'Ethnic' Women Writers

This discussion began as a request for suggestions for a course on
"ethnic women writers."  The responses include both a multitude of
suggestions and some consideration of what is meant by "ethnic."
The discussion took place on WMST-L in late March 2001.  For additional
WMST-L files now available on the web, see the WMST-L File Collection.

PART 1 OF 2

Next fall, I will be teaching a course on ethnic American women
writers for the first time, focusing on immigrant/first generation
experiences. I would like to teach fiction and poetry, preferably (but
not necessarily) from the last twenty years.  I've compiled a list of
possible texts, but since this course is out of my area of expertise,
I'm calling on list members for help.  Specifically, I'm lacking any
texts written by Italian American, Japanese American, and Arab
American authors. Any suggestions?

Anya Silver

*******************************************
Dr. Anya Krugovoy Silver
Assistant Professor of English and Interdisciplinary Studies
Director of Women's and Gender Studies
Mercer University
1400 Coleman Ave.        "Tell me, what is it you plan to do
Macon, GA 31207-0001        with your one wild and precious life?"
(912) 752-5641                                   --Mary Oliver
silver_ak  @  mercer.edu

Have you considered Ellen DuBois' & Vicki Ruiz's  (editors) _Unequal
Sisters_ (Routledge). It was originally published in the early 1990s, then
revised and reissued a year or two ago. While it is historical scholarship
by and about ethnic women and women of color rather than oral histories, it
is solid and well-documented.

Dear Anya,

 A couple of Japanese-American women writers who would be relevant come to
mind:  Hisaye Yamamoto (esp. her story "Seventeen Syllables" with deals
with generational issues, esp. first-generation immigrants; it's often 
anthologized and also available from Rutgers UP as a separate text with 
critical essays), and Janice Mirikitani (poetry, some also about generation
al immigrant experiences); her work is in a number of anthologies. Both 
are very accessible to undergrads. Yamamoto's work has been published 
between the 1950s and fairly recently; Mirikitani is contemporary (she's 
also a community activist in San Francisco, involved with Glide Memorial 
Church which is very involved with social-justice issues).
  A wonderful earlier text you may already know, but by a Russian-Jewish 
immigrant, is Anzia Yezierska's "America and I."  I think all these 
writers are in the excellent _Heath Anthology of American Literature_, 
Vol. 2. 
Marilyn Edelstein, English, Santa Clara University, CA
medelstein  @  scu.edu

    In response to the query on sources for a course on American ethnic
writers, I want to raise a question about the meaning of  'ethnic.'
    All too often, I believe, it is forgotten that everybody in the USA is
identified with some ethnic group, sometimes with more than one. It may be
English, Chinese, German, Mexican, Scotch, Navaho, Italian, Columbian,
Jewish, French,  Indian, African (the continent because descendants of
slaves usually don't know just which group their ancestors came from).
    The difficulty is the neglect of recognition that descendants of
immigrants from northwestern Europe, whether their families arrived 200 or 2
years ago, are hyphenated 'Americans' as are the others. In overlooking
this, though, an ideology of  'Real Americans' and 'Others' is cemented. In
a sense it coerces an identity of not really belonging. (I put quotes around
Americans the name doesn't mean what it seems to. The reference is to the
U.S.A.  Canadians, Mexicans, Bolivians and so on are also Americans. Mexico,
I believe, is formally the United States of Mexico.)
    Are there variations, gradations of assimilation? Yes. Differences in
the experience and treatment of people from various ethnic groups? Yes. Does
it matter how long ago or recently family members arrived in the USA? This
varies. I think we should deal with these matters in literature as well as
other courses.
    As a practical suggestion for a course on ethnic writers in the USA:
include a sampling from a broad array.
                - beatrice
Beatrice Kachuck
bkachuck.cuny  @  prodigy.net

Hi. I'd like to add:

_Becoming American: Personal Essays by First Generation Immigrant Women_ by
Meri Nana-Ama it was reviewed in this month's "Women's Review of Books." (p
5-6).

Janni

Arab America - I suggest Joanna Kadi's collection - Food for Our
Grandmothers: Writings by Arab-American and Arab-Canadian Feminists
mev

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Women's Presses Library Project
..keeping women's words in circulation
Mev Miller, Project Coordinator
1483 Laurel Ave.
St. Paul, MN 55104-6737

651-646-0097
651-646-1153 /fax

wplp  @  winternet.com

from the Women's Presses Library Project...

A Fire Is Burning, It Is In Me: The Life and Writing of Michiyo Fukaya
Gwendolyn Shervington editor
New Victoria Publishers
1996 0-934678-78-2 P     $9.95     5 1/2 x 8 1/2       185 pages
Multicultural: Asian American, Gay/Lesbian Studies
A powerful collection of poertry, essays, and rememberances. Fukaya was a
Japanese American lesbian poet/activist. A single mother living on
welfare, who struggled with mental illness and a history of sexual abuse,
Michiyo channeled her anger at oppression into words that challenged and
moved those around her.

