Multi Ethnic Literature

Multi-Ethnic Literature The focus of this work is to examine multi-ethnic literature and focus on treating humans like farm animals that can be manipulated for various purposes. Multi-Ethnic literature offers a glimpse into the lives of the various writers of this literature and into the lives of various ethnic groups and the way that they view life and society and their experiences. Examined in this study are various writers including Tupac Shakar, Dorothy West, Petry, and others.

A Rose Grows From Concrete One might be surprised to learn that Tupac Shakar was the writer of many sensitive poems. Upon his death in 1996, Tupac's mother released a collection of poems entitled 'A Rose Grows From Concrete', which includes various love poems among the 72 poems in the collection. Tupac writes: Things that make hearts break. Pretty smiles Deceiving laughs And people who dream with their eyes open Lonely children Unanswered cries And souls who have given up hoping.

It is reported that the voice of Tupac in these love poems is "self-assured; his poetic vision insightful. The poems convey an optimism and vulnerability. The idealism in these poems is expressed in the recurring naturalistic imagery. In contrast to the bareness of the urban 'hood,' these poems are full of references to fresh air, green trees, dawn, nature, rivers, and flowers. It's obvious, also, that the poems were written to be read: their formal structure and ideographic features suggest a visual orientation.

Note, too, that the poems are all written in Standard English, are completely devoid of swear words and slang expressions. Absent, too, is the passion and urgency we find in the raps." (Walters, 2008, p.1) Tupac's poems could be viewed as a mode of escape for the artist from the reality of the social and economic world of Tupac whose mother was a drug addict and a life without his father lived in poverty.

However, these poems also represent the desire of Tupac to express his own complexity and the contrast of the inner person to the outer life and reality that Tupac existed within.

Tupac writes of his success despite the odds he faced in the following words: Did u hear about the rose that grew from the crack in the concrete Proving nature's laws wrong it learned 2 walk without having feet Funny it seems but by keeping its dreams It learned 2 breathe fresh air Long live the rose that grew from the concrete When no one else even cared. (Walters, 2008, p.1) Tupac reflects in this poem on the possibilities that present when the human being strives against overwhelming odds.

It is reported that the reasons for Tupac's success as a rapper include: (1) The ability to articulate the experience of economic, social and racial oppression experienced in the inner city Black community with passion using the rhetoric he inherited from his education as the son and step son of former Black Panther militants. (2) His talent for coupling political and revolutionary rhetoric with dramatic scenarios that connect with the actual and vicarious experiences of members of the hood.

The effect was to communicate a sense of "realness." (3) His use of the typical speech styles of the African-American community -- boasting, woofing, running it down, and tall tales. (4) His ability to use AAVE grammar, rhythm, intonation and vocabulary to delivery his messages, making them sound real to urban Black youth. In this regard, Tupac's lyrics exhibited vernacular "lyrical fitness," a concept used by Morgan (2002) to explain the intrinsic standards of linguistic appropriateness recognized by in-group AAVE speakers and knowledgeable consumers of hip hop poetry.

(5) The perception that he was an authentic member of the Black underclass that he rapped about. His personal confrontations with the establishment certified his "realness." Thus, many of his fans saw him as a victim of "player haters" in the sense of that expression defined in Smitherman (1994), i.e. "envious people who criticize others' success" (Morgan 2001: 198). (6) The complexity of his responses to the realities of life in the 'hood This made Tupac seem palpably real to his audience.

(Walters, 2008, p.1) Much is the same in regards to the poetry of Tupac as he speaks of the live experienced by the poverty class of African-Americans in larger U.S. cities in contemporary times. (Walters, 2008, p.1) II. Black Female Writer -- Dorothy West It is reported that in 1948 it appeared that Dorothy West "would become a household word when editors of the Ladies Home Journal contemplated serializing 'The Living is Easy' in the national women's magazine.

However, the editorial board is reported to have changed its mind "because they feared that white-owned companies would pull advertising form the magazine if they featured a novel by a black woman." (Jones, 2012) Following her writing in 'The Living is Easy' West is reported to have started another novel which she entitled 'Where the Wild Grape Grows' however, the publisher Houghton Mifflin is reported to have refused to accept the novel for publication.

