Narratives of a New Belonging: The Politics of Memory and Identity in Contemporary American Ethnic LiteraturesThesis (M.A.) from the year 2004 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,6 (A), University of Regensburg (Insitute for American Studies), 181 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: 1. 'Narratives of a New Belonging' - Introduction and Aim of the Study In March 1968 Robert Kennedy reported the following about the miserable living conditions on most Native American reservations to a Senate sub-committee: "The first Americans are still the last Americans in terms of income, employment, health and education. I believe this to be a national tragedy for all Americans, for we all are in some way responsible" (qtd. in Breidlid 1998: 6). Opening this thesis with this rhetoric pun on the first and the last on the American continent has been a deliberate decision as Kennedy's status quo report provides for a nice introduction to this thesis' larger subject matter. When his dialogics of the first and the last are not only restricted to U.S. American Indian communities, the overall image evoked can in fact easily be applied to other U.S. ethnic groups as well. Having long settled the desert regions north of nowadays U.S. Mexican border, contemporary Hispanic Americans, for instance, as the descendents of an early mestizo population of Mexican-Indian, European-Spanish and Anglo-American ancestry, share a collective memory which far precedes the U.S. presence in North America. Likewise African Americans can provide for a historical legacy that through the Diaspora of the Middle Passage and the system of plantation slavery easily traces itself back to the very first beginnings of American civilization. When in recent years many other immigrant and minority groups have handed in similar claims, the overall picture of American history evoked is no longer one of a WASP unitarian sense of historiography, but of transcultural diversity and plurality which clearly contradicts the proclaimed assimilatory homogeneity of the American character. Having alre |
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Contents
| 5 | |
Stories of the Uprooted The Politics of Memory and Identity in | 26 |
The Search for a Sense of Place | 36 |
The Search for a Usable Past | 63 |
The Search for a Community | 94 |
Narratives of a New Belonging and the Healing Power of the Word | 125 |
Common terms and phrases
Abel Abel’s According African American ain’t alienation American Ethnic literatures ancient Anglo-American Antonio’s become Borderland boy’s Campbell’s mythical round Candle Walk ceremonial Chicano childhood collective identity contemporary American Ethnic contemporary Ethnic critic cultural negotiation Dawn dichotomies discourses dream Ethnic American eventually evil finally former George golden carp healing hero Hispanic identity formation Identity Politics Indian intracultural island Jemez Pueblo Kiowa Köhler lines literary llano Lunas magical Mama Day Márez means melting pot memory and identity Miranda Momaday Momaday’s monomyth mother myth Native American Navajo Naylor negotiation and transculturation notions novel one’s Ophelia politics of memory powerful protagonist provides quest reading Rudolfo Anaya Sapphira Schubnell 1986 Scott Momaday sense of belonging sense of place sense of transcultural similar to Antonio similar to Bless spiritual story Stuart Hall’s symbol thesis Tosamah tradition transcultural transcultural belonging tribal turned Ultima understanding usable past vision Willow Springs
Bibliographic information
| Title | Narratives of a New Belonging: The Politics of Memory and Identity in Contemporary American Ethnic Literatures Akademische Schriftenreihe Bd. V30929 |
| Author | Michael Fink |
| Publisher | GRIN Verlag, 2007 |
| ISBN | 3638703436, 9783638703437 |
| Length | 148 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |