Why didn't Mina go to college?
In the movie, Mina's family has been in the US for a while. Why didn't she go to college or take up a profession? She was cleaning bathrooms, but I remember that her father said he was a lawyer.
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MovieChat Forums > Mississippi Masala (1992) Discussion > Why didn't Mina go to college?
She's a girl.. duhh..
"It's a chicken restaurant in Waukegan... You didn't think I knew did ya!!"
She didn't go to college because she was, despite her parents efforts, raised as an American, and she didn't want to go to college. Her father had been a lawyer in Uganda. He wasn't practicing as a lawyer in the U.S. Plus, all of his efforts had been devoted to his quixotic quest to regain what he believed to be "his land" in Uganda. Had he not been such a douche bag, his family wouldn't have been working in motels and liquor stores.
shareThe short answer is she didn't want to. She gives no reason, but she just doesn't want to. She says she'll go when her father gets his land, knowing the likelihood is slim. And indeed if you notice he says nothing. He KNOWS the likelihood of him getting his land back is slim, but he still holds out hope. Idi's reign of terror displaced many families and destroyed lives. Such a despicable man.
I wouldn't call him a douche. He was born in Uganda and that was his home, all he ever knew. He found America to be a strange place and longed for what he lost. Mina was young when they left, and didn't hold the same feelings for it. Indeed, in her flashbacks all we see are the bad parts. Jay sees the good and the bad, but what sticks with him are the beauty of it all. Mina saw the beauty, but it was marred by dead bodies.
Girl, it ain't my fault you lack the flavor.
I think it has to do with her feeling "trapped". When she is brought home from Biloxi after she and Demetrius (Denzel) were arrested, and she tells her parents that she loves him and feels trapped there. I think she may have seen the conditions her family was living in, realized the financial strain it would put on them, she decided against it, hence her feeling trapped in a life she didn't want, in a small town she didn't want to live in.
shareIt seems to me that they were holding on by their fingernails, financially. Mina's parents, her mother especially, made it clear to her that the family's best chances hinged on a favorable marriage match. Mina was their only child, hence their "only hope." The father's morale was so low (so typical of older professional men in exile) that little could be expected from him in the future.
At the end of the film, however, the father's "exile" is over. He redefines home as where his wife is, and he gives up the folly of living in the past.