Magazine 2015
International Peer-Reviewed Journal
RESEARCH HORIZONS, VOL. 5 JULY 2015
BLOGGING TODAY: A CATHARSIS FOR IMMIGRANTS?
Tamasha Acharya
ABSTRACT
The digital identity of the migrant today is formed by twin influences of a growing, progressive diasporic
blogosphere in cyberspace and multiple multicultural societies in the real world. The present day immi-
grant aims to reconnect with the homeland through the virtual world. For the second and third generation
immigrant being physically distanced from the homeland is a voluntary move and reconnecting does not
arouse feelings of dislocation, spatial and temporal loss as for the earlier generation, but is a mere click
away. Today, location, place, homeland articulate different interpretations and the digital citizens are fast
establishing a different type of solidarity with those back home through blogs where they attempt to create
a diaspora zone of alliance, question concepts of nationhood and identities and emote in interactive
domains of reflection, recognition, recall and memory.
My paper strives to offer an insight on how the dispersed population uses blogging as a kind of online
diary, a memoir to maintain ties with their families back home, preserve culture and reinforce identity
issues. I aim to identify and analyse blogs by South Asians, primarily Indians who have settled in USA and
UK. My focus is to outline how through their interactive posts they showcase life as lived in the adopted
land, interspersing their lifestyle narratives with reflections about the homeland which echoes their affilia-
tions both directly and indirectly. In this process, the blog adopts all the features of an autobiography and
has widened its scope. I also aim to indicate how the blog is used subconsciously as a means of cathar-
sis.
Key Words : autobiography, self-exploration, self-expression, self-construction, self-monitoring, catharsis
With the revolutionary Internet boom and shift in information technology today, blogs are being widely
heralded as an alternative to mainstream media, as they provide a forum to share views and experiences
worldwide with other Internet users in the cybernetic space. Cybernetic space can be described as a
synthetic space that is produced at the intersection of the real and the virtual spaces. Mitra, (2002,2003)
Mitra and Schwartz, (2001). Blogs and other Internet social networking facilities enable individuals,
networks and organisations, to communicate with each other quickly, share information and other
resources, and collaborate to pool their collective knowledge. Information is in a different league in
today’s global world where interaction is literally a touch away. In December 2011, it was estimated by
a media research group that there were1.2 billion users of the Internet worldwide. 82 percent of the
world’s Internet population over age 15 logged to a social media site shooting up from 6 percent in
2
007. 37% of bloggers cite “my life and experiences” as a primary topic of their blog. Connecting in this
digital melting pot we have immigrants who work, meet online, send instant messages and skype.
Reconnecting in the diaspora zone, analyzing changing concepts of nationhood, examining fluid no-
tions of identity has taken on a different meaning in recent years. Home today, is no longer only a
concrete geographical space but often exists within the twin zones of memory and nostalgia. Speaking
about diasporic constructions of the nation in the changing world Anita Mannur says, “As we move from
paradigms of geosphere to infosphere, the boundaries of nation and diaspora begin to traverse,
retraverse, inform and de-form one another” Mannur (2003).
The interface of a blog provides the ability to easily integrate images and audio files into entries. The
possibility of editing or deleting entries without destroying the document is an added advantage. All
this makes reading and writing blogs a very interesting experience and also enables bloggers to be-
come active creators and disseminators of knowledge. Diasporans who blog, chart an atlas of identity
that includes multiple geographical locations, create different ideological discourses, speak diverse
languages and dialects, represent various degrees of assimilation with their countries of residence and
also maintain varying degrees of transnational connections between the hostland and the homeland.