(Jones, 2012) Apparently, the publishing company "feared the novel would have a limited audience "because it was about middle class blacks" (McDowell 1987: 278). Perceptions of what constitutes "authentic" black literature among white editors and publishers and readers militated against her in the late 1940s; however, conceptions of black aesthetics among blacks in the 1960s militated against the completion and submission of The Wedding. As Dorothy West notes, "It coincided with the Black Revolution, when many blacks believed that middle-class blacks were Uncle Toms.

I feared, then, what the reviewers would say." (Jones, 2012) The Black Power movement focused on liberating black people from "social, political and economic oppression, created a climate in which Dorothy West felt compelled to refrain from completing or actively pursuing a publisher for The Wedding.

West's nearly half-a-century space between publication of The Living Is Easy (1948) and The Wedding (1995) signifies the complexities of African-American literature and the debate over which aesthetics -- folk, bourgeois, or proletarian -- should take preeminence at a given time." (Jones, 2012) West was perceived as a privileged middle-class Bostonian with the economic resources to own a summer home on Martha's Vineyard and her depiction of the black bourgeois class in her fiction presented obstacles to the publication, reception, and evaluation of The Living Is Easy and The Wedding.

Her experiences with publishers echo those of Jessie Fauset and Zora Neale Hurston in the 1930s. The label bourgeois ascribed to West is incomplete, for she incorporates all aspects of the triangle in her work, which presents a variety of socioeconomic classes. Like her predecessors, Jessie Fauset and Zora Neale Hurston, West's work presents a multiplicity of voices and aesthetics.

West truly functions as a closet revolutionary, for while on the surface her work and her life seem to reflect the black bourgeoisie, her novels, short stories, and essays reflect a proletarian stance." (Jones, 2012) West experienced the challenges of being a black female writer in the early twentieth century and while black writers were all the rage, most magazine publishers hesitated to include more than just a few articles by black writers in each issue.

West is reported to have explored the "color and caste system, criticizing interracial color and class prejudice and analyzing the harmful effects on the collective psyche of African-Americans." (Jones, 2012) West seeking new experiences traveled to the Soviet Union in 1932 in the company of 21 other African-Americans and author Langston Hughes. They went to the Soviet Union to produce a film called Black and White, which examined the race relations in the United States.

It is reported, "Controversy surrounded the trip, including rumors that the Russians were trying to recruit African-Americans into the Communist party. The ill-fated film project folded for a number of reasons, including a Russian-authored script that failed to capture the realities of the African-American experience, and perhaps even pressure from an American who threatened to withdraw funding for a dam in Russia if the film were actually made.

West claimed in an interview: "Understandably, Russia had to have the dam, and they chose the dam." (Jones, 2012) In her essay "An Adventure in Moscow" (which appeared in the Vineyard Gazette in 1985), West meditates on her experiences in Russia. She was sympathetic to the plight of the Russians who canceled the movie project because they needed the skills of the engineer for their dam. Despite the fact that the film project collapsed, West and her compatriots like Hughes remained in Russia for a while.

While in Russia, West stayed nearly a year longer. Of her experiences in Russia, West noted, "That was my most carefree year. Then my father died, and I became a responsible person. But I'm very grateful that I had that happy year. I think that's why I liked Russia so much. I was carefree there. When I came back, I had the responsibility of one thing and another" (Jones, 2012) When West returned to the U.S. she started her own magazine publication entitled "New Challenge" with $40.

It is noted by Ferguson: "This was the first little magazine of the depression that sought to bridge the divisions among the older aesthetes like Alain Locke and James Weldon Johnson, her own bohemian Renaissance circle, and the emerging social realists like the Chicago group led by Richard Wright" (192). In an interview, West stated, "The reason I started it was that in New York I had lived fast, and I thought I'd wasted time. I wanted to give the younger generation a chance.

Somebody who was criticizing me said that in spite of my intentions everybody in the magazine was old. But my contributors were the only people I knew, and I had to get the magazine out." (Jones, 2012) The early contributors of the magazine included West's friends and relatives. The New Challenge was a short-lived publication "Only one issue appeared, in fall 1937, before the magazine also folded.

Wright's "Blueprint for Negro Writing" appears in New Challenge, sounding a proletarian protest for literature that would connect with the masses and challenge the status quo. Her foray as an editor over, West received a job as a welfare investigator in New York.

