8. Multiculturalism and Identity in Zadie Smith’s WHITE TEETH (2024)

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What is multiculturalism and identity in Zadie Smith's White Teeth? ›

White Teethis interested in the construction of postcolonial subjectivities among its South Asian and Caribbean characters in the colonizing metropolis, but it is also inter-ested in how all of the complex forces it explores have remade Englishness, not just the Englishness of its Anglo characters (principally, Archie ...

Zadie Smith's White Teeth (2000) represents a mosaic of ethnically, culturally and religiously diverse characters – mainly, Anglo-Jamaican, Bangladeshi and Jewish – “adjusting, negotiating and creating a sense of “Britishness” and a sense of belonging in the city of London at three different historical periods of time: ...

The clash between two cultural spheres in one country is the central conflict in Zadie Smith's novel White Teeth. The conflict is illustrated by second-generation Bangladeshi immigrants in Great Britain. This young generation have to meet with contradicting expectations.

In Jones family Archie is English and married Clara who is Jamaican and immigrated to England. The Iqbal family, Samad and Alsana, are both Bengali and they are immigrants as well. The most English looking family is the Jewish Chalfen family and they are admired by Irie Jones for their pure Englishness.

A multicultural identity combines identities from multiple groups or, simply put, an individual that identifies with more than one group of people. Having a multicultural identity can also come with a unique set of skills and intercultural competencies.

Not only does creating greater multicultural awareness and inclusion help students with different backgrounds and needs succeed, but it encourages acceptance and helps prepare students to thrive in an exponentially diverse world.

Smith is reminding us that the past is a foreign country, where things are done differently. Smith describes first-generation immigrants who look back on their old lives, and the lives of their parents in Bangladesh and the Caribbean, with a mixture of perplexity and fear.

White Teeth tackles immigration, assimilation, colonialism, multiculturalism, racism, patriarchy, sexism, feminism, domestic violence, genetic engineering, British colonial history, the purpose of existence, and other serious issues, but the book is also very funny.

White Teeth (2000) is a novel by English author Zadie Smith. It follows the intertwined lives of two families living in London in the late 1980s. White Teeth can be classified as a postcolonial novel. Family and history are two key themes in Smith's novel.

The man is wild for tradition. But, Samad doesn't know how to reconcile this love of tradition with his very own desires. White Teeth shows us that one of the substantial conflicts immigrants face is how to maintain certain traditional values and customs without getting left behind or left out of their new home.

What is the cultural significance of teeth? ›

Teeth in ancient cultures were more than just a tool for eating. For these people groups, teeth bore a greater significance in a number of ways. Teeth were once indicative of status and strength, they were ornamental and ritualistic, and they represented the passing of time.

Teeth, which appear in both the novel's title and the titles of several chapters, are perhaps the work's most significant symbol. Broadly speaking, teeth represent people and the ways people relate to those around them and to their own pasts.

White Teeth is a 2000 novel by the British author Zadie Smith. It focuses on the later lives of two wartime friends—the Bangladeshi Samad Iqbal and the Englishman Archie Jones—and their families in London. The novel centres on Britain's relationship with immigrants from the British Commonwealth.

The dental characteristics such as the shovelling or scooping of the upper incisor (most common in Asiatic Mongoloids and Amerindians), taurodontism, chisel shaped incisors, Carabelli's cusp, hypocone, and protostylid, peg shaping of the teeth can be used to determine the ethnicity of the individual [36-38].

For example, Africans have bigger teeth with thicker enamel, whereas Europeans have smaller teeth and a reduction in tooth mass (Harris & Rathbun, 1991; Shah, Boyd, & Vakil, 1978; Vaughan & Harris, 1992).

Throughout the book, Smith weaves in themes of national identity, race, religion, and the struggle to make sense of the rapidly changing modern world. The popularity and critical acclaim that *White Teeth* achieved upon publication has not diminished in the years since.

In “What is Cultural Identity” by Elsie Trumbull and Maria Pacheco it states that “we can imagine culture as invisible webs of composed values, beliefs, ideas about appropriate behavior, and socially constructed truths”, according to this statement culture is embedded into us and effects the way people see everything.

According to multicultural personality theory, individuals with greater multicultural personality traits are likely to have also developed an awareness and appreciation of their own ethnic and racial identities as well as low levels of prejudice and ethnocentrism (Ponterotto, 2010).

Zadie Smith's White Teeth is set in post-war Britain and captures the friendship of two wartime soldiers, Samad and Archie. Samad is a Bengali who lives in London and Archie is an Englishman. The novel contextualises their family histories: Archie marries a Jamaican woman, Clara, and they have a daughter, Irie.