The Ethnic Ghosts and “Coming of Age” of a Genre

Abstract

The lives of immigrants are far from easy, even within a pluralistic society that highlights democracy, multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism. Individuals from ethnic minorities groups get segregated because of their language, culture as well as their physical features. Following the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, the US has espoused official policies such as affirmative action and equal opportunities. But the official positions often belie the subtle tension that exists in contemporary America. Evidence of such racial ghosts is available in the literary works of a group of writers of ethnic origins who are voicing out their concerns before a mainstream audience. These writers are experimenting with their modes of writing, conjuring styles and stories from the cultures of their origins in order to create a new mode of expression. This experimental genre parallels the twentieth century oeuvre of buildungromans and testifies a sign of maturity. This for me is a coming-of-age—a sign of maturity—that I have noticed in the Asian American Maxine Hong Kingston, Indian American Jhumpa Lahiri and Native American Leslie Marmon Silko. The choice of the term ‘coming of age’ is guided by the white anthropologists’ attempt to view different racial groups in ethnographic terms. The ghost genre critically engages with the racial debate while focusing their own stories of adopting to and adapting in a new culture.