Bibliography: No
Index: No
Illustrations: No

Mev

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Women's Presses Library Project
..keeping women's words in circulation
Mev Miller, Project Coordinator
1483 Laurel Ave.
St. Paul, MN 55104-6737

651-646-0097
651-646-1153 /fax

wplp  @  winternet.com

Anna,
For Italian-American fiction:
_Paper Fish_ by Tina De Rosa--The Feminist Press--astounding,
sensitive--a gem.

An interesting book of non-fiction (essays):  _Crossing Ocean Parkway_
by Marianna De Marco Torgovnick--U. of Chicago Press.

    Jo-Ann Pilardi  pilardi  @  saber.towson.edu

I suggest

Leila Ahmed's A Border Passage: From Cairo to America--a Woman's
Journey
This is an autobiography. Leila teaches at Harvard now.
Asma

Another writer who confronts her ethnicity in fiction is
Sigrid Nunez - see, for example, _A Feather on the
Breath of God_ (HarperCollins, 1995), whose protagonist,
like the author, has a German mother and a half-Chinese,
half-Hispanic father.

Anne Carson
Cornell University Library
Ithaca, NY 14853
arc3  @  cornell.edu

Some more additions:

1. Mitsuye Yamada, Sowing Tea Leaves: Writing by Multicultural Women, ed.
Mitsuye Yamada and Sarie Satchie Hylkema, Irvine CA: MCWW (Multicultural
Women Writers) Press, 1990.

2.  A selection from  Mitsuye Yamada's poetry in  Desert Run: Poems and
Other Stories, 1988, would be excellent for students re the relocation camp
experience, as well as

3.  Monica Sone, Nisei Daughter, Seattle: U of Washington P, 1979

4.  Hisaye Yamamoto, already suggested.

5.  Wakako Yamauchi, Songs My Mother Taught Me: Stories, Plays, and Memoir,
New York: The Feminist P, 1994.

5. And let's not forget my own (Un)Doing the Missionary Position: Gender
Asymmetry in Contemporary Asian American Women's Writing, Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press, 1997, for analysis of contemporary Asian American women
writers, including Japanese American writers such as the above

6.   My book also contains a chapter on  R.(uth) A. Sasaki, The Loom and
Other Stories, St. Paul, MN: Graywolf P, 1991.

A beautiful text is
Tanaka Michiko. 1981. Through harsh winters: the life of a Japanese
immigrant woman [ as told to Akemi Kikumura. Chandler   @   Sharp. It is a
while that I have read it but as I remember it draws attention to
generational issues associated with migration. barbara watson
Maria-Barbara Watson-Franke, Ph.D.
Department of Women's Studies
San Diego State University
San Diego, CA 92182
mbwatson  @  mail.sdsu.edu

Lois-Ann Yamanaka is incredibly interesting to teach as someone who
addresses the intersections of Japanese, Filipino, and Hawaiian ethnicities.
Not first generation though.  I've had great success teaching her collection
of persona poems, _Saturday Night at the Pahala Theatre_.

Naomi Shihab Nye is a Palestinian American poet whose writing is very
accessible.  Check out her selected poems in _Words Under the Words_.  She
has a more recent pub, the name of which is eluding me right now but it has
a single-word title.

Several people have mentioned Mitsuye Yamada, and I second that, especially
her _Camp Notes and Other Poems_.  There's also a very good documentary
titled _Mitsuye and Nellie_ about Yamada and Chinese American poet Nellie
Wong, that addresses their families experiences during WWII as Americans of
different Asian descents.  Directed by Allie Light, and available from Women
Make Movies (www.wmm.com).

You might also consult the anthology _Unsettling America_, edited by Maria
Mazziotti Gillan and Jennifer Gillan. They include several good Italian
American women poets.

Good luck.

Adrienne McCormick, PhD
Assistant Professor of English
Director, Women's Studies Program
SUNY Fredonia
Fredonia NY 14063
716/673-3851: office
716/673-4661: fax
adrienne.mccormick  @  fredonia.edu

    In response to Anna Silver's query about ethnic American women writers, I
would like to suggest my novel, THE ROAD TO FEZ, just published by
Counterpoint Press.

      It tells the story of 18 year-old Brit Lek who fulfills her mother's
dying wish that she return to her birthplace, Morocco, and thank the saint,
Suleika, for the gift of life. Suleika, a 19th century Jewish martyr revered
by both Arabs and Jews, lived a brief, tragic life filled with paradox and
mystery. As Brit uncovers conflicting narrative truths about Suleika -- "her
second mother" -- she falls desperately in love with her uncle Gaby, her
mother's passionate, restless younger brother. Feeling like an exile in both
Morocco and America, torn between the old world and the new, Brit tests the
boundaries of faith, love, gender and identity, and forms her own surprising
connections.

