarah (aa,

where a stands for Aryan), resulting in a child called Michael (Ba), who in

turn marries somebody called Lucy (aa), leaving Alsana with a legacy of

unrecognizable great grandchildren (Aaaaaaaf), their Bengaliness

thoroughly diluted, genotype hidden by phenotype. (Smith 272)

The second and future generations must not only negotiate their identity with the

knowledge of society's cultural, racial and national expectations, but Irie, Millat and

Magid must also navigate their identities with respect to the cultural limitations presented

by their elders.

Thompson's assertion that the quest for roots and the certainty of home are not

dependable or definable in a hybrid society are sustained when Smith uses the

Conservative politician Norman Tebbit's quote: 'The cricket testwhich side do they

cheer for? . .. Are you still looking back to where you came from or where you are?"

(103). Instead of a scolding directed at immigrants, its presence in the text reveals the
 14

difficulty of something as seemingly insignificant as cricket. According to Claire

Squires, "Its reference to cricket both trivialized and encapsulated the issues that Samad

himself grapples with.. .The 'cricket test' is an analogy for the fraught issue of the

location of a migrant's physical and mental 'home'" (37). This struggle looms over

Samad, more so than it does over Hortense. In place of a transnational tie, Hortense

prizes the value of the Kingdom Hall's word and the bond of faith. The distinct

connection to religion serves as the authentic tie to culture and home that both Samad and

Hortense refuse to sever.

This highlights the difficulty and the challenge for immigrants and the second

generation as well. Under the premise of England as home, and English as an identity,

ties to another homeland are not only a point of contention among those who have made

the decision to make England home, but also among the second and future generations.

For both, identity involves an internal struggle, which includes questions regarding

connections to national origins, the weight of race, the power of the past and the

possibility of the future.

 15

CHAPTER III

THE ROUTE OF IDENTITY: POST-RACIALTHEORY

AND THE SECOND GENERATION

Identity negotiation is part of the daily life of the second generation. The post-

racial connection among Irie, Millat and Magid consists of understanding how roots are

inextricably entangled and origins are undependable. As descendants of immigrants, the

youth of White Teeth are bonded through their constant negotiation of identity and the

perpetual frustration that comes with belonging nowhere but also everywhere. "Indeed

the text suggests that as a result of belonging to different generations and holding a

diversity of cultural beliefs, the possibility of feeling at 'home' in this multicultural world

is unlikely" (Thompson 123). Thus, it is a shared rejection of conforming to the cultural

expectations of their parents and navigating their own routes in English society that unify

Irie, Millat and Magid.

The children's path to define their identities is as foreign to their parents as many

aspects of the dominant Western culture. To the first generation, particularly Samad,

there is nothing but compromise and destruction for his children in England: "They won't

go to mosque, they don't pray, they speak strangely, they dress strangely, they eat all

kinds of rubbish, they have intercourse with God knows who. No respect for tradition"

(Smith 159). The hybrid experience of the second generation is caught somewhere

between valuing their family's racial and national heritage, and merging with and

contributing to England's twenty-first century culture, which then comes with the risk of
 16

becoming too English. White Teeth pinpoints the frustrations of both generations and the

balance the younger generation must successfully find in order to avoid either erasing all

that is precious in their ethnicity, or alienating themselves from England, the county of

their birth.

The difference among Irie, Magid and Millat is their cultural and racial

backgrounds. Yet the similarity of their situations creates a far stronger connection than

the differences. Like their immigrant parents, the children share the status of being the

Other in society. This status exposes that although they are just as English as the English,

there will always be some perception of them as the Other. As such, there will always be

people who see their race and deduce an identity that attributes an erroneous nationality:

He knew that he, Millat, was a Paki no matter where he came from; that he

smelled of curry; had no sexual identity; took other people's jobs; or had

no job and bummed off the state; or gave all the jobs to his relatives; that

he could be a dentist or a shop-owner or a curry shifter, but not a

footballer or a film-maker; that he should go back to his own county...