Adapting communities in the hostland through blogs, they create online forums of self-documentation
which includes self-construction and self-monitoring. These groups are conditionally united by com-
mon interests, mutual empathy, and the willingness to share personal experiences and thoughts. In this
scenario, identity tags like British Asian or Asian American do not signify dual or split identities but a
seamless one, where links with the native and adopted countries are made and the reach out is
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RESEARCH HORIZONS, VOL. 5 JULY 2015
through the blogosphere. Blogs created by immigrants are taken as a site of memory where construct-
ing and preserving both individual and cultural identity is considered. It provides a path for displaced
people to reconnect with their homeland and to become active creators and disseminators of what is
real, twice or thrice removed as they are from their homeland. Rebecca Blood in the introduction to her
book, We’ve got Blog mentions, “Every weblog has a point of view and even those that contain no
personal information reveal over time, detail maps of their creators roads. It is captivating to see the
biases, interests, and judgments’ of an individual reveal themselves so clearly. Blood (xii)
A definition of autobiography by Phillippe Lejune outlines its similarity with the blog. He refers to it as:
“A retrospective produced by a real person concerning his own existence, focusing on his individual life,
in particular on the development of his personality.” Lejune (1982) Other definitions have conceptual-
ized, the autobiography as a “metaphor of self” (James Olney), the “invention of the self” (Jerome
Bruner), the “art of self-invention” (Paul John Eakin), a form of “self-writing” (Avrom Fleishman) and “self-
portraiture” (Francoise Lionnet). As an online genre, the blog is a challenge to traditional narratives of
autobiography. Both are based on self-revelation, inwardness and intimacy of the personal. Blogs too
define the self, and like the diary, reveal the distinctive voice of the speaker. With an interactive space it
problematizes or just voices out existing issues. Grouped under the genre of diaries, blogs include the
responses of readers, and, are often an interactive form of correspondence between the diarist/blogger
and the audience. Today as an established form of life writing, online diaries, which are creating a digital
collaborative relationship between writers and their audiences serve as fresh reminders of the tenuous
division between reality and art, between simulated and real areas that these texts seem to straddle
more explicitly than traditional written autobiographical forms. In her article “Online Diaries: Towards a
Structural Approach” Viviane Serfaty situates blogs within the larger genre of autobiographical writing.
Their availability on the Internet may be seen as the continuance of a long tradition in self-representa-
tional writing even as information technology modifies the forms and functions of such texts. Serfaty
recommends studying online diaries from a literary standpoint which may therefore shed light on the
development of new forms of writing, and contribute to assessing the extent of this transformation and
its meaning. (2004)
For the purpose of the analysis a content analysis of 15 blogs was made. One had to sift through many
blogs before finalizing selection. Approximately 32 blogs were accessed and analysed but the ones
chosen for the purpose of the study were written only by South Asians residing in UK and USA. Only one
was taken from an expatriate residing in the UAE, as the writer mentioned similar issues and experi-
ences. Search engines like Technoratti was used but no clear category as South Asian bloggers or
blogs could be identified.I propose a qualitative, exploratory study. Because we are concerned with the
bloggers’ interpretations of their host culture and context, we adopt an interpretive approach and
assumptions. Interpretive studies assume that people act on the basis of their interpretations of the
world. The blogs analysed were not deliberately sought to be authored by women but incidentally it so
happened that all the writers were women. The analysis of blogs by South Asian immigrants gave an
overview of the issues they address. The posts were generally about career issues, a sense of disloca-
tion, recipes, miscarriage, pregnancy, marital issues, domestic violence, religion, dealing with weight
issues, Ramadan(fasting) issues.
Posts revealed that bloggers, blog for many different reasons – to exercise their creativity, document
ideas and events, and store them for later retrieval, to share, to entertain, earn a living or even to
motivate or influence others. Blogging also helps to stay in touch with family and friends, locally or
across nations while others want to network and meet new people. As a diary of the bloggers own inner
sense of emotional fragmentation, this outpouring helps the blogger transform from a mere identity to
an individual in her own right. The personal tone of the blog and anonymity status enabled women to
write comfortably and openly, about previously taboo issues, such as their inability to fulfill gendered
societal and motherhood expectations, coping with immigration, career issues and so on. This kind of
writing has helped create an entirely new creative and cultural landscape in which bloggers feel free to
emote. It can be stated that blogging for women seems crucial in their autobiographical re-construction
of identity. Some blogs did not have a specific focus, although reading through the posts revealed
certain dominant topics like issues of gender equality and women’s empowerment. Certain experienced
frustrations were clearly shared by many other women for example, societal pressure, cultural expecta-
tions of women’s roles in life, pressures to look attractive and young along with issues like food, Asian
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music were discussed. These posts tended to generate many responses and much discussion, particu-
larly from other women. There were many blogs on motherhood by young mothers. It was rare for a
blog to focus solely on a single subject and not include references on personal experiences and reflec-
tions. The posts sometimes had multiple posts in a month but there were also gaps.
