The Namesake illustrates the concept that Takaki addresses on page 314 of Americanization. The children spoke “Hindustani” at home, like Gogol, but then learned in American schools, and Gogol was doing attending Yale, an American school. (Takaki 314). In the scene where Gogol is dancing to his American rock music, his dad comes in to talk to him. The difference between the generations becomes very clear. Gogol seems to not listen to his father just saying ”he was your favorite author” so Ashoke would leave. While Ashoke is trying to have a personal moment with him, he doesn’t seem to care about the value of his name like his father does.
The Critical Race Theory tenant we see is the dominant society will always establish a establish a system of segregation or oppression. In the classroom, the teacher mentions “Nikolai Gogol”, and the class starts to make fun of Gogol. They call him “Goggles” and start pushing jokes at him. This is similar to some of the harassment that many Chinese Americans had received during the communist takeover of China. They were looked as “one of the enemy” when they had done nothing wrong (Takaki 415). Neither Gogol nor the Chinese Americans had done anything wrong, but they are still harassed due to nothing but their culture.
Similar to the film Eat a Bowl of Tea, marriage is a very important focus. Gogol’s mom tries to set him up with women like Moushumi to make him get married. She even says “when I was your age I was already married”. In Eat a Bowl of Tea, marriage is so important to Ben’s family that he goes to China to get married.
The story “The Land of the Free” follows the life of a Chinese family that has their child taken away. They eventually find him but he wants them to “go’way” because he doesn’t recognize his mother (Far 146). This rejection of family is seen in The Namesake. Gogol leaves his family and joins Maxine's family. Much like how the child had assimilated to white culture, Gogol had joined a white family.
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