Visions of America: Personal Narratives from the Promised Land

Thirty-six noted contemporary writers respond to a hundred years of American life from perspectives of "semi-otherness." A classroom classic.

The personal narratives in this rich and diverse collection—companion to the story collection Imagining America—address the historical moments which have defined American life from a multicultural point of view. Among them are Charles Alexander Eastman on the battle at Wounded Knee; James Farmer and James Baldwin on the civil rights movement; Ron Kovic on Viet Nam; Barbara Grizzuti Harrison on race and class in Bensonhurst; Joan Didion on the 1960s; Maxine Hong Kingston, Jessica Hagedorn, and Gary Soto on the immigrant experience; Gretel Ehrlich and Wendell Berry on the American landscape itself.