Questionnaire design and implementation methods

Multiculturalism Am Lit

Multiculturalism in American Literature

America has long considered itself a cultural "melting pot," drawing immigrants from all over the world to the freedoms and opportunities of the first modern democracy. The canon of American literature, however, was for many decades (centuries, in truth) exclusively the realm of authors (primarily men) that were of European ancestry and descent and that wrote from perspectives that seemed to be an accepted part of American society, even in works critical of that society. Increasingly, however, the concept of American literature has expanded to include the true multiculturalism of the United States. This has to do in part with the increased prominence and acceptance of immigrant and minority cultures by publishers and the public, and also with the increased attention of academia.

Both Sandra Cisneros' "Woman Hollering Creek" and Jumpha Lahiri's "The Third and Final Continent" detail the experience of being an immigrant in the United States, and both also contain decidedly feminine perspectives in their involvement of young brides. In Cisneros' short story, the bride is the central figure of the story and must ultimately escape her abusive husband and her life in Texas, ironically gaining a stringer sense of independence and the strength more typical of American women only as she is on a bus back to her native Mexico. It is the groom-to-be that is the focus for Lahiri, however, and his well-meaning American landlady as well as his many years away from his native India make his preparations for his traditional bride more tense and uncertain. While highlighting the differences between the characters' native cultures and America's, these works are both at least partially about finding oneself and determining one's own identity, and this has been a consistent strain in American literature. While different views of the American experience, then, both of these stories and their authors are quite deserving of their place in the canon.

Edwidge Danticant's "Seven" is similar to "The Third and Final Continent" in terms of plot; an immigrant man that as finally received his green card is preparing for the arrival of his wife. This story is as concerned with the meeting of the husband and wife in their own native country as it is with their reunification in the United States, however, and seems to exemplify more a transcendence of culture than an assimilation or a difficulty assimilating -- not that life as an impoverished immigrant is easy, but it isn't the focus of the story. In "What You Pawn I Will Redeem," Sherman Alexie views assimilation from yet another angle -- not as something that can be transcended, but as something that simply cannot occur. In this exploration of homelessness and the effects of North America's Europeanization on the Native Americans, it becomes clear that a radical change in culture is not something that can just happen, and when such changes are forced it squeezes many people out of society. These works both explore what it means to be truly outside American culture rather than contending with, from very different perspectives yet with the same vision of multiculturalism as something of a fallacy.