Multi-Ethinic Literature of the US MELUS

African-American
Arab-American
Asian-American
Cuban American
Italian-American
Jewish-American
Chicano
Native American

African-American Poetry

KABA Amiri Baraka

A closed window looks down
on a dirty courtyard, and black people
call across or scream or walk across
defying physics in the stream of their will
Our world is full of sound
Our world is more lovely than anyone's
tho we suffer, and kill each other
and sometimes fail to walk the air

We are beautiful people

with african imaginations
full of masks and dances and swelling chants

with african eyes, and noses, and arms,

though we sprawl in grey chains in a place
full of winters, when what we want is sun.
We have been captured,
brothers. And we labor
to make our getaway, into
the ancient image, into a new
correspondence with ourselves
and our black family. We read magic
now we need the spells, to rise up
return, destroy, and create. What will be
the sacred words?

I, TOO, SING AMERICA Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed-I, too, am America.

BEFORE YOU KNEW YOU OWNED IT Alice Walker

Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.
Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why

So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.

NO IMAGES Waring Cuney

She does not know
Her beauty,
She thinks her brown body
Has no glory.
If she could dance
Naked
Under palm trees
And see her image in the river,
She would know.

But there are no palm trees

On the street,
And dish water gives back no images.

MADAM AND HER MADAM

I worked for a woman,
She wasn't mean-But she had a twelve-room
House to clean.

I said, Madam,
Can it be
You trying to make a
Pack-horse out of me?

Had to get breakfast,

Dinner, and supper, too-Then take care of her
children
When I got through.

She opened her mouth.

She cried, Oh, no!
You know, Alberta,
I love you so!

Wash, iron, and scrub,

Walk the dog around-It was too much,
Nearly broke me down.

I said, Madam,
That may be true-But I'll be dogged
If I love you!

African-American Novel

A COR PRPURA Alice Walker

O padrasto de Celie, o estuprador, adverte a menina,
para no contar a ningum, a no ser a Deus que tinha
sido estuprada. Mas a comunidade em que Celie vivia
j se encarregara de evitar que ela usasse at mesmo
palavras que conhecia. Naquela comunidade atrasada
do comeo do sculo, as palavras pnis e vagina
no existiam. Na verdade, a idia de pnis estava fora
dos limites permitidos, que a expresso mais prxima
permitida era a coisa do homem. Quanto vagina
bem, aqui est como a minha av ensinava as filhas a
tomar banho. Lave o mais para baixo possvel, depois
o mais para cima possvel, depois lave o possvel.
(WALKER, 1988, p.66)

 I see Sofia and I dont know why she still

alive. They crack her skull, they crack her ribs.
They tear her nose loose on one side. They
blind her in one eye. She swole from head to
foot. Her tongue the size of my arm, it stick
out tween her teef like a piece of rubber. She
cant talk. And she just about the color of
eggplant . (WALKER, 1986, p.103)

 Dear God,
I ast him to take me instead of Nettie while
our new mammy sick. But he just ast me what
I'm talking bout. I tell him I can fix myself up
for him. I duck into my room and come out
wearing horsehair, feathers, and a pair of our
new mammy high heel shoes. He beat me for
dressing trampy but he do it to me anyway.
(WALKER, 1986, p. 18).

You better not never tell nobody but God. It'd kill your mammy.
Dear God,
I am fourteen years old. I am I have always been a good girl.
Maybe you can give me a sign letting me know what is
happening to me.
Last spring after little Lucious come I heard them fussing. He was
pulling on her arm. She say It too soon, Fonso, I ain't well. Finally
he leave her alone. A week go by, he pulling on her arm again.
She say Naw, I ain't gonna. Can't you see I'm already half dead,
an all of these chilren. (WALKER, 1986, p. 9).

 He [Pa] never had a kine word to say to me.

Just say You gonna do what your mammy
wouldnt. First he put his thing up gainst my
hip and sort of wiggle it around. Then he grab
hold my titties. Then he push his thing inside
my pussy. When that hurt, I cry. He start to
choke me, saying You better shut up and git
used to it. (1. (WALKER, 1986, p. 10).

 Now, now, I say. Sleep on it some, maybe it come back.

