As for Mina being a “darkie” daughter, since she doesn’t fit the Indian ideal of beauty, she wouldn’t have been able to find a good match of an Indian or Indian American husband anyways. Mina and Demetrius, whether they worked out in the long run or fizzed out as a youthful romance, I don’t know. I really enjoyed the very ending clips with them in cultural costumes. I thought that was sweet.

While I loved Meena and Demetrius’s story in this movie, I felt a sadder story in the existence of Meena’s father, Jay. While Meena’s story was one of struggle with race and family, she was able to overcome it and stay with the person she loved, even if it meant going against the wishes of her family. Even if it was a temporary moment for them, Meena and Demetrius were able to have a happy ending.

Meanwhile, Jay was forced from his home country by his own brother. That isn’t to say that Jay was anywhere near being the right – he had many flaws, and he was guilty of a number of things, including being apparently more well-off in his home country than many of the other people that were there. The sad part is how bitter it eventually made him. He spends years after this trying to be allowed to return, only to be ignored or turned down at every attempt, and because of this he is unable to accept the love his daughter has for a black man, because even though Jay himself was African (and black), he was never really able to reconcile that part of himself. I feel like he was the opposite of a few of the movies that we’ve seen so far. His ending in the film was a happy one as well to some extent, but it was also disheartening because I felt there wasn’t a great deal of growth for Jay’s character. I think in the future he might prove a big obstacle in the happiness of his own daughter.

While I loved Meena and Demetrius’s story in this movie, I felt a sadder story in the existence of Meena’s father, Jay. While Meena’s story was one of struggle with race and family, she was able to overcome it and stay with the person she loved, even if it meant going against the wishes of her family. Even if it was a temporary moment for them, Meena and Demetrius were able to have a happy ending.

Meanwhile, Jay was forced from his home country by his own brother. That isn’t to say that Jay was anywhere near being the right – he had many flaws, and he was guilty of a number of things, including being apparently more well-off in his home country than many of the other people that were there. The sad part is how bitter it eventually made him. He spends years after this trying to be allowed to return, only to be ignored or turned down at every attempt, and because of this he is unable to accept the love his daughter has for a black man, because even though Jay himself was African (and black), he was never really able to reconcile that part of himself. I feel like he was the opposite of a few of the movies that we’ve seen so far. His ending in the film was a happy one as well to some extent, but it was also disheartening because I felt there wasn’t a great deal of growth for Jay’s character. I think in the future he might prove a big obstacle in the happiness of his own daughter.

The film interrogates notions of home and homeland. “You just like us. We from Africa, but we never been there before either”. Where is home for people experiencing diaspora and displacement? Mississippi Masala doesn’t offer any easy answers, rather it presents the viewer with even more questions. Jay insists that Africa is his home, yet when he returns to Uganda it becomes clear that this is no longer true. His old house is in ruins, his best friend is dead. I think Okelo was much of what represented “home” to Jay and with that connection gone he realizes that his family are all that he has left.

BG: In Masala there is an issue that I’ve never seen dealt with before, the issue of black and brown – the conflicts and situation. That is very fresh, and goes with you saying you wanted to make cinema that puts black and brown people at the centre.

MN: Well, Mississippi Masala grew out of being an Indian student at Harvard. When I arrived I was accessible to both white and black communities – a third-world sister to the black community and Kosher to the others – yet there were always these invisible lines. I felt that there was an interesting hierarchy where brown was between black and white. Even before Salaam Bombay!, I had wanted to tell this tale. That, along with the irony of Indian racism and the separatist nature of the Indian community in America … I began to read about the weird phenomenon of every southern motel being owned by an Indian, and many of them were exiles from East Africa after Amin had thrown them out.

There is this very cerebral concept: what was it like to be an African, but of Indian skin who believed India to be a spiritual home without ever having been there and to be living in Mississippi? An what if this world collided with that of black American who believed Africa to be their spiritual home, but had also never been there? It must collide through love, because we must sell tickets!