(Smith 194)

This passage reveals not only society's perception of Millat, but his understanding of

such perceptions and the invisible boundaries they create for him. Although Irie, Millat

and Magid are born and raised in England, they share the bond of being misidentified,

Othered and continually reminded that their hybrid identity is not the idealized,

homogenous English identity.

 17

The Harvest Festival is a particularly arduous experience revealing their exclusion

from the English identity. Seemingly a harmless school event, it brings Irie, Millat and

Magid to Mr. J.P. Hamilton's home for a harsh lesson in the limited notion of

Englishness as synonymous with white. Although Mr. Hamilton's age is a poor excuse

for his racism, it reveals the congruent interpretation and projection of their identity as

enmeshed with their parents' immigrant identity as the Other. Mr. Hamilton represents

an out-dated colonial perspective which exercises a limited and prejudicial manner to

minimize the validity of the children's connection to England. Dismissing the possibility

that they could have parents who served in the British Army is, from the children's

perspective, an attempt to challenge their own youthful understanding of their identities.

Mr. Hamilton, with his archaic English colonial perspective, accuses the children of lying

and altering the truth of history. Ironically, it is Mr. Hamilton who is taking the

opportunity to rewrite history by denying the British military service of Archie and

Samad.

The Harvest Festival experience marks a significant moment of understanding. It

intertwines the experiences of Irie, Millat and Magid, uniting them through the

problematic battle of identity with which they all contend. A post-racial reading helps us

to see that the differences among the non-white English (roots) are ultimately less

important than the ambiguous and marginal status within English society (routes) that

they share.
 18

White Teeth presents Englishness as black, white, yellow and brown; a consistent

deconstruction of the abstraction that English is tantamount to a singular white identity.

Although there are various examples of Englishness embodied within the accepted, safe,

white form such as Mr. J.P. Hamilton and the music teacher Poppy Burt Jones, and to a

lesser degree the Chalfens, the actions of Irie, Millat and Magid are often just as English

as their fellow schoolmates. Through the eyes of their parents, their Englishness is

striking and at times frightening. It is the combination of desire to conform to English

standards and the very English attitude of valuing only the English approach or manner of

thinking that reveals the degree to which Irie, Millat and Magid really are English. Smith

presents their Englishness as ironically rich with the idiosyncrasies that come from

holding a multiplicity of points of view.

A significant revelation about the English identity and notions of'home', Magid

returns from Bangladesh more English than before his departure. After eight years in

Bangladesh, Magid's regard for his own Bengali culture seems diminished, yet he has

developed significant faith in the sciences and sensibilities of England. Much to Samad's

horror, Magid returns to London a pork eating atheist. Samad's plan to save at least one

of his sons has backfired. Instead of moral direction and respect for culture, Magid has

matured into a "White-trousered Englishman" (Smith 375) who admires the genetic

research of Marcus Chalfen and his FutureMouse project. Ironically, Magid echoes

Samad's behavior during his service with the British Army during WWII. Samad

considered himself to be more civilized than the Englishmen he served with. Thus,
 19

Magid comes to fulfill his father's own claim that he himself is more English than the

English.

Even with the absence of London's 'corruption,' Magid has grown up to be an

Englishman. Although this is disturbing and disappointing to Samad, it underscores the

fact that it is routes rather than roots that determine identity. Smith seems to suggest

there is no simple or unproblematic return to origins. Because Magid was born in

England, Samad attempts to reunite him with his native culture and send him 'home' to

Bangladesh. But ironically, it is through this return to 'origins' that Magid discovers his

Englishness.

Regardless of where his sons are, Bangladesh or London, they are growing up to

fulfill Samad's worst fears. In Bangladesh, Magid embraced his inner-Anglo, admiring

the scientific studies of Western culture, while reasoning away and rejecting his Eastern

faith. Alternatively, in London, Millat's struggle with identity leads him to reject

Western culture. His initial rebellion propels him to the leader of his own crew, the

Raggastanis whose name is just as blended as its influences:

It was a new breed, just recently joining the ranks of other street crews:

Becks, B-boys, Indie kids, wide-boys, ravers, rudeboys, Acidheads,

Sharons, Tracies, Kevs, Nation Brothers, Raggas, and Pakis: manifesting

itself as a kind of cultural mongrel of the last three categories.

