1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910827692803321

Autore

Sheffer Jolie A

Titolo

The romance of race [[electronic resource] ] : incest, miscegenation, and multiculturalism in the United States, 1880-1930 / / Jolie A. Sheffer

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New Brunswick, N.J., : Rutgers University Press, c2013

ISBN

1-283-80587-1

0-8135-5464-0

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (247 p.)

Collana

American literatures initiative

Classificazione

HT 1691

Disciplina

810.9/920693

Soggetti

American literature - Minority authors - History and criticism

American literature - Women authors - History and criticism

Ethnic groups in literature

Multiculturalism in literature

Identity (Psychology) in literature

Minorities - United States - Intellectual life

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Mulattos, mysticism, and marriage: African American identity and psychic integration -- Half-caste family romances: divergent paths of Asian American identity -- The Mexican Mestizo/a in the Mexican American imaginary -- Half-breeds and homesteaders: Native/American alliances in the West -- Blood and blankets: Americanizing European immigrants through cultural miscegenation and textile reproduction.

Sommario/riassunto

In the United States miscegenation is not merely a subject of literature and popular culture. It is in many ways the foundation of contemporary imaginary community. The Romance of Race examines the role of minority women writers and reformers in the creation of our modern American multiculturalism. The national identity of the United States was transformed between 1880 and 1930 due to mass immigration, imperial expansion, the rise of Jim Crow, and the beginning of the suffrage movement. A generation of women writers and reformers-particularly women of color-contributed to these debates by imagining new national narratives that put minorities at the center of American



identity. Jane Addams, Pauline Hopkins, Onoto Watanna (Winnifred Eaton), MarĂ­a Cristina Mena, and Mourning Dove (Christine Quintasket) embraced the images of the United States-and increasingly the world-as an interracial nuclear family. They also reframed public debates through narratives depicting interracial encounters as longstanding, unacknowledged liaisons between white men and racialized women that produced an incestuous, mixed-race nation. By mobilizing the sexual taboos of incest and miscegenation, these women writers created political allegories of kinship and community. Through their criticisms of the nation's history of exploitation and colonization, they also imagined a more inclusive future. As Jolie A. Sheffer identifies the contemporary template for American multiculturalism in the works of turn-of-the century minority writers, she uncovers a much more radical history than has previously been considered.