First Days, a project inspired by Philadelphia’s South Asian American Digital Archive, collects stories
from immigrants about their first days in America. The blog registers through interviews how immigrants
belonging to the first generation found escalators fascinating, expressed culture shock about the radi-
cally different lifestyles and their impressions of zooming on US freeways. Homesickness and lack of
friends are emotions which frequently crop up in their posts especially as they were from the first
generation. Some of the blogs I accessed had typical Indian titles and words. Was it a sign for other
South Asian bloggers to access or a deliberate attempt to keep a pan Asian connection?
ShwetaSays.tcom, ChaiChatter, non stop bakbak, Once upon a chai time, love,laugh,mirch .com, pinkchai
style, Some others are Shebasphere.blogspot.in, Party of Five, buzzing tales, SepiaMutiny, Say What .
Mothers and the attachment to them feature strongly in most blogs. Writing about the business of being
Mom a blogger writes:
You have to trust your gut, some advice, and sometimes rely on the Internet for a huge chunk of
information (if you are in a different country far away from your immediate family). ‘ve you sleep
trained your child? (what the hell is that? I’m 30 and I still prefer falling asleep next to my mom, I’m
from India!)
. Nonstopbakbakwordpress com blogger –Shruti Mallur First generation immigrant
Moms just have a special touch which makes food taste better, everyone feel better, and you do
better. I’ve been lucky blessed to have my Mom by my side from the minute Little Mirchi was born.
For the past three months she’s been spoiling both LM and I with her love, food, and care. I can’t
imagine what I would have done without my mother’s guidance and support when I became a mother
for the first time myself.
Lovelaughmirch.com
All the bloggers had at least one post about festivals. During festivals celebrated enthusiastically at
home, the immigrant heart longs for the celebrations, ambience, friends, family and festivities back
home and blogs provide an outlet for the expression of this emotional fragmentation. Diwali and Holi
brought back nostalgic memories of celebrations in India. Discussions of the festival were always ac-
companied by photographs of celebrations with the family and decorations. Sales in Indian shops,
ideas for gifts, food festivals like the Varli food festival were also detailed. It was interesting to read
bloggers inviting their readers over to interact in the blogs for virtual chat session at a prefixed time
especially before festivals.
Visits to India featured regularly and shopping was always mentioned. Indian cuisine also was regularly
mentioned with recipes, trial sessions, substitutions with ingredients which were not available in the
hostland and the nostalgia about their mother’s food and cooking was also evident. A blogger wrote,
“
I ‘ve come to terms with the fact that there is that special ingredient in parental cooking.”
A second generation immigrant wrote about her generation gap issues while growing up. Her class-
mate, a native White had telephoned her for some homework related issues. Her mother’s reaction
amazed her and she retaliates many years later:
As a South Asian female with immigrant parents, I suspect this instance is as close as most of us get
to having the ‘sex talk’ with our parents. At the time, I had no idea why Mark calling my house was the
worst thing that I could ever have done but based on my mother’s reaction, I knew it couldn’t happen
again. I knew I had done something horribly wrong. From that point on, I also knew that I was not like
my friends Elizabeth, Susan or Jody. Not only was I browner, but sleepovers, trips to the mall and
romantic comedies at the movies would have to wait until I was 35. Going prom dress shopping
would have to wait until my wedding day and having the ‘sex talk’ would come after my first baby.
Just one of the many differences between me and my white friends growing up in small town Ottawa
in the 80’s. shebasphere.blogspot.in
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RESEARCH HORIZONS, VOL. 5 JULY 2015
The ramifications of geographical, cultural, social and climatic changes on the psychology of an indi-
vidual and his/her family depend on the degree of change as well as the individual’s attitude towards
such change. Such situations test individuals’ coping skills; their ability to adjust and acclimatize. A first
generation immigrant about the initial days in a foreign land, away from one’s roots, comes with its
unique set of pros and cons as this blogger shows.
The new and novel can be enticing and adventurous for some and an extremely petrifying experience for
others. Personal circumstances, life style changes, changes in living comfort, personal security etc. all
leave disparate footprints on people and they respond distinctly to any alterations in their circum-
stances. Buzzing Tales.com No matter where our feet or fate takes us, the warmth and lure of home
always remains etched in our hearts. Buzzing Tales.com
Another blogger writes-” The fear and worry of the first few days: I felt I was not part of any culture: I was
too white-washed to be Pakistani, too Pakistani to be Tanzanian, and too brown to be white.” She
relates how Hockey unites them in the adopted land. She titles her post NHL Playoffs: The Hockey
Myth, Joel Ward and My Immigrant Identity.
