from the San Francisco area whom she believes to
be young and successful with his own business. She
dreams that she will soon be married and living in
the United States, the land of opportunity where
dreams come true. Therefore she leaves her family
and homeland for a new and strange place full of
uncertainty and wonder. The story begins in 1917,
when Hana, now 21 years old, is a new immigrant.
Taro, her new husband, is not exactly what he said
he was. He is middle-aged, and his business is not
as successful as she expected. Her strength as a
character shines as she learns to deal with the cir-
cumstances at hand and makes the best of it. She
tries to help her headstrong and traditional hus-
band with his failing business, while trying to raise
a daughter, Mary, in the divided cultural space
between traditional Japanese and contemporary
American cultures. Hana encounters a world that
is not so forgiving when it comes to cultural dif-
ferences. Mary also struggles to live her American
life while still living as a daughter of a woman who
holds onto her tradition like a security blanket.
The characters are written with lifelike person-
alities, based on the author’s personal experiences
as a daughter of Japanese immigrants. Picture
Bride takes place over a span of 26 years after Ha-
na’s arrival in California. Through the character’s
eyes, we watch the world through World War I and
the Great Depression. As the Japanese immigra-
tion to the United States grows over these periods,
anti-Asian sentiment grows at the same time. The
family encounters racism at its worst after the 1941
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In Uchida’s story,
however, hope and love prevail throughout the
lives of the characters.
Anne BahringerPittalwala, Iqbal (?– )
The beginning of Iqbal Pittalwala’s literary career
sounds like a quirky scene from an Asian-Ameri-
can novel or play. Pittalwala, a native of Mumbai
(Bombay), was studying for a doctorate in atmo-
spheric science at the State University of New York
at Stony Brook. Finding the writing difficult, he
signed up for a writing class, not realizing that the
class featured only creative writing. Compelled to
take up the unexpected challenge of learning to
write fiction, Pittalwala began to write stories and
quickly excelled. Within a few years of accidentally
taking a creative writing class, Pittalwala’s stories
were published in magazines such as Confronta-
tion, The Blue Mesa Review, Harrington Gay Men’s
Fiction Quarterly, The Seattle Review, and Trikone
Magazine. This productive period of short-story
writing climaxed in 2002 with the publication of
Pittalwala’s first book, Dear Paramount Pictures.
Dear Paramount Pictures is unusual for an
American literary publication because of the in-
tensity with which it conveys the experiences of
Indian people—both Indians resident on the
subcontinent and Indians living in the United
States. The book is also unusual because the title
story, which opens the collection, is facetious and
uproariously funny in complete contrast to the
downbeat, serious sobriety of the rest of the col-
lection. The title story consists of a long, rambling
letter by an Indian matriarch who feels obliged to
inform Hollywood studio bosses that James Dean
has been reincarnated as a Muslim student from
Kanpur. While this opening story is comic and
digressive, the remaining stories are all direct and
sometimes shocking for Westerners who are un-
used to detailed depictions of overcrowded Indian
cities. Taken as a whole, the remaining 10 stories
convey four main themes: the poverty of Indian
megalopolises; cultural gaps between America and
the subcontinent; parents’ inability to comprehend
the opinions of their children; and the misery per-
petuated by loveless marriages.
Some American readers may be shocked by
scenes of poverty depicted by Pittalwala in the
collection. In “The Change,” a 65-year-old Bom-
bay woman’s world collapses when she is abused
callously on poor public transport while on a rare
outing, and when a modest wedding present that
she has bought is smashed, causing her great grief.
A more lethal sort of poverty informs the harsh
story, “A Change of Lights.” A physically disabled
woman, Lajwanti, begs at traffic lights, desperately
seeking money for alcohol for herself and food for
her weak infant. People in cars dismiss her and her
child as “guttersnipes” and “filthy animals.” She is244 Pittalwala, Iqbal