Critical Creative Citizenship in the plays of Sudipta Bhawmik and Golam Sarwar Harun

In my paper, I want to put Sudipta Bhawmik’s plays Nagorik? and Fera in conversation with Golam Sarwar Harun’s plays Etao Thik, Otao Thik and Stories of Jackson Heights. The purpose is to celebrate the theatrical representation of Bengalis on the American stage at a time when the migrant/immigrant experience is being progressively vilified in the United States. Bhawmik reflects on the diasporic dilemmas of the Bengali American community in his plays. His writings not only document the dynamics of diasporic life but also chart the journey of the Bengali people in their adopted home – from the reluctant migrant to living the American dream. Harun studies the life of the working-class members of the same community, people whose stories seldom find their way into the popular or the critical domain. He tells us stories of people fleeing political persecution only to become the prey of the immigration mechanism in a foreign country or of those whose American Dreams are realized at great personal expense but allow their families back home a path out of financial doldrums. Together, Bhawmik and Harun represent the broad spectrum of identities that constitute the Bengali American diaspora. The plays of Bhawmik and Harun demonstrate the power of representation in challenging the harms being affected by the current socio-political rhetoric. In doing so, I argue, their plays center everyday acts of critical creative citizenship which recognizes Bengali Americans, and by extension, South Asian Americans as an essential part of the American story.