American Plurality Through the Eyes of the Short Story
By Robert Waddell, May 8, 2009
For too long, publishers and book sellers have segregated literature into sub-sectional categories creating a literary apartheid putting into question what is good writing and what isn’t. Latinos, African American, Native American, Asian and Anglo authors lived separate and unequal lives, some on the front shelves and some relegated to the back.
Literature should not be, in this reviewer’s opinion, segregated by ethnicity but through the continuous flowing river of literary understanding and quality, and by the times in which these works were produced and by whom. Good writing is good writing, that’s it.
 The publication of Pow Wow/Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience – Short Fiction from Then to Now edited by Ishmael Reed and Carla Blank makes this point exactly in an exciting compilation of short stories that are mixed, varied with viable American literary consideration given. The notion of W.E.B. DuBois’s ‘problem with the 20th Century is the color line’ was probably highly prevalent in the editor’s selection of these stories. This diverse and compelling short story collection is balanced giving equal weight to the plurality of American authors.
Reed says in his introduction that modern mass media has failed to address honestly the questions of race or ethnic depictions. It is the artist or the fiction writer who will venture into territory, journalists fear to tread. In short fiction themes of race, segregation, war and injustice can be addressed in human terms and complexity, unlike the black and white depictions one finds in the mass media.
“…They challenge the public lies. Again, the writer can tell the truth. Unlike other media, he or she is not burdened with the demand to fill mall movie houses with bodies, or required to compete about who can best cannibalize eyeballs—the mission of networks and cable television.”
For example, there is no hope and no glory in the psychotic pessimism depicted in the film “Hope and Glory,” where poet Flaco Navaja portrayed a desperate junkie snitch, with a plethora of sleazy, greased out Latino criminal stereotypes. There’s little comfort that everyone in this film, including corrupt White cops, are also out of their minds.
However, Is it the fiction writer’s job to bring to light social issues, like how African Americans were treated after World War II, or is it the short fiction writer’s duty to create real characters creating real, human stories? This reviewer would say they can do both because one can not separate how social constructs and injustices effect individuals personally. But it is the writer’s duty not to be polemic. A reader does not want to be hit over the head with a barrage of soap box speechifying when all he wants is a good story. And maybe learn something about himself, the world around him and his fellow citizens.
What one must always question is how Latinos or any other ethnic group are portrayed in mainstream media because the picture is almost always inaccurate, usually leaving out any traces of humanity. Reed and Blank bring a grouping of stories that give pieces of the American experience and within each story there’s the multi-layered experience of each author’s unique point-of-view.
Along with old time favorites like Mark Twain, Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, a reader will find contemporary authors like Russell Banks, Bharati Mukherjee, Frank Yerby and John Oliver Killens. There’s a sense of historical significance in these literary selections along with a feeling that readers will enjoy authors and cultures they’ve never experienced before, and experience their own cultures through fresh eyes.
While this reviewer is happy to read stories by Latino authors like Jimmy Santiago Baca and Nancy Mercado, like most undergraduate courses, it’s not what’s included but what gets left out. There isn’t one story by Dr. Nicholasa Mohr, Jack Agueros or Piri Thomas. Or even, Junot Diaz, Abraham Rodriguez, Jr. or Ernesto Quinones. This could be volume one for a greater series of books because here too much has embarrassingly been left behind.
But Reed does assure the reader, “Isn’t it refreshing to encounter Puerto Rican characters different from those we encounter in popular culture, where they are framed by those who aren’t Puerto Rican?”
Yes Mr. Reed it is. While too many Latinos admire Al Pacino in “Scarface,” wear t-shirts with Che Guevara, not knowing who he was thinking he’s just a fashion accessory, the last two major motion pictures about Puerto Ricans were “Pinero” and “El Cantante.” These films were stories of Puerto Rican men who were seen as very cool drug addicts. One hungers, longs for, something real, something human, any thing culturally identifiable. But the public at large allows movie studios to keep peddling this trash as if it were real, or the only story, or worse yet a gourmet meal of high art. “Pow Wow” allows the humanity of authors and characters to shine through.
With that said, as summer approaches, “Pow Wow” may just be the big important reading material to take to the beach or on vacation. At the same time, when fall rolls around, a university might consider creating a literature course dedicated to the important artistic and human stories presented in this volume that presents a true picture of America as truly and purely diverse.
This story was developed through the Education Beat Writing Fellowship at the New York Community Alliance. |