But where are the other interviews? How does a movie that deals with identity, racial and shade issues, and an interracial relationship with both people being people of color not have more press? I can find YouTube appreciation posts of the music, interviews by both Choudhury and Washington for other movies, and even the full movie but no review videos. I want to be surprised, but I’m not. Even though this film pushes the boundary of how racial identities are perceived by oneself and others while redefining the the portrayal of interracial/ cross-cultural couples it remains hidden under a multitude of other results. After this realization my spectrum did grow; the lack of exposure for alternative representation of this film makes the film itself even more important and necessary.

I also thought it was interesting how the film portrays racism but in a way you never see very often, in terms of it not being white/black or American/Japanese. The division between Mina’s father and Demetrius only emphasizes this aspect, which is why I like when Demetrius confronts Mina’s father about the color of his skin, basically saying that there’s really little difference between us, and that this categorization of skin color is superficial at best. His past history in Uganda and getting expelled from his home country gives him reason to feel as he does, but I’m glad that Demetrius and Mina decide to stay together despite the pasts of their families. Someone in our class said that they kept expecting something crazy to happen, and I have to agree considering some of the other films we’ve watched (Better Luck Tomorrow for example) have dipped into the darkness, so the fact that this did not happen in this film makes it more unique in my opinion – this is about other things.

This quote really resonated with me and I say this because I feel as though this is the struggle that people like me have had to deal with throughout my life. How, no matter how much we may love our current country that we have called home, at the end of the day, if we look any different from the major race of that country then we truly cannot call that place our home.

Home is where the heart is though right? Well, yes and I agree with this to a certain point but for me, home is where I can lay in my bed, home is where I can walk down 4th ave and recognize members of the community. I can only how devastating of an experience it would to be kicked out of a place you call home because of the way you look. For me, what happened to the Indians in Uganda was very similar to the treatment of Japanese Americans in the United States during WWII.

I can understand how it’s understandable how Mina’s parents were opposed to her dating an African American possibly because of the history that they had with Africans in the past because my Japanese family reacted very similarly to my father when my mother first introduced him to the family. My mother said that if her father had been alive, he would never allow for her to marry my dad because of my grandfathers experience during WWII.

Other than the title, I realized that the movie had also portrayed a different kind of racism. There was a scene where Jammubhai tells Demetrius, “If you are not white, then you are colored.” This quote, I think, makes their relationship somewhat stronger in a way that they are both minorities. They both understand the struggles of being colored, or not white. However, though Jammubhai comforts Demetrius with that line Jay, Mina’s father, cannot stand Demetrius with his daughter. After Jay and Demetrius’s little altercation, Demetrius tells Jay something along the lines of his [Jay] skin only being a few shades away from Demetrius [point at his face].

Sadly, before this scene Jay sort of turns his back on Black people because of Okelu telling him that he had to leave Uganda. So I can understand why Jay had this bitter feeling towards Demetrius. Anyways, after this scene where Demetrius points out their skin color, it showed the audience that racism can still be present without a white person. There is still this heirarchy of races and who has the more “whiteness.” I thought that that scene was very important.

Another thing I thought was important for this movie was to move on. Throughout the movie there are scenes beween Jay and Okelu and when Jay had to leave. Okelu was in tears as well as Mina and this obviously bothered Mina because she was too young to understand why Jay and Okelu had never talked again. I understand that they still had their Indian traditions because that will hardly ever change; however, Jay cannot seem to let go of Uganda and the way he remembers it. For years, he had wrote letters for his property in Uganda. He eventually gets to go back to Uganda and it looks like nothing he remembered. He also learns to forgive Okelu, but finds out that he is dead and has been. Overall, Jay’s visit back to Uganda was nothing as he expected it: things changed, it did not feel like home for him, and his best friend had passed away with Jay’s grudge against him. I think that letting things go, or moving on plays a very important theme in this movie.

It relates to A Tale For the Time Being. Time has kept moving and it has been lost. While Jay was in America, I do not think that he understood that even though Amin is not the ruler, does not mean that things have gone back to the way it was. Also, Jay never really got to say good-bye to Okelu or leave on a good vibe. After that, time was lost in-between Okelu and Jay that Jay was completely unaware that Okelu had passed away. Time was also lost between Jay’s constant mind battle between saying his home was in Uganda, rather than spending every moment with his wife, Kinnu, where as he said, “home is where the heart is and my heart is with you.” At least now, Jay can spend his time not worrying about Uganda, but with the time he has in that current moment.