But I say this just to be saying something. I dont know
nothing bout it. Mr.__________ clam on top of me, do
his business, in ten minutes us both sleep. Only time I
feel something stirring down there is when I think bout
Shug. And that like running to the end of the road and
it turn back on itself.
You know the worst part? she say. The worst part is I
dont think he notice. He git up there and enjoy himself
just the same. No matter what Im thinking. No matter
what I feel. It just him. Heartfeeling dont even seem to
enter into it. She snort. The fact he can do it like that
make me want to kill him. (WALKER, 1986: 15-17)

Native-American Poetry

A PRETTY WOMAN Simon Ortiz

We came to the edge
of the mesa
and looked below.
We could see
the shallow wash
snaking down
from the cut
between two mesas,
all the way from Black Mountain;
and the cottonwoods
from that distance
looked like a string of turquoise,
and the land was a pretty woman
smiling at us
looking at her.

THE MARGINS WHERE WE LIVE

Overnight, the air froze.
Crystallized. Now, a thin breath
lies on the prairie hills.
Light becomes certain in cold,
not glazing, not luminous,
only captured and stilled.
The margin of reality
is the margin of illusion.
In that margin between
the prairie and us lies space,
vastness that confirms existence.
It's the air frozen
and it's our awareness.
Nothing more, nothing less
confirms our belief.

The road will be deadly

and will still take icy skill
to drive on.
We will have safe passage.
The margins will always be the space
where we live.

GREATEST BELIEVERS GREATEST DISBELIEVERS

To believe or not to believe,

There are no Indians.

There are no real Indians.

this was the question.

And THE ANSWER.

There were never any Indians.

There were never any Indians.

Asked and answered and believed There were never any real Indians.
by the greatest believers
You mean... you mean, there were
and disbelievers the world has
never any Indians? No real Indians?
ever known.
No Indians?
Where are the Indians?
None.
Where are the real Indians?
Never.

MAKING QUILT WORK

Like the coat of many colors, the letters, scraps,
all those odds and bits we live by, we have come
to know. Folks here live by the pretty quilts
they make, more than make actually, more than pretty.
They are histories, their lives and their quilts.
Indian people who have been scattered, sundered
into odds and bits, determined to remake whole cloth.
Nothing quits. It changes many times, sometimes
to something we don't want, but we again gather
0the pieces, study them, decide, make decisions again,
yes, and fit them to color, necessity, conditions,
taste and choice, and start again. Our lives are quilts,
letters, odds and bits, scraps, but always the thread
loving through them, compassionate knowledge
that what we make is worth it and will outlast
anything that was before and will be worthy
of any people's art, endeavor, and final triumph.
Here, look at my clothes, quilts, coats of many colors!

I DON'T KNOW IF HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

Yehuda Amichai
I don't Know if history repeats itself
But I do know that you don't.
I remember that city was didvided
Not only between Jews and Arabs,
But Between me and you,
When we were there together.
We made ourselves a womb of dangers
We built ourselves a house of deadening wars
Like men of far north
Who build themselves a safe warm house of deadening ice.
The city has been reunited
But we haven't been there together.
By now I know
That History doesn't repeat itself,
As I always knew that you wouldn't.

HALFBREED GIRL IN THE CITY SCHOOL

Jo Whitehorse Cochran
are you Mexican
are you Italian
are you Chinese
are you Japanese
spic wetback greaseball slant-eye
you are dark enough to question
you are light enough to ask
you have near black hair brown eyes
and speak slow-english
we are blonde blue eyed
and wear store bought sweaters skirts or pants
you are in homemade clothes out of style
we circle round you and your sister
you hug your sister close she's small and even darker
we kick we tug at braids and coats
we pull "I'm Indian!" out of you
the social worker wants
you to describe your family
she asks

does your father beat you

does your mother
does your father drink
does your mother
do you hate your parents
do you cry
tell me tell me do you
like the reservation better
are you ashamed in the classroom
when you wet your pants
why don't you speak up
why don't you get excused
why don't you go at recess
tell me tell me speak!
you stare out the window
turn an alphabet block in your hands
speak english speak english
the social worker caws
outside Canadian geese pass through your
immediate sky
six in an arc going south
if you were a Changer like Star Boy
you could fly with those long-necks
but you must stay and look out this window

Grandma's words pound in your head

they want to strip us of our words
they want to take our tongues
so we forget how to talk to each other
you swallow the rock
that was your tongue
you swallow the song
that was your voice
you swallow you swallow
in the silence