For members of my grandmother’s mosque in Calgary, hockey was linked to their identity as a success-
ful, assimilated immigrant community. During the Stanley Cup finals, they set up a projector and TV
just outside the prayer hall, so people could follow their national pastime while preserving the faith they
brought with them from abroad. - Sehreen Noor Ali
Driving to Las Vegas for Christmas Nina Agarwal writes “ . . .we reminiscence about Christmases past,
disputing one another’s accounts, and listen to old Hindi songs—the ones I find melancholy and beau-
tiful even when I don’t understand all the words. We also play word games; this is, after all, a perfect
opportunity for vocabulary and spelling lessons.” Notes from an Indian Childhood: Christmas in Vegas
by Nina Agarwal The utilitarian value of time fi2w.org/2012/12/.
Feet in Two Worlds is a blog which brings the work of immigrant and ethnic media journalists from
communities across the U.S.A. It raises concerns of marital and maternal anxieties and draws equiva-
lents with modern-day mothers admitting similar issues in confessional blogs as a therapeutic act.
Sepia Mutiny is a virtual community of South Asian bloggers who shared their views on issues and
events in the homeland and the hostland affecting the South Asian community. Bloggers wrote on
different issues and archived their 1320 posts which can be read online. The posts were on issues like
pop culture, lifestyle, current affairs and philosophy. The conversation tag of the Mutiny is equally
interesting as it gives the reactions of other immigrants who, negotiating the politics of space and
identity found this an important platform to air views, analyse and share news. There are recruitment
campaigns, digs at governments (both in the homeland and hostland) book reviews, video clippings of
musical releases, advise to first time immigrants and students and even an online campaign for a bone
marrow transplant for an immigrant, Amit Gupta. A blogger mentioning the importance of this blog
writes in the conversation tag, “And as a mixed Desi-American, the Mutiny let me participate in and
identify with my roots in a way that I had never been able to do before.”
Writing about the social changes experienced a blogger writes:
The Central NJ Indian community is deeply insular, and most of the Indian kids I grew up with are full
of “casually” bigoted comments about people who are unlike them (most notably, about “white
people”, a kind of defensive reverse racism), and very few of them even have friends who are not
Indian, let alone friends who are white, gay and lower middle class like Tyler. Exposure to people who
are different from you promotes understanding and tolerance, and insularity promotes xenophobia.
It’s time for our community to examine the negative effects of “pseudo acculturation” where we
attempt to emulate western models of success while clinging to old-world intolerance.
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Another blogger notes –
Only a few weeks till the start of summer. This can only mean one thing: skin. Bring on the season of
skin-baring shorts, minis, sundresses, tank tops and bathing suits. And if you’re desi, bring on the
nagging moms and aunties who try to tell you to cover up – more for the sake of preserving your
complexion than for modesty’s sake. I think you all know how I feel about our society’s obsession
with skin coloring. But I was reminded of it again when Ennis sent me a clip of an upcoming docu-
mentary, “Dark Girls.”
This site provided a much needed space for the development of the South Asian American identity
and, in many ways, set the benchmark with how the community voiced themselves.
The inconspicuousness, interactive nature and personal tone of writing blogs are cathartic. They pro-
mote mentoring, do not demand reciprocity and function as a mirror of the self. Amanda Lenhart and
Susannah Fox have concluded that women write, to work through difficult experiences, to give sub-
stance to the tasks of impermanence that fill their days and lives, to forge connections with other
women related to issues of mutual interest and concern, and to assert themselves as subjects of their
own making in the face of competing social constructions of who they should be. (2006) These self-
narratives become a source of strength to both the reader and the writer. Swamped by circumstances,
majority of the bloggers required emotional sustenance and offloaded their conflicts in their blogs for
their catharsis. Says Vivianne, “The computer screen thus plays the part of the Other, of the ideal Other,
because it is, in and of itself, empty and can thus be endowed with a plurality of meanings. It does not
demand reciprocity, but only functions as a mirror of the self. And it is through such a mirror that the
private self can move beyond the limits imposed by social codes and connect with others in virtual
space. The readers of the online diaries all become mirrors for diary writers, reflecting and commenting
on their every thought, and hence providing a social space in which the private self can be deployed
and reconnect with the social self. Serfaty(2010)
The popularity of this genre and its necessity can be assessed in many ways. As a blogger writes, “I
started to blog about the power of positivity and how it initially helped me out of a dark period in my
life. I found that to be very therapeutic and decided to write more about my personal experiences,
thoughts and feelings more as an outlet for myself more than anything.” She writes about the connect
she shares with her readers- “I feel that by reading my blog, they connect with me, understand my
pressures and stresses and know what it’s like to grow up as a first generation Indian-Canadian woman
who is now handling the demands of being a wife and mother.” shebasphere.blogspot.in
Bloggers irrespective of the topic share their life experiences and perceptions, documenting, generat-
ing information and, reaching out to others and themselves and thereby providing a voice, a platform
to end certain silences. In today’s online age it is a powerful conversational tool with the potential to
reach a wide audience and empowers by giving a voice to the unheard and also the unseen. The sense
of authority and control, the feeling of being screened by not being directly exposed before the reader(s)
also gives an independence to the blogger. Through story sharing, inspiration, information they pro-
mote strong, positive images of both the lands. Readers who were loyal followers and interacted
regularly have created an extended family as photographs and write ups capturing every mood, cre-
ation and celebration are put up in blogs.