Raggastanis spoke a strange mix of Jamaican patois, Bengali, Gujarati,

and English. Their ethos, their manifesto, if it could be called that, was
 equally a hybrid thing: Allah featured, but more as a collective big brother

than a supreme being. (Smith 192)

Searching for his identity somewhere between the influences of Bengali and

English cultures, Millat finds comfort and a sense of identity with the Raggastani crew.

But desiring a more concrete connection to his origins, he becomes attracted to the

message of The Keepers of the Eternal and Victorious Islamic Nation, known as KEVIN.

His association with KEVIN is a rebellious attempt not to be quite so English. It is an

effort to adopt a more ethnic, racial and religious point of view, to refute the fact that he

is just as English as his white schoolmates.

However, Millat's affiliation with KEVIN is as displeasing to Samad as Magid's

Englishman behavior. With sons at either ends of the identity spectrum, one especially

English and one rejecting all things Western, Samad questions what went wrong in his

struggle to give his children a better life: "what was wrong with all the children, what

had gone wrong with these first descendants of the great ocean-crossing experiment?"

(Smith 182). Disappointed with Magid's attitude, Samad is equally appalled with

Millat's involvement in KEVIN because it conforms to the Western cliche of a Muslim

terrorist. Although it seems Samad would welcome Millat embracing Islam, ironically,

Samad views involvement with such an organization as particularly English; "in Britain,

such militant religious youth groups thrive partly by virtue of the very cultural values

they denounce" (Head 113). The fundamentalism of such an organization misrepresents

Samad's own view and desire for his sons to adhere to and engage in Islam.
 21

Although he tries to dilute his English identity, Millat cannot. Like the English,

Millat wants to leave his mark in history. On the eve of the unveiling of FutureMouse

Millat is intoxicated not only with marijuana and alcohol, but also with the desire to be

recognized: "If Marcus Chalfen was going to write his name all over the world, Millat

was going to write his BIGGER" (Smith 419). This longing to have his actions preserved

in Trafalgar Square illustrates Millat's yearning to be acknowledged and validated, but

also his feeling of alienation, his recognition that history will reduce his identity as more

Other than English. The English leader, Henry Havelock, who killed Millat's great-

great-grandfather is glorified in Trafalgar Square which serves as a loud confirmation that

Millat's identity cannot ever be simply English. Thus, it is hybridity that propels him

fervently into KEVIN in an attempt to belong. Yet his need to have something

preserving his identity in Trafalgar Square mirrors the same hubris the English posses.

Millat revisits the same feeling his father once possessed and understood. Samad wrote

his name in the pavement at Trafalgar Square, depressed and shamed after just a few

months in England. Although Samad felt worse upon making his mark, he shared the

same desire. Samad's guilt came from wanting to be like the English - to be recognized

in their fashion. Therefore, the desire to leave one's mark articulates a contradictory, but

important commentary which deconstructs the exclusionary idea English only equates to

white. Ironically, it is not only the white English who yearn to leave their mark.

Ambition, hubris, pride or whatever name is used to title this emotion; it is a feeling that

transcends race.
 22

Millat's association with the Raggastani crew and KEVIN are attempts to identify

with his Bengaliness, Muslimness, and Englishness. This problem is at the center of the

identity question vocalized in White Teeth. Because England is so prevalent and tangible

in the shaping of who Millat is, he actively searches for and attempts to project the Other

aspect of his identity. Millat's involvement with both groups brings to light the difficulty

he faces contending with the hybridity of his identity. It is these attempts to clarify and

establish their identities which unite Irie, Millat and Magid. Although each of their paths

differs, the underlying bond that connects them is their recognition that they are a twenty-

first century mix of English hybrids, with routes that reveal their multiplicity.

Irie is so English she is almost Victorian in her attempt to conform to the

standards of her contemporaries. She finds fault with her own image, wishing her figure

was not so robust, not so substantially Jamaican. In an attempt to fit her view of what is

English, Irie even resorts to corsetry causing Clara concern about Irie's sense of identity:

"What in the Lord's name are you wearing? How can you breathe? Irie, my love, you're

fineyou're just built like an honest-to-God Bowdendon't you know you're fine?"

