The Ethnic Canon: History, Institutions, Interventions

My second book was an edited volume, The Ethnic Canon: History, Institutions, Interventions (Minnesota, 1995). In my critical introduction I address the historical occasion of multiculturalism and chart the various functions and histories of the institutionalization of ethnic literature in the U.S. academy.  Eschewing the liberal celebration of “diversity,” the essays instead focus on the material histories that inform the production of “difference.” The anthology itself, with contributions from Norma Alarcòn, Rosaura Sanchez, Ramòn Saldìvar, Sau-ling Wong, Lisa Lowe, Colleen Lye, E. San Juan, Jr., Elliott Butler-Evans, Barbara Christian, Paula Gunn Allen, and Jana Sequoya-Magdelena, argues for a contestative and critical multicultural pedagogy, asserting by adopting new reading and interpretive practices we may gain a sense of how multiculturalism participates in a larger conversation about democracy and representation.