Intergenerational Identities: Negotiating Solidarity and Plurality

Abstract

While one may inherit one's ``race'', language is not necessarily inherited and nowhere is this more evident than migrant cities where the second and third generations begin to use languages that are vastly different from their parents and grandparents. This chapter proposes the solidarity-plurality model as a way of understanding early identities. It uses parameters such as dress, food, religious rites and literary endeavours as a means to examine the processes of acculturation and assimilation. The postulation of a cline or continuum rather than a more static classificatory listing is useful for the study of intergenerational identities, for it suggests a gradual/fluid movement rather than a neat transition from one identity stage to the other.