美国文学26.ppt

* CHAPTER 26 Multiethnic LiteratureⅡ Brief Introduction In the last few decades, diversity has been particularly prized as a strength of American culture and literature. Interest in multiculturalism has been on the increase and along with it the enthusiasm for the literatures of the different ethnic groups in America. This has had to do with the 1960s and 1970s when multiracial awareness grew among the various ethnic groups in America. The African Americans took the lead, and the other minority groups like the Hispanic Americans and the Asian Americans followed suit. American literature is becoming more inclusive to its multi-ethnic writers. A more authentic American literary history is now in the process of being written which will exclude none of its multiracial facets. Our discussion here will center on some of the writers from these ethnic groups who, by virtue of their creative endeavors have made their presence felt. The image of the American Indians in American literature has been for a long time a distorted one, presented by non-Indian authors; they appear good or bad not as the American Indians see themselves, but as some white authors conceive of them. Thus, whatever portrayal of them there is in mainstream literature has been once or twice removed from the truth. At the time of European settlement, well over three hundred Indian cultures existed in the North American continent. The different nations of the American Indians such as Lakota, Hopi, Chickasaw, and Mohawk all had their own separate civilizations. It is therefore necessary to put it on record here that, strictly, to place the writings from the authors of the different nations in the same category of Native American literature is not fair and well justified except for the sake of convenience in nomenclature. From the mid-19th century through the early years of the 20th, three important autobiographies came out in print: The Life of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk (1983) Wo