Growing Up Ethnic in America: Contemporary Fiction About Learning to Be American (46 page)

Fred L. Gardaphé
is the author of
Moustache Pete Is Dead!
and
Dagoes Read: Tradition and the Italian/American Writer
, and the editor of
Italian-American Ways
. His critical study
Italian Signs, American Streets: The Evolution of Italian American Narrative
was published in Duke University’s
New Americanists
series in 1996.

Joseph Geha
is the author of
Through and Through: Toledo Stories
and has been awarded the Pushcart Prize. His fiction appears widely in literary publications and was selected for inclusion in the Permanent Collection, Arab American Archive, of the Smithsonian Institution. He teaches at Iowa State University.

Maria Mazziotti Gillan,
born in Paterson, New Jersey, is director of the Poetry Center, Passaic County Community College, and editor of
Paterson Literary Review
. Her seven poetry books include
Things My Mother Said, Where I Come From: Selected Poems
, and
The Weather of Old Seasons
. She is at work on a memoir,
My Mother’s Stoop
.

Diane Glancy
was born in Kansas City, Missouri, to German-English and Cherokee parents. She is an associate professor of English at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the author of several volumes of poetry and prose. Her
historical novel about the 1838 Trail of Tears,
Pushing the Bear
, was published in 1996.

Bruce A. Jacobs
‘s first book of poems,
Speaking Through My Skin
, won the 1996 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award. His poems and prose have appeared in
African American Review
and
American Writing
. His nonfiction book,
Race Manners
, was published in 1999.

Gish Jen
is the author of two novels,
Mona in the Promised Land
and
Typical American
. Her work has appeared in the
Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker
, and
Best American Short Stories
, in 1998 and 1995.

Beena Kamlani
works as an editor at a New York publishing house. She won a fiction grant from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts for her novel
Carry-On Luggage
, excerpts of which appear in this anthology and in
Identity Lessons: Contemporary Writing About Learning to Be American
. She is at work on
Desertion
, a new novel.

Tiffany Midge
is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux. She is the author of
Outlaws, Renegades and Saints: Diary of a Mixed-Up Halfbreed
, the winner of the Diane Decorah Memorial Poetry Award.

Toni Morrison
was born Chloe Anthony Wofford during the Depression in Lorain, Ohio. Her 1987 novel,
Beloved
, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and in 1998 was adapted into a film. Her other novels include
Paradise, Song of Solomon, Sula
, and
The Bluest Eye
. She won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.

Kathryn Nocerino
is a poet, short story writer, and critic whose work has appeared in the United States and England. Her books of poetry include
Wax Lips
and
Death of the Plankton Bar & Grill
.

Naomi Shihab Nye
was born in St. Louis of a Palestinian father and an American mother. Her poetry collections include
Yellow Glove
and
Hugging the Jukebox
, winner of the National Poetry Series Award. She is the coeditor of
I Feel a Little Jumpy Around You: A Book of Her Poems and His Poems Collected in Pairs
.

Simon J. Ortiz
is the author of several volumes of poetry and
Fightin’: New & Collected Stories
. He wrote the narrative for
Surviving Columbus
, a PBS documentary about the Pueblo people. He was born in 1941 at the Indian Hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and raised in McCartys, a small village of Acoma Pueblo.

Darryl Pinckney
is the author of
High Cotton
, winner of the
Los Angeles Times
Book Prize for Fiction. His work has appeared in
Granta
and the
New York Review of Books
.

Daniel Asa Rose
is the O. Henry prize—winning author of
Flipping For It
(a novel) and
Small Family with Rooster
(stories). His essays, stories, reviews, and travel and humor pieces have appeared in
The New Yorker, Esquire
, and
Vanity Fair
, among others. He is working on
Hiding Places
, a memoir forthcoming from Simon & Schuster.

Liz Rosenberg
is the author of two books of poetry,
The Fire Music
and
Children of Paradise
, and a novel. She has published more than a dozen picture books for children, and edited two anthologies of poetry for young readers,
The Invisible Ladder
and
Earth-Shattering Poems
. She teaches at State University of New York at Binghamton.

Roshni Rustomji
has lived, studied, and worked in India, Pakistan, Lebanon, the United States, and Mexico. She is the coeditor of
Blood into Ink: South Asian and Middle Eastern Women Write War
and the editor of
Living in America: Poetry and Fiction by South Asian American Writers
.

Lynne Sharon Schwartz
is the author of two story collections and a nonfiction book,
Ruined by Reading: A Life in Books
. Her five novels include
The Fatigue Artist, Disturbances in the Field
, and
Leaving Brooklyn
. She lives in New York City.

Gary Soto
was born and raised in Fresno, California. He is a prizewinning poet and essayist as well as a children’s book author and producer of short films for Spanish-speaking children. His 1990 collection,
Baseball in April and Other Stories
, was named as the American Library Association’s Best Book for Young Adults.

Amy Tan
was born in Oakland, California, in 1952, two and a half years after her parents immigrated to the United States. She is the author of
The Kitchen God’s Wife
and
The Joy Luck Club
, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and which was made into a film in 1993.

Helena María Viramontes
was born in East Los Angeles in 1954 to a family of eleven. She is the author of
The Moths and Other Stories
. She lives and teaches in Irvine, California, and is the coordinator of the Los Angeles Latino Writers Association.

Sylvia A. Watanabe
was born in Hawaii on the island of Maui. She is the author of a collection of stories,
Talking to the Dead
, and coeditor with Carol Bruchac of
Home to Stay: An Anthology of Asian American Women’s Fiction
. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies.