(Smith 222). Her mindset and willingness to confine and punish her body is extremely

Western. Irie desires her English identity to infiltrate her physical appearance. Smith

uses this not only to articulate teenage angst, but to reveal the ridiculous misconception

that English appears a specific way. "And this belief in her ugliness, in her wrongness,

had subdued her; ... she was all wrong''' (224). Thompson uses instances such as this in

the text to reveal it should not be read as an idealistic, simple praise of diversity. She
 23

argues the children's struggle with the homogenized English image and identity

highlights no matter how English they are, they will not be seen as English as the (white)

English. They do not fit the confining, homogenous image of the traditional English

identity: "As Irie 'fights her genes' by minimizing her Black - physical attributes, and

Magid and Millat rebel against their Bengali past, White Teeth could be read as an

attempt to expose the fact that, both in terms of beauty as well as cultural values and

practices, 'white' ideals are still dominant" (Thompson 130).

Irie's misfortune is her inner conflict, both her inability and her desire to be an

English Rose. This is not a pubescent dissatisfaction with self image, but a longing to see

an image resembling her own reflected and accepted in Western culture: 'There was

England, a gigantic mirror, and there was Irie, without reflection. A stranger in a strange

land" (Smith 222). White Teeth articulates the absence of images that adequately and

inclusively speak to the current changing face of England. For Irie, it is an impossible

crusade to prove she can fit into an image she cannot. In a moment of uncertain

possibility, she thinks perhaps Shakespeare's Sonnet 127 is acknowledging a dark lady,

someone black like herself. But her English teacher quickly cuts away these hopes; "She

had thought, just then, that she had seen something like a reflection, but it was receding"

(Smith 227). With a reminder it is unlikely Shakespeare wrote sonnets to both lords and

slaves, Irie's English teacher reaffirms Irie has no reflection in the mirror of England.

Despite the evidence, the melding of identities creates an alternate composite image for

the face of England - there is still a majority, and it is that image which dominates the
 24

face of England. Thus the absence of Irie's reflection expresses the multitude of English

citizens who still, in the twenty-first century, do not see their likeness as welcomed,

celebrated or simply acknowledged.

But, like Millat, Irie's interest in conforming wanes as she matures. Her interest

eventually leads her to her grandmother Hortense for insight. Irie is searching for

something, and her grandmother's home becomes an adventure. Discoveries, such as old

photographs, bibles and an assortment of books begin to feel like a connection to the

distant, unsupervised possibility of Jamaica as home, and a desired return to roots. In her

grandmother's house, Irie begins to fantasize about a connection to a homeland: "No

fictions, no myths, no lies, no tangled webs - this is how Irie imagined her homeland"

(Smith 332). Smith allows this desire for belonging somewhere singular to satiate Irie

temporarily. The word homeland becomes magical to Irie; it is a beginning, a blank page

waiting for her direction, to record her history. It offers the opportunity to escape being

the stranger in a strange land.

Despite being born in England, Irie, Millat and Magid are aware they are often

perceived as the Other. Although they all respond to this differently, there is a unity in

the post-racial and post-national formulation of their hybrid identities. Collectively they

share the same experience of always belonging, and yet never belonging. They are

perpetually caught somewhere between honoring their roots and navigating new routes.

Thus Irie, Millat and Magid's identities are a constant negotiation of conflicting elements

of the present and the past. Although their attitude about their own Englishness varies,
 25

Millat rejects it, Magid embraces it, and Irie emulates it. Their hybridity brings up the

common problem of always being the stranger in a strange land.

 26

CHAPTER IV

THE DESTABILZATION OF RACIAL CATAGORIES

Hybridity undercuts the stability of fixed notions of identity; the continual shift

and erosion of roots alters the perception of a pure or singular racial and national identity.

The reality of origins as an imaginary coherence is revealed by the post-migrant

generation. As Hall suggests, identity is a production undergoing constant

transformation. White Teeth can be understood as presenting the twenty-first century to

be marked by the destabilization of racial categories and identities.

