When we say American realism, two immediate questions are: Whose reality? And: Whose America? To suggest those questions, I have opened with statements written by four of my students. Also, I begin with my students' words to anticipate two other core ideas. First, the whole issue of canonicity is at heart an issue of the classroom; what is at stake is which books get taught and which do not, which voices get heard. Second, I will be arguing in favor of a reconceptualization of American realism that holds at its center the principle of multiculturalism.