Afaa Michael Weaver
(formerly Michael S. Weaver) worked for fifteen years as a blue-collar factory worker in his native Baltimore, Maryland. His sixth book of poetry is
Talisman
and his new play is
Candy Lips & Hallelujah
. The recipient of a 1998 Pew fellowship for his poetry, he holds an endowed chair at Simmons College.

Index

Alexie, Sherman, 287–301

Boss, Laura, 197–99

Bush, Mary Bucci, 136–48

Campbell, Bebe Moore, 39–44

Candelaria, Nash, 45–63

Chambers, Veronica, 302–6

Chin, Frank, 83–90

Cisneros, Sandra, 169–72

Cofer, Judith Ortiz, 93–102

Dame, Enid, 227–37

di Prima, Diane, 307–11

Doctorow, E. L., 3–17

Erdrich, Louise, 103–14

Gardaphé, Fred L., 320–25

Geha, Joseph, 242–59

Gillan, Maria Mazziotti, 260–267

Glancy, Diane, 238–41

Jacobs, Bruce A., 200–204

Jen, Gish, 175–96

Kamlani, Beena, 205–26

Midge, Tiffany, 68–75

Morrison, Toni, 115–21

Nocerino, Kathryn, 76–82

Nye, Naomi Shihab, 312–19

Ortiz, Simon J., 342–48

Pinckney, Darryl, 64–67

Rose, Daniel Asa, 156–68

Rosenberg, Liz, 149–55

Rustomji, Roshni, 326–41

Schwartz, Lynne Sharon, 122–35

Soto, Gary, 32–38

Tan, Amy, 18–31

Viramontes, Helena María, 349–55

Watanabe, Sylvia A., 356–68

Weaver, Afaa Michael, 268–84

“Americanism” Copyright © Kathryn Nocerino, 1999

“Magic” Copyright © Liz Rosenberg, 1999

“Brandy Cake” Copyright © Beena Kamlani, 1999

“Honey Boy” Copyright © Afaa Michael Weaver, 1999

Selection from
Recollections of My Life as a Woman
(to be published by Viking Penguin), Copyright © Diane di Prima, 1999. By permisison of the publisher.

“Red Velvet Dress” Copyright © Naomi Shihab Nye, 1999

“Thanksgiving in a Monsoonless Land” Copyright © Roshni Rustomji, 1999

All rights reserved

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following copyrighted works:

“The Writer in the Family” from
Lives of the Poets
by E. L. Doctorow. Copyright © 1984 by E. L. Doctorow. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc.

“Rules of the Game” from
The Joy Luck Club
by Amy Tan. Copyright © Amy Tan, 1989. Used by permission of Putnam Berkley, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.

“Looking for Work” from
Living Up the Street
by Gary Soto (Strawberry Hill Press). © 1985 by Gary Soto. Used by permission of the author.

“The Best Deal in America” by Bebe Moore Campbell. Published in
USA Weekend
, July 29–31, 1994. By permission of the author.

“The Day the Cisco Kid Shot John Wayne” from
The Day the Cisco Kid Shot John Wayne
by Nash Candelaria (1988). By permission of the publisher, Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingue, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona.

“The New Negro” from
High Cotton
by Darryl Pinckney. Copyright © 1992 by Darryl Pinckney. Reprinted by permisison of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc.

“A Half-Breed’s Dream Vacation” by Tiffany Midge. © 1994 by Tiffany Midge. Published in
Blue Mesa Review
, Spring 1994, Creative Writing Center of the University of New Mexico. By permission of the author.

“Railroad Standard Time” from
Chinaman Pacific and Frisco Railroad Company
by Frank Chin. Copyright © 1988 by Frank Chin. Reprinted by permission of Coffee House Press.

“American History” from
The Latin Deli: Prose & Poetry
by Judith Ortiz Cofer (1993). By permission of The University of Georgia Press.

“The Red Convertible” from
Love Medicine
(new and expanded edition) by Louise Erdrich. © 1993 by Louise Erdrich. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company, Inc.

Selection from
The Bluest Eye
by Toni Morrison (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.). Copyright © 1970 by Toni Morrison. Reprinted by permission of International Creative Management, Inc.

“Killing the Bees” from
The Melting Pot and Other Stories
by Lynne Sharon Schwartz (Harper & Row). © 1987 by Lynne Sharon Schwartz. By permission of the author.

“Drowning” by Mary Bucci Bush. Published as a chapbook in the Parenthesis Writing Series. By permission of the author and the publisher.

“The Cossacks of Connecticut” by Daniel Asa Rose. By permission of the author.

“Mericans” from
Woman Hollering Creek
by Sandra Cisneros. Copyright © 1991 by Sandra Cisneros. Published by Vintage Books. Originally published by Random House, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Susan Bergholz Literary Services, New York. All rights reserved.

“What Means Switch” by Gish Jen. Copyright © 1990 by Gish Jen. First published in
The Atlantic Monthly
. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Myrna and Me” by Laura Boss. © 1997 Laura Boss. By permission of the author.

“Dinner with Father” by Bruce A. Jacobs. © 1996 Bruce A. Jacobs. First appeared in
WordWrights
, January 1997. By permission of the author.

“Drowning Kittens” by Enid Dame. First appeared in
Sing, Heavenly Muse,
1991. By permission of the author.

“Portrait of a Lone Survivor” from
Lone Dog’s Winter Count
by Diane Glancy (West End Press, 1990). By permission of the author.

“Holy Toledo” from
Through and Through: Toledo Stories
by Joseph Geha. Copyright 1990 Joseph Geha. Reprinted by permission of Graywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota.

“Carlton Fredericks and My Mother” by Maria Mazziotti Gillan. © 1997 Maria Mazziotti Gillan. Used by permission of the author.

“This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” from
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
by Sherman Alexie. Copyright © 1993 by Sherman Alexie. Used by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.