      The novel is already being taught in three different courses this
semester: American-Jewish Literature, World Women's Literature, and an
interdisciplinary course on American Ethnic Identities and Perspectives.
Here are excerpts from a few reviews:

"The Road to Fez makes the Moroccan Jewish community visible through a
literary portrait of the most memorable 18-year-old in recent American
fiction.... Read as the portrait of the artist as a young woman, the novel
transforms details of heritage and memory into art."  (THE FORWARD)

"Ruth Setton's writings are reminiscent of Isaac Bashevis Singer's or Shalom
Aleichem's in telling the stories of the immigrant with one foot in the old
country and a few toes in the new....Setton's skill in weaving legend, lore
and life is awe-inspiring." (LILITH)

"Setton...traces her protagonist's quests with style and vigor." (WASHINGTON
POST)

Please contact me if you want further information about the book, or go to
its webpage: http://www.counterpointpress.com/1582430829.html

Ruth Knafo Setton
Writer-in-Residence, Berman Center for Jewish Studies
Lehigh University
RKSetton  @  aol.com

beatrice kachuk wrote:

>    In response to the query on sources for a course on American ethnic
>writers, I want to raise a question about the meaning of  'ethnic.'
>    All too often, I believe, it is forgotten that everybody in the USA is
>identified with some ethnic group, sometimes with more than one. It may be
>English, Chinese, German, Mexican, Scotch, Navaho, Italian, Columbian,
>Jewish, French,  Indian, African (the continent because descendants of
>slaves usually don't know just which group their ancestors came from).

i appreciate beatrice's point about a sort of affirmative action of
literature, if you will, helping to reinforce the other-ization of groups
by pointing out who belongs and who doesn't....  so i think we need to see
courses in "ethnicity" as institutional animals....

at my institution i teach an intro-level course in american ethnic
literature, and since that course meets a gender/diversity core
requirement, the vast majority of my students are non-majors who will never
take a lit course again.  the catalogue description catalogues the Others
who will be addressed in the course:  african americans, native americans,
and latinos.  that's it -- and of course, that's ridiculous.  so i teach
the course *against* the course description, and the main issue for
discussion is, "why is this course called 'american ethnic literature'?"
i've gotten some angry papers from asian students, and a few research
papers on how italians and irish immigrants were once not-white.  once i
got a very good paper from a student who argued that the course was called
"ethnic" because the university doesn't have the courage to put the word
"race" in a course title.  so "ethnicity" becomes a false institutional
creation that disguises the truth of the course's goals.  and this
falsehood, i have begun to notice, is dangerous.  so many of my students
spend the whole semester insisting that "we're all diverse because we're
all individuals," and "hey, i'm ethnic too."

which as beatrice points out is true on a technical level, but not in terms
of social power strata.  recently a white student informed the class that
he's "ethnic" because he's 6'7", and is stared at and treated like a freak.
from the back of the room (always the back of the room) a male student of
color shouted, "yeah, but no cop is going to pull you over because you're
tall!"

(and i'll set aside for now what we mean by "american," a whole nother can
of worms -- not to mention what we mean by literature.  yikes.)

so really, what we end up with is a course in institutionalized whiteness,
esp. in a classroom dominated by white students of the upper classes.  we
end up teaching privilege and how institutions establish and maintain
heterologies.  on good days we're teaching self-critique, the
responsibility of the citizenry for these institutional operations.

how can i do this better without abandoning literature?  i have added a
history text to my lit classes; and morrison's _playing in the dark_, which
has helped a lot; and i now teach a few works by whites that express white
racism, or complicate it with class analysis.  any other thoughts?

these are important institutional architectures to consider, since the
effects are myriad.  it's been interesting to me, for instance, to note
that my attempts to bring discussions of gender to the ethnic lit classes
are shut down; meanwhile, across campus, my intro to women's lit classes
refuse to address race even though half of my reading list is by women of
color.  and forget a discussion of sexuality in either class.  oy.

does anyone have a vision of that utopic university, where the
architectures we call curriculum and disciplines are structured in such a
way as to *encourage* an understanding of interlocked systems of oppression
-- rather than obstruct it at every turn?  what our current structure has
achieved, it seems to me, is a way for students to *evade* the messages of
the very literatures they have purportedly enrolled to *consider*.  sad.
what to do?

thanks
kass fleisher


~~~~~~~~~

kass.fleisher  @  colorado.edu
links to online publications available at:
http://spot.colorado.edu/~fleisher

In reference to the ethnicity discussion, a couple of points:

In sociology and anthropology, we would say that ethnicity is a shared
cultural heritage, or sense of sharing a common heritage, identity, and
destiny with others of one's ethnic group that is different from the
cultural mainstream.  Ethnicity is not just another word for race, though it
seems to be as far as the author of the course description for Ethnic Lit.
alluded to is concerned.

By the above definition, there are plenty of white ethnics in America -- but
there are also presumably whites who are not ethnic.  When I teach American
Ethnic Groups we always begin by discussing out own ethnic identity and what
it means to us.  There are always a significant number of white students,
but never the entire class, who report that they *have no* particular sense
of an ethnic identity.  They feel like just plain, generic "American white
folks."

Does everyone therefore have an ethnicity?  These people's ethnicity would
be "American" outside of their own cultural context.  Within the American
context, everyone has an ethnicity only is "generic White American" is one
of the possibilities.