Distinguished American Speaker SeriesProfessor Bharati Mukherjee of the University of California at Berkeley
 On June 11, 2004, award-winning author and Professor of English at the
University of California at Berkeley, Bharati Mukherjee,
conducted a reading of her works at the residence of Ambassador Daniel C.
Kurtzer. Using her own experience as a Calcutta-born immigrant, Bharati
spoke eloquently on the subjects of immigration and dislocation, legal
redress in the face of discrimination, and finding one's voice as a
feminist writer. Rejecting hyphenated definitions such as Indian-American,
Professor Mukherjee asserted that while there are many ways
of being American, an absolute sine qua non is the act of subscribing to a
set of constitutional values and standards and buying into the civic contract
encoded in U.S. law. Her visit showed Israeli audiences how "mainstream"
America is a constantly evolving concept, involving the braiding together
of cultures - the immigrant and the indigenous - with the interaction
leaving each element irrevocably changed. Most importantly, she showed how
the underpinning of a truly democratic society must be based on a code of
values enshrined in law.
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