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Library | Material Type | Shelf Number | Child Count | Shelf Location | Status | Item Holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Science | Book | E184 .A1 M8 1996 | 1 | Stacks | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
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Reviews (3)
Kirkus Review
Who's afraid of hyphenated Americans? Certainly not literary-gumbo mixmaster Reed, the presiding intelligence of a lively anthology brimming with contrarian ideas and not a little polemic on the nature of American culture. In his introduction, Reed, a novelist (Japanese by Spring, 1993, etc.), poet, and founder of the Before Columbus Foundation, positions this book as ""an intellectual anti-trust action against the tyranny that communications oligopolies hold over the public discussion."" He further identifies the adversaries as ""white monoculturalists"" and ""public McIntellectuals"" and ""their black and brown Talented Tenth auxiliary [who] insist that we embrace a common culture, and their consensus seems to be that this culture is Yankee or Anglo. Reed's conspiratorial whispers aside, the book collects an exhilarating mix of unpredictable points of view. The more than 50 contributors include a number of ""New White intellectuals,"" who take the vanguard position that Americans of European descent who embrace an identity as members of an undifferentiated white tribe invariably suffer the spiritual consequences of profound cultural dislocation. There are also pieces from black cultural nationalists, Afrocentrists, and a black lesbian feminist, Latino sojourners, Asian-American iconoclasts, and Chicana metaphysicists, and writers of mixed heritage (""Black and Jewish Like Jesus and Me""). Many offer startlingly fresh perspectives on ethnic conflict and the false promises and perils of assimilation. Some essays are more determinedly idiosyncratic than illuminating, but a sample of the strongest commentary includes Rudolfo Anaya (""New World Man""), Elaine H. Kim (""Asian Americans: Decorative Gatekeepers?""), Michael E. Ross (""Black Male Perp: Interview with the Bogeyman""), and Leslie Marmon Silko (""The Border Patrol State""). There's nothing neat about this anthology's crazy-quilt vision of America. It's generally contentious, sometimes confusing--including some nonsense and noise--but there's real vitality in the chaos. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
What does a "multicultural society" mean to citizens of the U.S? Two upcoming titles explain. For more eclectic readers, Reed collects more than 50 brief essays by "scholars, students, journalists, a physician, and a psychiatrist" from many of the nation's multiple cultures. Section titles suggest the contents: "The Unbearable Whiteness of Being," "Stranger in a Strange Land," "To Pass or Not to Pass," "Is European America Dead?," "Fiction: Inter-Ethnic, Internecine, Fratricidal," "Media Distortion Disorder," "What's Ahead for Ethnic Studies?," "The Pariah Syndrome," and "The Future: Nationalism and Internationalism." Introducing the volume, Reed asks how Americans can discuss race or a common culture "when wealthy white men talking to each other, or to themselves, are what constitutes a `dialogue' about multiculturalism and race these days?" The essays in MultiAmerica are not limited to wealthy white men; they represent an interesting start at such a dialogue. Having grown up a U.S.-born son of Chinese immigrants in a polyglot Arizona town called (of all things!) Superior, and having practiced immigration law for most of his adult life, Ong Hing needs no textbook to discover that the United States has been multicultural since the first Europeans arrived--or, for that matter, since the Bering Sea treks of the ancestors of today's Native Americans. With nativism an increasingly blatant element in the battle to defend a single, blandly European culture, Ong Hing draws on personal experience as well as research to study immigration's impact and to propose going "beyond the rhetoric of assimilation and cultural pluralism [to] think seriously about what it means to become an American in an increasingly diverse society." He combines willingness to accept some forms of separatism with insistence that a genuinely common core of beliefs can and must be taught. --Mary Carroll
Library Journal Review
The Simpson trials, the controversy over Ebonics, and recent California legislation aimed at illegal aliens are but three examples of how America no longer lives up to the "melting pot" image, according to the author. In an assorted group of 52 essays, minority authorsAsian Americans, African Americans, Italian Americans, and Latinosexplore the polarization of American societies. Editor Reed (Airing Dirty Laundry, LJ 11/1/93) provides an introductory essay that points at media stereotyping as the reason for most of the problem. Some contributors, such as Michael E. Ross, Gerald Horne, Michael Lenoir, and Rudolfo Anaya, are not optimistic for the future of racial relations. Others, like Elaine Kim and Brenda Payton, are more hopeful for ethnic identity in America. Still others, like Martin Kilson, want different ethnic groups to work together to bring change. This is an important, even controversial book, and one to which the established Anglo leadership should pay attention. Highly recommended.Boyd Childress, Auburn Univ. Lib., Ala. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.