IN SEARCH OF MULTICULTURAL LITERATURE I am what I am. A child of the Americas.... A child of many diaspora, born into this continent at a crossroads.... I am an immigrant and the daughter and granddaughter of immigrants. ...The table has a cloth woven by one, dyed by another, embroidered by another still. I am a child of many mothers.... From "Ending Poem" by Aurora Levins Morales and Rosario Morales MRS. COY-GONFA'S STEW POT America is not a melting pot. In a melting pot, all ingredients are homogenized and neutralized so that no one thing is distinct from the whole. Instead, America is a stew. Many rich ingredients give texture, flavor and seasoning to the pot. All the flavors blend and enhance the stew, yet each ingredient retains something of its own unique quality. The carrot remains a carrot, the chunks of potato, potato. So it is with the American experience. The rich flavors of our heritages have blended, the cultures mingled, but each has retained its own identity. Too long, we have ignored what was left bubbling on the back of the stove. It is time to claim what we have concocted. The ethnic ingredients in this stew, simmering for over two hundred years, have made a unique dish prepared only in America. Come to the table. Dinner is served!

WRITERS OF AFRICAN DESCENT The African-American author often writes of the conflicts involved in living in a racist society. Topics deal with overt racism of the white society, institutional racism and the effects of racism on the psyche of the victim. African-American literature then, deals with the attempt to survive in such a society and at what cost. African writers often reveal the conflict that has arisen from the colonization of Africa by the European. Writers often deal with the difficulties that arise when the traditional values concerning, for example, the traditional relationships between husbands and wives or fathers and sons are in conflict with new western ideas. WRITERS OF ASIAN DESCENT Contemporary Asian American literature is often autobiographical or heavily influenced by the author's own life experience. There is often a conflict between the first generation parent and the second generation offspring who with one foot in each world, is torn between the traditional Asian ways and values and the American culture. WRITERS OF LATIN OR HISPANIC DESCENT Latin/Hispanic American writers often write about the difficulty in holding on to the old culture and language in the United States' main land, where in order to succeed, it is necessary to assimilate. How much of one's heritage should an individual give up in order to achieve the dream of economic prosperity? This writing is often a realistic portrayal of this conflict. Another popular theme is that of the conflict of a younger generation with the conservative and traditional values of their elders. Latin/Hispanic non-immigrant writing that has been translated into English, on the other hand, often refects a supernatural, mystical, surreal quality. WRITERS OF EUROPEAN DESCENT European and European-American authors of fiction have been creating works written or translated into English much longer than others and therefore have a much larger body of work. Fiction writers have contributed to the various literary movements from Romanticism to Realism and Post Modernism. Their subject matter has varied from the supernatural to the real. Euro/Americans have described the struggles in Europe which led to their immigrant experiences. They have written of the Americanization of the new world, of war, love, survival and family conflict, the past, the present and the future.

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Authors of African Descent SLAVE NARRATIVES: Frederick Douglas Olaudah Equiano Harriet A. Jacobs RECONSTRUCTION-PRE-RENAISSANCE Booker T. Washington - Up From Slavery W.E.B. DuBois - Souls of Blackfolks Paul Lawrence Dunbar HARLEM RENAISSANCE Langston Hughes - Not Without Laughter Zora Neele Hurston - Their Eyes Were Watching God James Weldon Johnson - Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man Jean Toomer - Cane Claude McKay - Home to Harlem Countee Cullen Dorothy West - The Wedding POST RENAISSANCE - MID FORTIES Arna Bontempts Richard Wright - Native Son Margaret Walker CONTEMPORARY James Baldwin - Go Tell It on the Mountain Paule Marshall - Brown Girl, Brownstones Ernest J. Gaines - A Gathering of Old Men Alice Walker - Possessing the Secret of Joy Toni Morrison - Paradise August Wilson - The Piano Lesson Ralph Ellison - Invisible Man Wole Soyinka - The Interpreter Ishmael Reed - Middle Passage Dudley Randall Gwendolyn Brooks - Maude Martha Buchi Emecheta - The Bride Price Amiri Baraka Alex Haley - Roots Sonia Sanchez Nikki Giovanni Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart Claude Brown - Manchild in the Promised Land Walter Dean Myers - Hoops Rosa Guy - The Friends Gabriel Okara - The Voice Ayi Kwei Armah - The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born Authors of Asian Descent Maxine Hong Kingston - China Men Jade Snow Wong - Fifth Chinese Daughter Le Ly Hayslip - When Heaven and Earth Changed Places Amy Tan - The Kitchen God's Wife Frank Chin - Father and Glorious Descendant Helen Kim - The Long Season of Rain Mo Yan - Red Sorghum Yoshiko Uchida - Picture Bride Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston - Farewell to Manzanar Lawrence Yep - Dragon Wings Lensey Namioka - Yang the Youngest and His Terrible Ear Louise Erdich - Love Medicine Kyoko Mori - Shizuko's Daughter Hisaye Yamamato - Seventeen Syllable Kappa Senoh - A Boy Called H Monica Itoi Sone - Nisei Daughter Gus Lee - China Boy Leslie Marmon Silko - Humaweepi, the Warrior Priest John Okado- No-No Boy Anita Desai - Clear Light of Day Mulk Rak Amamd - Untouchable R. K. Narayan - Under the Banyan Tree Ved Mehta - Sound Shadows of the New World N. Scott Momaday - The Way to Rainy Mountain LuLu Wang - The Lily Theatre Philip H. Red Eagle - Red Earth Elaine Mar - Paper Daughter Waysoon Choy - Jade Peony Banana Yoshimoto - Kitchen Lois-Ann Yamanaka - Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers Chen Die Xian - The Money Demon Authors of Latin American Descent Rudolfo A. Anaya - Bless Me Ultima Nicholasa Mohr - In Nueva York Sandra Cisneros - The House on Mango Street Piri Thomas - Down These Mean Streets Jack Agueros Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude Julia Alvarez - Something to Declare Carlos Fuentes - The Death of Artemio Cruz Isabel Allende - House of the Spirits Jose Raul Bernardo - The Secret of the Bulls Cristina Garcia - Dreaming in Cuban Gabriela Mistral Manuel Puig - Kiss of the Spider Woman Luis J. Rodriguez - Always Running: La Vida Loca Victor E. Villasenor - Macho Octavio Paz Julia Alvarez - How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents Pablo Neruda Ron Arias - Road to Tomazunehale Jorge Amado - Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands Nicky Cruz - Run Baby Run Julio Cortezar - Hopscotch Esmeralda Santiago - Almost a Woman Laura Restrepo - The Angel of Galilea Jose Latour - Outcast Maria Amparo Escandon - Esperanza's Box of Saints Authors of European Descent George Orwell - 1984 Ernest Hemingway - For Whom the Bell Tolls Wladyslaw Reymont - The Promised Land Boris Pasternak - Dr. Zhivago Carson McCullers - The Heart is a Lonely Hunter Edgar Allan Poe Nathaniel Hawthorne - The House of the Seven Gables Flannery O'Connor Bernard Malamud - The Fixer Saul Bellow - Henderson, the Rain King Sophocles - Oedipus William Shakespeare - King Lear Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov Mark Twain - Huckleberry Finn Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar William Faulkner - The Sound and the Fury Robert Frost Jane Austin - Pride and Predjudice John Updike - The Centaur Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair Herman Melville - Moby Dick Silas Marner - George Eliot Tennessee Williams - The Glass Menagerie Aldous Huxley - Brave New World Albert Camus - The Stranger Charles Dickens - David Copperfield

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