As a blogger writes –
My last blog post has garnered so much interest, commentary and encouraging words that I have to
give a shout out to everyone who has posted anything about it. Thank you to all of you! I have never
received so much personal email, so many private messages and phone calls sharing all of your
stories of miscarriage or trouble conceiving. I am honored to have you take time out of your day to
read it and I sincerely hope that all the women who contacted me with a similar story will heal from
theirs as I continue to heal from mine. More importantly, I am most happy about helping to promote
dialogue about miscarriage.
Immigration no longer arouses feelings of dislocation, spatial and temporal loss as it did for the earlier
generation. Towards the late nineties when the blogosphere revolution came about the second and
third digitally charged generation of immigrants who were much better settled than the earlier genera-
tion, stepped in and started documenting their parents’ lives. Better internet connectivity has made
sites more accessible and migrancy issues approachable. To overcome the temporal, spatial and psy-
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RESEARCH HORIZONS, VOL. 5 JULY 2015
chological distance it is easier now to connect, maintain, create, recreate, exchange instant informa-
tion. It is well documented that cyberspace is not as White as it was once thought to be, and evidence
is prevalent that the number of Internet users in Asia is greater than the rest of the world. (2006)
Sven Birkerts has pointed out a fundamental difference between print and electronic texts: “The print
engagement is essentially private. While it does represent an act of communication, the contents pass
from the privacy of the sender to the privacy of the receiver.” In the electronic order, however, “engage-
ment is intrinsically public, raking place within a circuit of larger connectedness” (1994)
As a majority of blogs raised these issues, it was felt that what the earlier generation shared physically,
psychologically with their mothers, sisters and relations back home, these immigrant women used
different forms of technology to communicate about the same emotions only creating a ‘virtual Soror-
ity’. It was also felt cultural stability can be continued in the relative safety of the virtual, within a virtual
community of other immigrants, who have all sought and found a safe place to maintain a stable,
quintessential identity. Blogs can be read as assertions of identity which the individual might not depict
in real life. It could be a reflection of the assertion within or can be interpreted as an attempt to work on
assertiveness by psychologically conditioning oneself to think of one as such.
An extract:
We are not our bodies. They represent us but there is so much more to who we are than what is
happening on the outside. If we, as women, don’t support each other, then this patriarchal South
Asian culture that we belong to will continue to own us. Low self-image is practically taught to South
Asian girls from a young age. We have to break this cycle. We have to support each other. We are
supposed to lift and empower each other and ourselves. Not try to break each other down.
Catharsis also leads to responsibility regarding content and projection of mediated images. The analy-
sis revealed that the blog often functions as a mirror of the self and transforms users from an identity to
an entity. It was observed that bloggers are interconnected and do not function in seclusion. Many have
URL links to other blogs.
