Patois
Many of Nagra’s characters speak in a mixture of broken English, Indian dialect, and hybrid slang that creates a kind of localized patois which clearly situates them as second or third generation immigrants who have become more assimilated than their parents or grandparents, yet still retain a strong link to that national culture. Nagra’s poetry is so steeped in this use of patois that it becomes symbolic shorthand to indicate when the subject is specifically about the immigrant experience since other poems that step outside this subject area tend to rely upon the hybrid language to a far lesser degree.
Tartan sari
In the love poem “Singh Sing!” the young Sikh shopworker bride is situated as being in rebellion against conservative traditions of the religion. She is described as having dyed her hair red, wearing high heels, something called a donkey jacket and, most particularly, a Tartan sari. The symbolism here should be obvious: Tartan is a fabric design very much associated with the U.K. while the sari is famously associated with Southeast Asian culture. The mixture of the two becomes another symbol of the immigrant experience, but one fused with a more direct link to rebellious assimilation on the part of next-generation immigrants.
Beeswax’d Cars
“Look We Have Coming to Dover” is a poem that speaks almost to the entirety of the immigrant experience starting with imagery of the danger of illegal entry and ending with the speaker somewhat wistfully imagining themselves as fully accepted members of British society. This dream is symbolized by imagery of the good life under former Prime Minister Tony Blair with a special focus on owning a shiny newly waxed automobile.
Mugoo and Gugoo
“The Love Song of Mugoo and Gugoo” tells a tragic romance of two who can never be. Gugoo is of a higher caste—barely—than Mugoo and because of this divide, Indian culture will not permit their union. So, instead, they make plans to escape by “bobbling” across the waters. In this decision, they become symbols of those immigrants who leave conservative cultures that obstruct love and other means to happiness and set search for a new life in a new culture not bound by ancient traditions.
Coconut
In “Kabba Questions the Ontology of Representation, the Catch 22 for ‘Black’ Writers” the speaker, Kabba, is attacking his son’s English teacher for teaching with a textbook that he is positioning as paradoxically racist because in its sincere effort to attain multicultural understanding it has succeeded only in recognizing minority writers as a mechanism for inadvertently promoting white supremacy. The ideology has already succeeded in impacting his son’s behavior whom he derisively refers to as a “coconut.” That is to say, brown on the outside, but white on the inside.
