Daily Fare: Essays from the Multicultural Experience - Couverture souple

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0820314994 ISBN 13 : 9780820314990

Editeur : University of Georgia Press, 1993

Synopsis

Daily Fare presents seventeen artfully crafted essays in which writers representing a broad spectrum of the American experience ponder the meaning of living in a nation of diverse and competing cultures. Consistently thought-provoking and often intensely personal, these pieces confront such themes as the question of identity, the individual's relation to culture, problems of communication, and the need to strike a balance between preserving traditions and merging them. Memories both tender and painful fill these pages. Toi Derricotte, recalling her experiences as the only black person at an artist colony, often found her sense of isolation almost unbearable: "No one can help. Only I, myself. But how can I let go? My face is a mask, like Uncle Tom's, my heart twisted in rage and fear." In "The Death of Fred Astaire, " Leslie Lawrence reflects on the difficult decisions that led to her becoming a lesbian mother and the mix of emotions - apprehension, maternal longing, and, finally, joyous fulfillment - that accompanied her choices. In "Kubota, " Garrett Hongo describes how his grandfather enjoined him to learn and to give witness to the injustices committed against Japanese Americans by their own government during World War II; Hongo accepts this responsibility as "a ritual payment the young owe their elders who have survived." Several bilingual essayists contemplate their relationship to the English language - a language that can empower its users or deny them access to the dominant culture. For Judith Ortiz Cofer, reading books from the public library as a child gave her a sense of freedom as well as her first intimations of the writing career she would later pursue. Alberto Alvaro Rios, however, reminds us that learning English in the first grade also meant being punished for using Spanish: "Spanish was bad. Okay. We, then, must be bad kids." Still other essays explore what it means to confront the confusions of a plural family heritage or to be a black artist f

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Kathleen Aguero is an assistant professor in the humanities division at Pine Manor College, where she also directs the composition program. She is the author of two volumes of poetry, "Thirsty Day" and "The Real Weather," and coeditor (with Marie Harris) of "A Gift of Tongues: Critical Challenges in Contemporary Poetry" and "An Ear to the Ground: An Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry" (both Georgia).

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: University of Georgia Press
• Date d'édition: 1993
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0820314994
• ISBN 13: 9780820314990
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 248
• Éditeur: Aguero Kathleen
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible