American Ethnic Literature: Minority Voices and Identity

Introduction: The Rise of American Ethnic Literature

There are so many different voices within the context of the United States. This country is built on cultural differences, yet for generations the only voices expressed in literature were those of the white majority. Contemporary American ethnic literature is important in that it reflects the multifaceted nature of life in the United States. It is no longer shaped by the pressures of the white majority, but is instead influenced by the vastly varying experiences of different individuals, as seen in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, Gloria Anzaldúa's "How to Tame a Wild Tongue," and Cathy Song's poem "Lost Sister." American ethnic literature speaks for minority voices that have long been excluded from earlier generations of American society.

American ethnic literature has developed enormously over the last few centuries, and especially within just the last few decades. In today's literary world, it reflects the different experiences of people as they are living them. No longer are minority authors trying to win over a white audience. Rather, they are able to express their minority voices in ways that reflect the incredible diversity found within this country. As one scholar notes, "The issue, rather, turns upon the presiding, if erroneous, sense of their forever supposed being located at the edges of a white canonical America, a vernacular, sometimes picturesque or exotic, sub-peopling within the national realm" (Lee 2). This evolution of ethnic literature in the United States is being heavily influenced by minority voices in their purest form — not as the white majority would necessarily like to see them. This helps expose variant cultures, especially to other minority groups dealing with similar experiences of living on the fringe of a white majority. Essentially, American ethnic literature "is lived, embodied experience, as the body is both the site of oppression and the starting point for self-conscious political resistance" (Franco 127). It is the experience of those who are no longer silenced. They have begun to express their individual voices in reaction to political and societal norms and restrictions long placed upon minority groups. Ethnic literature in the United States has therefore long been in dialogue with other minority discourses, as different groups begin to learn more about their own identities and those of others. This is key because "Those who have incorporated other perspectives and allowed their vision to embrace other ways of looking at the world have a better chance of surviving" (Lee 1). Thus, American ethnic literature is often as self-reflexive as it is influential on other groups seeking to understand the larger compilation of American identities.

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and the Rejection of Assimilation

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is a telling expression of the evolution of modern minority identities. The work exposes stereotypes and the extreme racism found within the American context, particularly for those who may not have experienced it firsthand. As one scholar notes, "Ellison's narrator, it hardly needs stressing, speaks as the novel's invented and confessional voice, and one hedged in the canniest double talk and subterfuge" (Lee 21). Ellison exposes these stereotypes and how they have impacted minority groups internally for generations, effectively molding what it means to be a minority based on externally imposed circumstances.

There is a striking scene in which Ellison uses stereotypes surrounding food — often left unstated — to make his points. There is a sense of identity embedded in foods tied to ethnic experiences. The invisible man describes eating a yam, a process that had made him deeply uncomfortable and insecure because of the stereotype associated with it. Yet he is beginning to grow beyond his need to assimilate, and with that he is able to enjoy the yam as never before. Ellison writes: "I no longer had to worry about who saw me or what was proper. To hell with all that, and as sweet as the yam actually was, it became like nectar with the thought" (Ellison 264). The invisible man is no longer ashamed to embody his ethnic identity. This is an evolving representation as the invisible man continues his journey toward becoming his own authentic self. This strategy is often used to expose the dark and negative elements of American culture in contemporary times, breaking "our imagination of ourselves" (Lee 36). Ellison also touches on how technology functions as a double-edged sword — an element not always explicitly stated, but important to the creation of contemporary identity in the United States.

Gloria Anzaldúa and the Politics of Language and Identity

The invisible man is consistently let down by white characters he encounters throughout the novel. Time and again he is led to believe that white society wants to embrace him, only to be shown how quickly that illusion falls away. Social equality remains out of reach because the white majority is unwilling to accept minority figures without erasing everything that makes them representative of their ethnicity. The invisible man refuses to surrender his dignity in order to fit an assigned role within majority society, and therefore removes himself from the equation entirely. One of the most disappointing characters is Brother Jack, the head of the Brotherhood, whose ideology ultimately fails the narrator. The invisible man embodies a new sense of individualism that rejects blindly following any ideology — whether from white or minority voices. What matters most to the narrator is himself, not the advancement of his race through some outdated or inappropriate ideology that operates within the same racist hegemony it claims to oppose. Rather than allowing the black experience to be made singular — without room for individual variation — Ellison proposes that each person make their own decisions and take their own political actions, which would constitute a more effective resistance against the underlying structure of racism in the United States. In this, he takes a political stance against Americanization for the welfare of African Americans, representing a new form of what might be called "Jack the Bear" individualism.

Gloria Anzaldúa also represents a pulling away from assimilation practices for minorities. She echoes Ellison in describing how her own ethnic traits were despised by the majority society, which sought to Americanize her and strip away her ethnicity. She discusses how she was punished and spoken down to when trying to express herself within her minority context. Anzaldúa recounts how a teacher once told her, "If you want to be American, speak American. If you don't like it, go back to Mexico where you belong" (Anzaldúa 2947). This breeds resentment within minority groups who are denied the ability to express themselves within their own cultural context.

Anzaldúa's work is therefore an example of resistance to forced Americanization and a political stand in the expression of her own unique identity. What she pursues "is a collective identity with the goal of protecting and propagating the culture through a politics of cultural rights and recognition" (Franco 126). Her work focuses on freeing individuals within the minority group to embrace a more multicultural identity, rather than being confined to one specific minority category by the underlying political hegemony of American society. As Franco explains, "the term Chicana is a self-conscious political gesture of resistance to binary identities, signaling the dispossession from both Mexican and US national heritages, yet the possibility of claiming both" (Franco 124). Like Ellison, Anzaldúa expresses her minority status openly, reflecting the broader trend toward self-expression rather than self-restraint in modern American ethnic literature.

At the same time, Anzaldúa acknowledges that the minority group itself was also oppressive in refusing to allow members to assimilate into greater American society. Her narrator was called a cultural traitor for speaking English, a language associated with an oppressive force. The Chicana and Chicano identities were difficult to form precisely because they were denounced by both American and purely Mexican identity frameworks. Anzaldúa uses language as a central lens through which to examine minority experience — a theme not always made explicit in American ethnic literature. She writes: "Chicanas who grew up speaking Chicano Spanish have internalized the belief that we speak poor Spanish. It is illegitimate, a bastard language. And because we internalized how our language has been used against us by the dominant culture, we use our language differences against each other" (Anzaldúa 2950). There is a need for both the individual and society at large to accept these hybrid forms of identity in contemporary American culture. Language is crucial to the formation of both culture and identity. By being denied this by both Americans and Mexicans, Chicana and Chicano identity had long been laden with shame and self-doubt: "Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity — I am my language. Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself" (Anzaldúa 2951). It is essential to Anzaldúa to use her own chosen language — regardless of what either group demands — in order to express her unique identity.

The final work examined here is Cathy Song's short poem "Lost Sister." This work expresses minority characteristics as sources of beauty rather than shame or something to be muted. It conveys a sense of nostalgia for experiences long past, echoing Ellison in its embrace of minority traditions without fear of embarrassment within a contemporary context. One can never be fully Chinese nor fully American; one is instead caught in between, longing for a past never personally experienced. In Song's poem, this is seen in the image of the lost sister: "In China, / even the peasants / named their first daughters / Jade" (Song 1).

Song focuses on the glorification of her ethnic past rather than being embarrassed by it. Her tone and language choices create a dreamy, visceral image that represents her Chinese heritage in a positive light: "the stone that in the far field / could voice / in the dry season, / could make men move mountains / for the ceiling green of the inner health / glistening like the slice of winter melon" (Song 1). She, too, is learning to embrace a past that is not entirely her own but remains part of her modern identity.

American ethnic literature aims to bring forward the previously silenced voices of minority groups in the United States. As it progresses, it becomes clear that it seeks to expose the racist past and embrace ethnic identity rather than conceal it in order to assimilate into mainstream America. Yet this project carries a significant challenge: "The challenge, overall, becomes one of making ethnicity neither too prescriptive, nor yet so porous as to curb usable definition. The grand sweep risks losing particularity. Too particular a focus risks losing genuine overlap and linkage" (Lee 9).

Conclusion: The Challenge of Ethnic Literature

Franco, Dean J. Ethnic American Literature: Comparing Chicano, Jewish, and African American Writing. University of Virginia Press, 2006.

Lee, Robert A. Multicultural American Literature: Comparative Black, Native, Latino/a and Asian American Fictions. University Press of Mississippi, 2003.

Song, Cathy. "Lost Sister." Literary Arts. 1999. Web.