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Multicultural Literature allows readers to better understand people of different cultures and lives that they do not necessarily know the experiences of. It also expands the story so that readers do not just get the single story they have been told all of their lives.

- The Woman Warrior
- The House on Mango Street

Adichie then multiculture lit and then thesis

immigrant country that has always been intolerant to immigrants

house on mango street-
•The chapter of immigrants being dangerous
woman warrior-
•chapter of her being made fun of at school
•ghosts following her and her not being able to breath

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In "Should Literature Be Useful?" by Matthew Hollister, the author questions whether literary fiction benefits humans or social science. The results of two studies concluded that "subjects who had read literary fiction either reported heightened emotional intelligence or demonstrated, in the various tests administered to them, that their empathy levels had soared beyond their popular- and non fiction-reading counterparts." In other words, reading fiction is beneficial because it makes the reader a "more effective social agent." The author compares this to reading a train schedule because Americans are generally more comfortable with activities that do not lead to concrete results. The author explains that empathy does not directly relate to sensitivity. Therefore, reading fiction does not make someone a better person.

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In "Reading Literature Makes Us Smarter and Nicer" by Murphy Paul, the author explores how reading fiction causes people to better understand other people. There is a link between those young children, who have had more stories read to them, and a keener "theory of mind." The author explains that deep reading, allowing the reader to be fully immersed, rather than online reading, "is an endangered practice, one we ought to take steps to preserve as we would a historic building or a significant work of art." The author is explaining that since deep reading, full of emotional and moral complexity, increases empathy in humans. Without deep reading, humans will lose the certain qualities. Adolescents who only read onscreen are less likely to be above average readers. Young people mostly know of "carnal reading" and not "spiritual reading," that teaches discipline and practice.

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"Her father says to be this beautiful is trouble."

Chicanas who are beautiful usually get trapped because the men in their lives are scared that they will leave because they are so beautiful. Sally, like many other women, tries to escape the abuse of one man, only to be abused by another. Her father thinks that it is trouble to be beautiful because boys will want her and she will become a whore. Chicanas are split into two categories, the innocent girls and the whores.

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"Está muerto, and then as if he just heard the news himself, crumples like a coat and cries, my brave papa cries."

This breaks the stereotype that all of the men are bad and that Mexican immigrants are dangerous criminals. Esperanza's dad cries in front of her because of how much he loves his mother and how sad he is that she died. He does not trap or abuse her. She loves him, one of the only men she will ever love.

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"Not a man's house. Not a daddy's. A house all my own." p. 108

For her entire life, Esperanza has been struggling with women being submissive to men and being trapped at home because of men. She wants to be able to take care of herself rather than relying on a man to take care of her. When she is a kid she wants to leave and forget about Mango Street and the women who are trapped there by men, but as she gets older she realizes that the only way to fight it is if she goes back to help them women.

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• Mexican American
• Female
• Child (growing up)
• Female submission and male abuse

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Sandra Cisneros wrote The House on Mango Street to reveal the lives of female Mexican immigrants. She is showing the internal sexism and external racism that they face throughout their lives.

I think that one single story is that Mexican women are forced into lives of submission.
Another single story is that Mexican immigrants are dangerous and involved in criminal activity.
Another single story is that women are either innocent or they are whores.

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"I've found some places in this country that are ghost free." p. 108

She has finally found how to live with her double identity. She has accepted her Chinese side and her American side instead of fighting to hide one of them. Kingston never fully fit in with her Chinese or American side when she was a child because she did not know how to accept both sides.

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"I was getting straight A's for the good of my future husband's family, not my own. I did not plan ever to have a husband. I would show my mother and father and the nosey emigrant villagers that girls have no outward tendency. I stopped getting straight A's." p. 47

Kingston was told to get straight A's not to help her, but to help her future husband. To fight the patriarchy, she stops getting straight A's. This goes against the stereotype that Chinese immigrants force their children to do well in school so they will become doctors. Kingston's parents want her to do well in school so she will marry well. They believe that a good husband is more important than a good job because women are supposed to stay at home.

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"I shouldn't have left, but your father couldn't have supported you without me. I'm the one with the big muscles." p. 104

Kingston's mother is the one who keeps the family going and helps at the laundry. She is not useless, she is actually the opposite. Kingston's mother also tells her the stories to instill in her that she does not have to be confined to the home. Her mother was also a doctor back home.

