Part II - Search for a form
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2006
Summary
The African-Caribbean presence in the United States can be read as a paradox of discrimination: “first, an invisibility (in Ellisonian terms) because the blackness of their skin color, which relegates them to classification as Afro-Americans, which leaves their special needs as immigrants relatively unattended; and second, a double visibility - as blacks to whites, and as foreigners to native blacks.” Literary representations of the dynamics between African diasporic populations in the US - from the erasure and/or collapsing of all cultural differences, to contention between US-born African Americans and Caribbean immigrants, to calls for social and political allegiances - will be the focus of this chapter. Particular attention will be paid to the works of Caribbean-American writers, such as Paule Marshall and Edwidge Danticat.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004