This important new collection of interdisciplinary essays sets out to chart the cultural construction of "ethnicity" as embodied in American ethnic literature. Looking at a diverse set of texts, the contributors place the subject in broad historical and dynamic contexts, focusing on the larger systems within which ethnic distinctions emerge and obtain recognition.  It provides a new critical framework for understanding not only ethnic literature, but also the underlying psychological, historical, social, and cultural forces. Table of Contents:  On the Fourth of July in Sitka, Ishmael Reed.  Introduction:  The Invention of Ethnicity, Werner Sollors.  An American Writer, Richard Rodriguez.  A Plea for Fictional Histories and Old-Time "Jewesses", Alide Cagidemetrio.  Ethnicity as Festive Culture: Nineteenth-Century German-America on Parade, Kathleen Conzen.  Defining the Race, 1890-1930, Judith Stein. Anzia Yezierska and the Making of an Ethnic American Self, Mary Dearborn.  Deviant Girls and Dissatisfied Women:  A Sociologist's Tale, Carla Cappeti.  Ethnic Trilogies:  A Genealogical and Generational Poetics, William Boelhower. Blood in the Market Place:  The Business of Family in the Godfather Narratives, Thomas Ferraro.  Comping for Count Basie, Albert Murray.  Is Ethnicity Obsolete, Ishmael Reed, Andrew Hope, Shawn Wong, and Bob Callahan.

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