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"I alone devote pages of paper to her" p. 16

Kingston tells the story of her aunt who disgraced her family. The family kept this story a secret because the aunt did not follow the proper behavior of a woman in China. Kingston reveals this story in a way that made her aunt seem brave instead of shameful.

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• Chinese American
• Female
• Relationship between mother and daughter
• Double identity

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Maxine Hong Kingston wrote The Woman Warrior to show the internal and external troubles immigrants face when coming to America.

I think that one single story is that Chinese women are useless and should be "bound" to their home.
Another single story is that Asian/immigrant's culture and American culture must remain separate.
Another single story is Chinese and Asian immigrants forcing their children to do well in school and be smart.

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"Bertha Reese had an old dog, Bob, who, although as deaf and quiet as she, was not as clean... Only the horror of having to go near him had prevented Soaphead from completing his mission." p. 171-172
"He was always brushed, bathed, oiled, and shod. Geraldine did not talk to him, coo him, or indulge him in kissing bouts, but she saw that every other desire was fulfilled." p. 86

Soaphead is obsessed with cleanliness because cleanliness coincides with whiteness. Geraldine is obsessed with cleanliness and keeps her house and child completely clean, but she does not show any affection to anyone other than her cat. This shows that the picture perfect family is not actually perfect. The story with Bob the dog along with the Geraldine and Junior story show the white washing in the novel.

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"they stayed there because they believed they were ugly...wore their ugliness, put it on, so to speak, although it did not belong to them" p. 37

The Breedloves, especially Pecola and Mrs. Breelove, were told over and over again that they were ugly because they did not fit the beauty standard so they started to believe it. Their believing in it caused it to be true. They are not ugly because they have ugly features, they are considered ugly because they are black and do not fit the white standard of beauty and they listen to people calling them ugly.

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Here was an ugly girl asking for beauty... A a little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes." p. 174

This passage shows the connection between white and beauty and black and Ugliness. Pecola believes that the only way she will be pretty is if she has blue eyes to fit the white standard of beauty.

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• African American
• Female
• Child (growing up)
• Standard of Beauty
• White washing

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Toni Morrison wrote The Bluest Eye to address the problem of beauty standards in America. She is addressing the idea that the only way to be beautiful is to fit into white beauty standards of having blonde hair and blue eyes.

I think that one single story  is that the only way for a girl to be beautiful is to have blonde hair and blue eyes.
Another single story is the obsession with cleanliness linked to whiteness.

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"What are you trying to deny by betraying the black people? Why you fight against us? You young fellows. You young black men with plenty education; I been hearing your rabble rousing. Why you go over to the enslaver? What kind of education is that? What kind of black mahn is that who betray is own mama?" p. 371

Ras is the example of the African American that openly fights injustice. He is asking Clifton why he is on the side of the white men who only say they are trying to help African Americans, when they really aren't.

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"If It's Optic White, It's the Right White" p. 218

The narrator compares this to the jingle "If you're white, you're right." It shows that people, even black people, believed that white people are always right. It is also an example of an African American who is not fighting against white people. Brockway is actually hurts other African Americans because he believes that white men are always right.

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"'Out of a sense of my destined role,' MR. Norton said shakily. 'I felt, and I still feel, that your people are in some important manner tied to my destiny.'
'What do you mean, destiny?' the vet said.
'Why, the success of my work, of course." p. 94

This ties in with white saviorism to suggest that African American people need to be saved and helped by white people. This also makes the white person helping them feel good by offering to help them a little bit.

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• African American
• Male
• Black College = white washed
• New York City/North = supposed to be freeing but isn't really
• African Americans play a role in white society

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Ralph Ellison wrote Invisible Man to address the social and intellectual issues facing African Americans in the early twentieth Century. The social issues in this novel are racism and how different groups go about fighting it. The intellectual  issues deal with finding one's individuality and identity.

I think that one single story is that African Americans need help from White people in order to progress in society.
Another single story is that white people are never wrong.
Another single story is that not all African Americans fight for the same cause. Some publicly fight against white men, some secretly fight white men, and some fight with the white men.