The above analysis, is a closed reading of various immigrant blogs and yields interesting findings and
directions towards a new understanding of them as included in the genre of autobiographies. From the
analysis it was felt that blogging eases feelings of dislocation, alienation, spatial, temporal loss. The
personal tone encourages life narration and helps women reconstruct identity, the virtual sorority cre-
ated was collaborative yet communal. The societal news stream created was helpful to maintain ties
and it also served as a forum for discussion, dissent, debate. Blogs helped to break taboo, suspend
silence, transgress and examine issues both subjectively and objectively. The online environment pro-
vided unique opportunities to the women to find alternative practices and communities and enable
smooth sailing in the hostland. The discussion of festivities accompanied by photographs created a
diaspora zone of alliance as the readers could bond better together. Both bloggers and readers emoted
in interactive domains of reflection, recognition, recall and memory. The dispersed population used
blogging as a means to maintain ties with their families back home, preserve culture and reinforce
identity issues. The conversation tag at the end not only conveys the different opinions, adds sugges-
tions but also indicates the number of active readers. What is to be noted is that in spite of being
second and third generation immigrants in the First world, issues of gender equality and women’s
empowerment regularly cropped up.
Almost every aspect of life has found its way into the blogosphere today. Immigrants negotiate the
dynamics of truth, identity, and society and assert that emerging technologies such as the blog allow
them to move beyond the silences that the adopted land creates. Bloggers use this societal news
stream as a means to maintain ties with their families back home, preserve culture and reinforce identity
issues. When home is no longer a concrete geographical place but exists within the two dimensions of
recollection and longing a blog sometimes acts as a connector, binding discordant spaces in time into
a homogeneous whole.
Blogs provide arenas for discussion, dissent, and debate, which can translate into knowledge, and a
feeling of empowerment that is critical for social transformation and development Radloff, et al (2004).
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RESEARCH HORIZONS, VOL. 5 JULY 2015
Despite so many positive aspects, the present century has also been dubbed as the egocentric age of
twitter and Blogs. It is also said that the blog culture is the next step in narcissism and exhibitionism.
A paper such as this with limitations of words and ideas does not have space for a full discussion of
these issues, but I hope that the ideas will create a roadmap for further studies and also of various types
and aspects of blogs. Naipaul said, “ Diaspora allows us to valorize forms of kinship other than national
and familial ones.(1984). The blog is a definite genre of discussion for the diasporic individual who must
travel across spatial and historical differences, assembling a narrative and self from fragments of memory
and simultaneously attempting a synthesis between the familiarities of cyberspace and the uncertainties
of real space.
References :
Birkerts, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies. Boston: Faber & Faber, 1994. (122- 23).
Blood, Rebecca. “Introduction” We’ve Got Blog: How Weblogs Are Changing Our Culture.
Braziel, Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur (Eds.) Theorizing Diaspora:A Reader, USA : Blackwell
Publishing Limited, 2003. Pg 283
Lenhart, Amanda and Fox, Susannah. Bloggers: A Portrait of the Internet’s New Storytellers, Few Internet
and American Life Project, Washington, D.C., 2006 http://207.21.232.103/PPF/r/186/report_display.asp
Mitra, A. (2002) ‘Creating Immigrant Identities in Cybernetic Space’, paper presented at the Media
Performance and Practice Across Cultures Conference, University of Wisconsin at Madison, March, URL
(
consulted September 2005): http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/mpi/conference/mitra.htm
Mitra, A. (2003) ‘Cybernetic Space: Bringing the Virtual and Real Together’, Journal of Interactive Adver-
tising 3(2), URL (consulted July 2004): http://jiad.org/vol3/no2/Mitra
Mitra, A. and R.L. Schwartz (2001) “From Cyber Space to Cybernetic Space: Rethinking the Relation-
ship Between Real and Virtual Spaces”, Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 7(1), URL (con-
sulted September 2004): http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol7/issue1/mitra.html New York: Basic Books,
2
002. (P-Xii)
Radloff, J., N. Primo and A. Munyua (2004) “The Role of Information and Communication Technologies
in the Development of African Women”, Melville, South Africa: Association for Progressive Communica-
tions (APC) Gender & Development VoL. 15, No. 3, November
Serfaty, Viviane. “Online Diaries: Towards a Structural Approach.” Journal of American Studies 38.3 (Dec.
2
004): 457-71. JSTOR. Web. 8 Jan. 2010.Pg 457,471
Dr. Tamasha Acharya, Associate Professor, Dept. of English, Shri M.D. Shah Mahila College of Arts and
Commerce, Mumbai.
I’m hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter
and brighter. That’s what this world is about. You look at someone like Gandhi,
and he glowed. Martin Luther King glowed. Muhammad Ali glows. I think that’s
from being bright all the time, and trying to be brighter.
Jay-Z
(110)