Despite her bourgeois upbringing, the position gave her insight into the black working class of Harlem and the folk experience." (Jones, 2012) " The Five Dollar Bill" is described as a bildungsroman, in which West "…presents the folk aesthetic through the depiction of a working-class black family, the bourgeois aesthetic in the mother and daughter's quest for wealth and social status, and the proletarian aesthetic in the criticism of social and economic inequities in America.

Set in an unidentified northern city, the story reveals the tensions caused by lack of money and material possessions in a working-class family. Modeling herself after a bourgeois businessman, Judy, a little girl, sets out to earn money for the family, which she plans to give to her mother to make her happy. She sees a business opportunity advertised in the newspaper.

By buying and reselling reproductions of famous paintings, she can earn enough money to purchase a motion picture projector (from the firm she gets the paintings from) and charge admission to show movies. Although Judy proves successful at selling the paintings, her mother's greed, materialism, and self-interest override her daughter's interests.

She claims to have sent Judy's payments for the picture reproductions, when in reality she had given them to her bourgeois college boyfriend." In this portrayal of the mother whose middle class concerns are placed before her child's best interests West is reported to echo "Fauset's Olivia Cary in Comedy: American Style, whose greed and materialism override the well-being of her offspring." (Jones, 2012) When Judy is in possession of a letter sent by the company owner where she acquired the paintings stating that he did not receive payment for the reproduction she asks if she will go to jail.

The loss of innocence of this child Judy has her mother centric to this experience in terms of the mother's greed. The negative portrayal of Judy's mother is West's way to exposing middle class "aspirations at the expense of others. This story is reported to be reflective of the "…futility of believing a machine or an object can lead to fulfillment." (Jones, 2012) West's work entitled "The Penny" is focused on an African-American family struggling with survival in a city in the Northern U.S.

The strategy of the bildungsroman is used in telling a story of a child who lies on his parents claiming they are abusing him to get a penny form an "a class conscious and bourgeois neighbor named Miss Haley, who dislikes the folk. Miss Haley mistakes a bruise on the boy's face -- which he acquired at the time he lost the penny given to him by his father to purchase candy as being signs of his receiving abuse.

In the Penny, West is reported to picture class stratification "within the African-American community as a means of meditating on the folk and bourgeois classes. The penny represents candy, money, and the economics of exchange, for the boy feeds his penchant for candy and Miss Halsey satisfies her stereo-typical notion of the poor as violent and abusive. The proletarian aesthetic is implied through the dire consequences of Miss Halsey's prejudice against the folk." (Jones, 2012) III.

Mora: My Own True Name The work of Pat Mora entitled "My Own True Name" explores the meaning of being bicultural as it relates to family, rituals, food and celebrations. Explored is the experience of being neither one cultural or the other. Mora writes "For a variety of complex reasons, anthologized American Literature does not reflect the ethnic diversity of the United Sates." (The Expanding Canon, 2012) Mora states "e does not reflect the ethnic diversity of the United States," explains Mora.

"I write in part because Hispanic perspectives need to be part of our literary heritage; I want to be part of the validation process." (The Expanding Canon, 2012 ) The poems in Mora's work is reported to be primary targeting adolescents. (The Expanding Canon, 2012) Included are poems that Mora feels will speak to young people and specifically young writers. In an interview, Mora states that it is her hopes that her literature "makes us all more compassionate. Mora states: "…literature helps us cross borders and build community. I believe that.

And it is when we hear many different kinds of voices that that happens. It wasn't until I was an adult who began to write that I realized that the most exciting thing to write was about being of Mexican descent and coming from the desert.

So, I want them to feel that they could bring any part of themselves, their language, their sadness, whatever family they come from, and that it's going to be honored, and it's going to be treated with tremendous respect." (The Expanding Canon, 2012) The interviewer asks Mora the question of how 'My Own True Name' evolved and Mora states that she wanted to express that the culture of all people is important and that they should feel free to express themselves from the point of that culture and not be ashamed of it.

(The Expanding Canon, 2012) In Mora's work "My Own True Name: New and Selected Poems for Young Adults" Mora examines bicultural life and family from the view of an adult and relates the experiences of eating pizza and mango and examines the cultural significance of each of these.

Discussion In each of the works reviewed one can easily see that experiences of the individuals in regards to their ethnicity is affected by the prejudice and opinions of those in the world around them, but as well, how their experiences are molded by those who are close in the lives of the writer such as their mother, father, husband, or other relations. The writers reveal how their experiences are.