CAPS 4 - Abhi Shome

Focusing on the relationships between the members of an Indian immigrant family in England, Bend it like Beckham provides an interesting viewpoint into the differences between first and second-generation immigrants. The movie focuses on Jesminder “Jess” Bhamra, an 18 year old Punjabi Sikh living in London, who wishes to play football professionally. But, as she’s a girl, her parents forbid her from playing the sport. The movie deals with the differing viewpoints on the matter between the traditional Indian parents and the daughter who is more assimilated. As such, the movie provides a great example between the differences between assimilation and separation discussed in the book.

            Most immigrants have a choice between assimilation and separation when they move to other countries. More often than not, the first generation immigrants try to avoid total assimilation and pick separation, where, in order to retain their original culture, they interact minimally with people of other cultural groups, if only because they are afraid of losing their culture (Martin & Nakayama 2010). Integration, on the other hand is the other option where immigrants try to both retain their culture and maintain relationships with new cultural groups.

In the movie the interactions between Jess and her parents help us to see the cultural differences between the first generation immigrant parents and their daughter, who has assimilated into British culture. The parents, for example, in trying to retain their cultural practices from India and in trying to make their new world seem just a little more like home have almost no British friends. They interact mostly with other Indian families in the area, a classic example of separation. They do not want to lose their culture. Their daughter on the other hand has fully assimilated into British culture, and does not see anything wrong with playing football.

In one of the earlier scenes in the movie for instance, the parents react very negatively to the idea of her playing, not only because they don’t think it is “womanly” to do so, but also because in India, it is traditionally thought of as being very unseemly for grown women from respectable families to wear shorts in public. This is a classic example of separation vs. assimilation. The parents, who are trying to retain their culture and have separated from the culture of the new country, tend to be more traditional and forbid their daughter from playing football. The daughter on the other hand, who has grown up in England and assimilated sees nothing wrong in dressing like her friends and playing sports. As such, the movie deals with communicating with the traditional parents and convincing them to let her play.

Thus, the film, Bend it like Beckham, provides an interesting window into the different paths immigrants can take when they enter a new culture.

Work Cited

Martin, Judith N., and Thomas K. Nakayama. Intercultural Communication in Contexts. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. Print.