Critique [of The Use of the Terms Negro and Black to Include Persons of Native American Ancestry in Anglo North America by Jack D. Forbes]

In investigating the use of Negro and black to include persons of Native American ancestry, Jack D. Forbes brings together a large number of wide-ranging references on an elusive topic. The preliminary nature of Forbes\u27s study and the inevitably problematic status of the data make his work thus far more valuable in suggestive than definitive terms. For example, while the conclusions regarding practices in King Williams Parish, Virginia, in the early 18th century seem generally acceptable, a heavy dependence on given names such as Robin as clues to classification should probably be avoided (Robin is the diminutive of the common name Robert, and can be either masculine or feminine), but there is little question about the rather cavalier and arbitrary willingness of the power elite to impose names on their inferiors, names that reflect a complex mixture of assumptions, prejudices, and needs. This is simply to say that the critical reevaluation that Forbes calls for in closing is less difficult to engage in than the equally valuable empirical reevaluation

[Review of] Toshio Morio. Yokohama, California

The reprinting of this book makes accessible to a new generation of readers the pioneering short fiction of the man William Saroyan called the first real Japanese-American writer (Introduction to first edition). First announced by the Caxton Printers for publication in 1942 and finally published in 1949, Yokohama, California suffered a vexed debut and a short life of obscurity and neglect. Given but scant notice by reviewers, Mori\u27s slim collection was received even by his ethnic peers more out of loyal curiosity than any shock of recognition. A unique record of Japanese American life in Northern California in the decades just before World War II, the book became one of the lost volumes of American literature

Critique [of Perception and Power Through Naming: Characters in Search of Self in the Fiction of Toni Morrison by Linda Buck Myers]

In Stranger in the Village (1953), James Baldwin asserted that the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it. In her article on naming in Toni Morrison\u27s novels, Linda Buck Myers asks us to consider Morrison\u27s insights regarding who does the controlling and how. In the end Myers offers us a number of useful and provocative observations regarding language and our uses of it as they inform ethnic experience

Critique [of Identity as Theory and Method for Ethnic Studies by John Hatfield]

John Hatfield\u27s discussion of identity and ethnicity in an increasingly wider, abstract, and problematical context is an extended definition of the current dilemma. I suspect Hatfield intends to offer an essentially optimistic statement, but for many readers questions and doubts may remain, if not predominate

[Review of] Sylvia Junko Yanagisako. Transforming the Past: Tradition and Kinship Among Japanese Americans

Transforming the Past is a major contribution to our understanding of Japanese American experience specifically and to our sense of ethnic experience generally. Yanagisako\u27s study transcends its anthropological base to offer crucial insights previously precluded by both facile “understanding and methological [methodological] limitations

Critique [of Depictions of Elderly Blacks in American Literature by Alice A. Deck]

Depictions of Elderly Blacks in American Literature is more suggestive than satisfying. It offers a useful introduction to its topic, but could have attempted either a more extensive catalog of elderly blacks in a wider range of American literature or a deeper and more thorough reading of a specific period or group of writers

Robert Penn Warren: Critical Perspectives

Long recognized as one of America’s foremost men of letters, Robert Penn Warren continues to dazzle us with his many-sided genius. In the haunting images of his poetry, the narrative power of his fiction, the revealing insights of his essays, we find literary achievement of the highest order. Warren’s writing has merited the close attention of literary critics. In this book Neil Nakadate brings together the most important critical essays, including a new essay written for this volume, to give a comprehensive view of the range of Warren’s work. A list of Warren’s published works, 1929-1980, and a useful checklist of critical works on Warren’s writing supplement this rich and balanced collection of essays. Contributors: A.L. Clements, Chester E. Eisinger, Norton R. Girault, Robert B. Heilman, H.P. Heseltine, James H. Justus, Richard Law, Frederick P.W. McDowell, Neil Nakadate, Ladell Payne, M. Bernetta Quinn, John Crowe Ransom, Victor Strandberg, Walter Sullivan, William Tjenos, Simone Vauthier, and Robert Penn Warren Neil Nakadate teaches English at Iowa State University. Useful and engaging. —Sewanee Review A magnificent collection not only as a tribute to Warren, but also as a significant statement of literary trends today. . . . Really invaluable to present and future Warren readers. —Liberal and Fine Arts Reviewhttps://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_english_language_and_literature_north_america/1037/thumbnail.jp

[Review of] Mine Okubo. Citizen 13660

Citizen 13660, first published in 1946, is part of the scant first-person record of Japanese American experience in the first half of the twentieth century. Like S. Frank Miyamoto\u27s Social Solidarity Among the Japanese in Seattle (1939, repr. 1984) and Toshio Mori\u27s Yokohama, California (1949, repr. 1986), Okubo\u27s book has been given new life by the University of Washington Press

Critique [of GOD\u27S SILENCE AND THE SHRILL OF ETHNICITY IN THE CHICANO NOVEL]

Among the most important observations made in the course of Joe Rodriquez‘ essay on the Chicano novel are that 1) an ethnic legacy must be recognized described, and acknowledged in its complexity and contradictions before it can become a viable part of an individual\u27s identity; 2) ethnic legacies and affiliations, as with all relationships into which individuals are born, can be burdensome liabilities as well as touchstones of sustenance and liberation; 3) an ethnic\u27s unquestioning affiliation with the group often leads to a diminishment of personal worth. With his focus on dialectical forces within Chicano life and on ethnicity as a dynamic and problematical condition, Rodriquez supplements other recent efforts to reconsider prevailing assumptions regarding fictive statement and structure in Chicano writing

[Review of] S. Frank Miyamoto. Social Solidarity Among the Japanese in Seattle

Social Solidarity among the Japanese in Seattle is a rare and irreplaceable study of Japanese American life prior to World War II. Its focus is the social relational network of the Japanese community as dominated by the immigrant, first generation Issei -- the intimate fusion of expectations, obligations, and reciprocity that prevailed in the years between immigration and internment. First published in 1939, Miyamoto\u27s monograph was reprinted in 1981 and 1984 by the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Washington, each time with a new introduction by the author