Using post-racial theory to read the text uncovers sly hints of the most unlikely

pairings, overtly unalike, yet still reflecting each others' differences in ways that

articulate their similarities. Irie and Millat, Joshua and Magid, and Samad and Hortense

are all empathetic doppelgangers, mirroring each other's fears of belonging and desire for

tangible, uncompromised, concrete identities. Keeping in mind Thompson's warning

against a Utopian interpretation of White Teeth, post-racial theory exposes the meaning of

ethnic, cultural and racial differences among the protagonists of the text to be unstable.

Smith sheds light onto the minute, fragile connections between individual characters,

revealing at the most elementary level the contingent and shifting significance of race in

the common struggles at the conclusion of the twentieth century.

What connects Irie to Millat is not simply a childhood friendship but more

significantly, it is the similar discontinuity they share in negotiating a truthful and

 27

balanced connection to their roots. Irie shares Millat's feeling of belonging nowhere and

at the same time belonging everywhere. They both possess the hybrid ability to become

social chameleons in order to sustain themselves. There is a bond in the frustration of

that constant negotiation of identity; "And underneath it all, there remained an ever

present anger and hurt, the feeling of belonging nowhere that comes to people who

belong everywhere" (Smith 225). They both are equally connected and disconnected to

their cultural heritage. Although it is not as pronounced as Millat's affiliation with

KEVIN, Irie too desires a sense of belonging to a homeland. Whereas Millat's search

leads him to KEVIN, Irie's search leads her to her grandmother, Hortense, and the

Bowden family history. Both their searches have led them beyond their immediate

family because of the risk of romanticized parental production of identity.

Irie's disappointment with her parents culminates when she unexpectedly

discovers her mother's false teeth. Symbolizing the undependability of roots, Irie is

forced to recognize that even parents attempting to assist in the establishing of roots can

betray. A superficial, cosmetic convenience to Clara, for Irie, the false teeth are a

metaphorical deception when what is needed is revelation. Irie is left no alternative but

to agree with Millat's distrust and rejection of parental guidance to identity. "Millat was

right: these parents were damaged people, missing hands, missing teeth. These parents

were full of information you wanted to know but were too scared to hear.. .She was sick

of never getting the whole truth. She was returning to sender" (Smith 314). This is Irie's

moment of recognition. Only at this point does she understand the past "is always
 28

constructed through memory, fantasy, narrative and myth" (Hall 226). Suddenly, Irie

realizes the impossibility of fixed origins and identity. Roots, signified by Clara's teeth,

are not forthright, leading Irie to follow Millat's path of embracing routes as the sole way

of crafting identity.

Millat seems much more certain in his rejection of the tidy, clear cut borders of

identity. However, his confident rejection simultaneously reveals his drifting search for a

hybrid identity that accommodates his Bengali culture and his English nationality.

Throughout White Teeth Millat's identity migrates from mimicking Western pop stars to

Hollywood gangsters; eventually his emulation of Jamaican rudeboys gives way to his

final attachment to religious fundamentalism. Like Irie, Millat has found no answers of

identity when looking to his parents. Despite the differences in their cultural

backgrounds, both Irie and Millat have found England to be a large mirror that does not

reflect identities as complicated or as layered as their own. It is this lack of reflection that

equalizes their position. Both Irie and Millat are in search of the articulation that their

racial categories and identities can transcend the tight, unforgiving borders of England to

reveal a post-racial identity that validates their hybridity.

The second pairing that reveals an unforeseen semblance is Joshua and Magid.

Both arrive at a moment of difference and rupture from their family, which provides them

the freedom to form their own cultural identity. Joshua and Magid discard the values of

their families, articulating a rejection of the narrow boundaries erected in the shaping of

their individual identities. Joshua is immersed in 'Chalfenism,' the Chalfen way of doing
 29

and being. Similarly, Magid is sent back to Bangladesh to be immersed in the culture,

religion and good sense of his 'homeland.' Yet both boys grow to reject these standards

of who they should be.

