Published Paper Details:

In an increasingly globalized world, migration has transformed the ways individuals understand identity, culture, and belonging. Diasporic literature reflects these experiences by portraying the emotional and cultural challenges faced by people living between two worlds. Amy Tan and Anita Rau Badami are among the most significant contemporary writers whose works explore the complexities of migration and the search for selfhood. While Amy Tan examines the lives of Chinese immigrants and their American-born daughters, Anita Rau Badami presents the experiences of Indian immigrants negotiating life in multicultural societies. Despite their distinct cultural backgrounds, both writers depict identity as a continuous process shaped by memory, family relationships, cultural traditions, and encounters with new social environments. This article offers a comparative study of selected works by Amy Tan and Anita Rau Badami to examine how their characters negotiate cultural differences while striving to define their own identities. Drawing on the theories of Stuart Hall, Homi K. Bhabha, Avtar Brah, and James Clifford, the study argues that selfhood in diasporic narratives is fluid rather than fixed. The protagonists often experience cultural conflict, feelings of displacement, and intergenerational tensions, yet these challenges become opportunities for personal growth and self-discovery. The analysis further highlights the important role of women in preserving cultural memory while simultaneously questioning traditional expectations and creating new forms of identity within multicultural settings. The article concludes that the fiction of Amy Tan and Anita Rau Badami presents identity not as a stable or predetermined condition but as an evolving journey shaped by migration, cultural interaction, and lived experience. Their narratives demonstrate that the search for belonging is both deeply personal and socially constructed, offering valuable insights into the realities of diaspora and multiculturalism in the contemporary world. By bringing together Chinese American and Indo-Canadian perspectives, this comparative study contributes to a broader understanding of identity formation in diasporic literature and emphasizes the enduring relevance of these writers in contemporary literary and cultural studies.