Local Color to Multiculturalism

Long Le-Khac

doi:10.1017/9781009292863.015

Chapter 11 - Local Color to Multiculturalism

Minority Writers in the Short Story and Ethnographic Markets

from Part II - Histories

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 May 2023

Long Le-Khac

Edited by

Michael J. Collins and

Gavin Jones

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Michael J. Collins: Affiliation:
King's College London
Gavin Jones: Affiliation:
Stanford University

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Summary

From the local color boom to university multiculturalism, the minority short story has been central to transformations bringing new classes of writers and content into American letters. This chapter outlines the promises and failures of the form to racially democratize the literary marketplace. It highlights the possibilities minority writers developed within these limitations. Zora Neale Hurston, Zitkála-Šá, and Winnifred Eaton deflected White audiences and their ethnographic expectations. Their frame tales challenged framings by White gatekeepers. Their feints force scholars to rethink autoethnographic fictions as savvy ethnographies of White audiences. These strategies persist in the multicultural era with writers such as Rattawut Lapcharoensap and Edward P. Jones. However, the short story has shifted from a commercial to an educational form: the easily teachable nugget of diversity. Meanwhile, audiences for ethnic authenticity now include many highly educated minorities. Sandra Cisneros, Nam Le, and others navigate this shifting map, revealing new freedoms and constraints.

Keywords

audience regionalism magazines anthropology autoethnography authenticity frame tales universities diversity

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Companion to the American Short Story , pp. 174 - 188

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009292863.015 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2023

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