Joshua, when finally exposed to influences beyond Chalfenism, realizes his

outlook has been extremely limited. Upon befriending Jo ley and Crispin, the founding

members of FATE, Fighting Animal Torture and Exploitation, Joshua's perception of the

world around him is immediately and violently disrupted. It is suddenly clear to him

"that his parents were assholes, that he himself was an asshole" (Smith 398). The

previously accepted genius of his father and his intellectually insular family is drastically

reconstructed as contemptible. Joshua rejects his family's value in science, which in the

Chalfen family is akin to religion. This is a vast departure from the path Joshua's family

has constructed for not only themselves, but for him as well. His detour from this path

destabilizes the identity that makes him recognizable to his family.

Echoing the same rejection of familial construction of identity is Magid's

disturbing return to England. Despite spending eight years in Bangladesh, he returns

embodying almost every possible rejection of his Bengali culture. Not only his dress

(like a British colonialist) and manner of speech (more English than the English) are

perceived as a rejection of pride in his Bengali culture, but his lack of Muslim faith,

punctuated by ordering a bacon sandwich at O'Connell's, is the ultimate rejection of his

Iqbal identity. Despite the differences and disconnects between Millat and Samad, there

is an unstated agreement in the disloyalty of Magid's stance as a non-believer. His work

 30

with Marcus Chalfen on the FutureMouse project is blasphemous in the words of

Samad: "You infer that the wonder of God's creation can be improved upon" (Smith

376). Consequently, Samad disowns Magid, which is an inverse reflection of Joshua's

disowning of his father, Marcus.

In the spirit of disowning, Hortense Bowden is a predecessor to Samad. Her

rejection and disapproval of Clara's marriage is motivated by feelings of disloyalty to

racial identity. With the complicated history of her own hybrid origins, Hortense believes

no good can come from mixing black and white. For her, the destabilization of racial

categories is unsettling. She prefers clear borders to indicate identity. The only thing she

is more certain of than the confines of identity is her faith. Similar to Samad, Hortense

has a devoted commitment to religion. Thus, when Samad is sent to quiet Hortense and

her fellow followers of Jehovah at the unveiling of FutureMouse, he acknowledges and

respects her steadfastness:

Samad watches it all and finds himself, to his surprise, unwilling to silence

her. Partly because he is tired. Partly because he is old. But mostly

because he would do the same, though in a different name. He knows

what it is to seek. He knows the dryness. He has felt the thirst you get in

a strange land - horrible, persistentthe thirst that lasts your whole life.

(Smith 439)
 31

Much like Hortense, Samad is unwilling to bend with the reality that raising children in

England is to allow not only for hybridity, but for the expansion and creation of new

unsuspecting post-racial identities.

All of these doppelganger-like pairings reveal the complexity of creating post-

racial/post-national identities. When looked at closely, the destabilization of racial

categories and the upsetting of cultural and religious ties imply there can be no neat tidy

formula which identity can be based upon. History, familial influence, religion and

nationality can all be upturned or revised and rewritten to serve individual needs. So

what becomes the common foundation, as seen in the aforementioned comparisons, is the

rejection of neat and tidy borders. Thus, we return to Hall's notion that 'routes' should

replace 'roots' as hybridity and the instability of race and nation as markers of identity

takes precedence in the twenty-first century. Consequently, post-racial theory suggests

that Western culture will increasingly have to accept that every individual has a

multiplicity of unique and specific identities that cannot be simplified to singular

concepts of race, nationality, culture or religion.

White Teeth rejects the idea that race and nationality can serve as stable and

dependable markers of identity. Smith reveals these markers to be shifting and often at

odds. Furthermore, identity is so complex, relying simply on roots will not do, as roots

themselves are often difficult to clearly trace and subject to the moving perspective of

history and the romanticized notions of origins. Thompson confirms this notion: "the text

shows that the definition of roots within a multicultural environment is conceptually

 32

ambiguous, and that living within a culture of conflicting ideals, whether relating to

traditions, standards of beauty or some other issue is problematic" (130). Thus, White

Teeth illuminates homelands as a myth. At the conclusion of the twentieth century

origins are no longer clearly traceable, yet the concept of origins remains simplified and

idealized. Smith provides a humorous, though sometimes painfully uncomfortable look

at the error of forming identity based on an unexamined concept of origins. Perhaps the

best metaphor for a post-racial, post-national world is Samad and Archie's refuge,

O'Connell's: "an Irish poolroom run by Arabs with no pool tables" (Smith 154). There

are a great many factors which comprise identity, including race and nationality, but their

individual and combined significance is hardly stable or predictable.

