from the upheavals of the early twentieth century through every generation to the
present. Over the last two decades, eight of her short stories published in national
The Multiethnic Story
477
periodicals have been selected as Best American Short Stories or O. Henry Prize
winners. When compiling her stories into books, however, Erdrich weaves them into
short story cycles that are all classifi ed as novels. As James Nagel notes, this genre
“ offers a vital technique for the exploration and depiction of the complex interactions
of gender, ethnicity, and individual identity ” and therefore has become an important
medium for many contemporary writers of diverse backgrounds, such as Jamaica
Kincaid, Amy Tan, and Julia Alvarez (10). The collection Storyteller (1981) by Laguna
Pueblo writer Leslie Marmon Silko crosses genres in another way. This text combines
stories, poems, photographs, and personal essays in ways that emphasize the rich and
varied history and the storytelling tradition of her culture and her family.
Judith Ortiz Cofer offers her own unique blend of fi ction and non - fi ction, prose
and poetry, in The Latin Deli (1993) . The Puerto Rican characters who inhabit her
writing are versed in the language of crossing as they travel from the island to the
American mainland, from Spanish to English, and from their traditional culture to
mainstream US life in movements as complex and fl uid as Ortiz Cofer ’ s shifts from
genre to genre. Chicana writer Sandra Cisneros examines mestiza consciousness in the
lives of Mexican American women in her collection Woman Hollering Creek and Other
Stories (1991) . The title story, in particular, captures universal issues of the subjectivity
of women and the cultural particularity crucial to self - awareness as an abused wife ’ s
connection with the suffering of the fabled La Llorona leads to her liberation. A very
different collection of stories of Mexican American life is Soy la Avon Lady and Other
Stories (2002) by Lorraine L ó pez. As American - born characters move farther from their
Mexican and immigrant roots, they reveal startling perspectives refl ective of life in
an increasingly multicultural world. As Lopez ’ s characters move outward from South-
ern California, to New Mexico, to Georgia, to Antigua, Luis J. Rodriguez focuses on
a highly localized though brilliantly varied neighborhood in his collection The Republic
of East L.A. (2002) . Another example of the growing diversity of Hispanic American
literature comes from Junot D í az, whose powerful stories set in the Dominican Repub-
lic and the inner cities of New Jersey have won prizes and opened the eyes of readers
to worlds otherwise beyond their reach.
The legacy of African American short stories continues with writers such as ZZ
Packer, whose collection
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
(2003)
is reminiscent of Alice
Walker in the way it covers, from a feminist perspective, both the insular nature of
black American life in stories such as “ Brownies, ” in which a troupe of young African
American girls misinterpret racial tension, and the cosmopolitan existence of many
African Americans as they move through big cities, ivy league schools, and foreign
countries. Short stories by Jewish American writers also depict revealing new connec-
tions in an ever - expanding world. In the title story from A Letter to Harvey Milk (1988)
by Leslea Newman, a 77 - year - old Holocaust survivor and a young Jewish lesbian share
personal loss and develop a friendship across the divides of history and generations.
In fact, many writers of the past several decades have included the process of coming
to terms with sexual identity within traditional cultures. Some of the stories included
in The Native Informant and Other Stories by Ramzi M. Salti serve to broaden the scope
478
Molly Crumpton Winter
of American literature by depicting realities of Arab and Arab American life and by
dealing sensitively with issues of homosexuality and oppression. Just as the contem-
porary American short story continues to expand into new places, new themes, new
formats, and new subjects, it has also grown to incorporate new genres, as the science
fi ction stories of African American writers Octavia Butler (
Bloodchild , 1995 ) and
Walter Mosley ( Futureland , 2001 ) demonstrate. Mosley is also known primarily as a
writer of detective fi ction (both novels and short stories), and so has published books
in two seemingly unrelated categories. Yet all these tales, as do the majority of short
stories by ethnic American writers, deal with issues of race, gender, social justice, and
personal struggle.
For over one hundred years ethnic American short stories have served to articulate
the multiplicity inherent in American society. A stream of writers from varied back-
grounds writing multiple stories from unlimited points of view refl ect a nation that
is constantly in fl ux. From the immigrant writers at the turn of the twentieth century
to the great numbers of contemporary fi rst - , second - , and third - generation authors
who live their lives in two cultures and even between nations come narratives that
explore the change and exchange of American society. From the South to the North,
from reservations to cities, from rural poverty to cosmopolitan comfort, African
American and American Indian writers convey the gravity of historical and personal
transformations. And yet, even as these stories reveal a nation of movement and revo-
lution, they also contain a critique of the ways in which American society simultane-
ously resists change and difference. Even as immigrants and people of color create art
that opens new paths to understanding and connections, they also remind us that
forces of resistance to our own diversity persist. However, as their characters question
the past, question themselves, question the nation, and question the world, they lead
us to answers that serve to broaden conceptions of personal identity, national belong-
ing, and collective humanity.
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A Companion to the American Short Story Page 103