SOURCE: “Ethnic Renaissance: Rudolfo Anaya, Louise Erdrich, and Maxine Hong Kingston,” in The New American Writing: Essays on American Literature since 1970, edited by Graham Clarke, St. Martin's Press, 1990, pp. 139–64.

In the following excerpt, Lee discusses the rise of American ethnic literature in the 1960s and focuses on Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima as an example of Chicano literature and its emphasis on cultural identity, tradition, and displacement.

Ethnic art is the American mainstream. …

—Ishmael Reed, Interview, ‘The Third Ear,’ B.B.C. Radio 3, April 1989¹

Growing up ethnic is surely the liveliest theme to appear in the American novel since the closing of the frontier. …

—John Skow, reviewing Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club, Time, 27 March 1989²

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A vogue it may currently appear. But can it be doubted that ethnicity has ever been other than a key ingredient in American culture? One thinks of founding racial encounters: Columbus sighting his ‘gentle...