What a post-racial and post-national reading of White Teeth should reveal is the

effect of hybridity, the shifting, merging and combining of a variety of influences on the

composition of identity. In the face of such multiplicity, perceptions of identity cannot

remain unaltered. Instead of focusing on how other races, nationalities and ethnicities

merge into the homogonous English identity, post-racial and post-national theory

suggests that the unpredictable routes that form contemporary identities often results in

commonalities and alliances being found in the most unlikely and unexpected places.

Recognition of the common ground held by those outside the established English identity

should prompt conversation regarding the arrival of hybridity in the twenty-first century.

Smith seems to speculate the new millennium will belong to a post-racial world.

Thus, the common thread becomes belonging to a multiplicity of identities, and at times
 33

not quite belonging anywhere. However, this should be seen with optimism because a

singular origin is more mythical than factual. Hall describes such nostalgia for origins as

emotional and unreliable: "this 'return to the beginning' is like the imaginary in Lacan -

it can neither be fulfilled nor requited, and hence is the beginning of the symbolic, of

representation, the infinitely renewable source of desire, memory myth, search [and]

discovery" (236). Thus, White Teeth introduces a sense of freedom in not belonging to

one specific place. The divisions or boundaries once thought certain are no longer so

clear and Smith seems to revel in this uncertainty:

This has been the century of strangers, brown, yellow, and white. This has

been the century of the great immigrant experiment. It is only this late in

the day that you can walk into a playground and find Isaac Leung by the

fish pond, Danny Rahman in the football cage, Quang O'Rourke bouncing

a basketball, and Irie Jones humming a tune. Children with first and last

names on a direct collision course. (Smith 271)

Ultimately, White Teeth "offer[s] us alternative ways of thinking about belonging

and unbelonging in our multicultural, global world" (Thompson 124). Smith challenges

us to recognize the English experience at the turn of the twenty-first century as not about

the acceptance of the Other via multiculturalism, but about the acceptance that there is a

multiplicity of hybrid voices articulating the English experience with equal validity.

These new hybrid voices, although originating from a variety of differing heritages, and
 34

connections to varied nations, are the voices of the post-racial, post-national identities of

the new millennium.

WORKS CITED
 36

WORKS CITED

Davies, Carole Boyce, ed. Decolonizing the Academy. Trenton: Africa World Press,

2003.

Dyer, Richard. White. New York: Routledge, 1997.

Hall, Stuart. "Cultural Identity and Diaspora." Identity Community, Culture, Difference.

Ed. Jonathan Rutherford. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1990. 222-237.

Head, Dominic. "Zadie Smith's White Teeth: Multiculturalism for the Millennium."

Contemporary British Fiction. Ed. Richard J. Lane, Rod Mengham and Philip

Tew. Maiden: Polity Press, 2003. 106-119.

Moss, Laura. 'The Politics of Everyday Hybridity." Wasafiri 39 (2003): 11-17.

O'Grady, Kathleen. "White Teeth: A Conversation with Author Zadie Smith." Atlantis 27

(2002): 105-111.

Smith, Zadie. White Teeth. New York: Vintage, 2000.

Squires, Claire. Zadie Smith's White Teeth. New York: Continuum, 2002.

Thompson, Molly. '"Happy Multicultural Land'"? The Implications of an 'Excess of

Belonging' in Zadie Smith's White Teeth." Write Black, Write British. Ed. Kadija

Sessay. Hertford: Hansib, 2005. 122-140.

Walcott, Rinaldo. "Beyond the 'Nation Thing': Black Studies, Cultural Studies and

Diaspora Discourse." Decolonizing the Academy. Ed. Carole Boyce Davies.

Trenton: Africa World Press, 2003. 107-124.