Trailing clouds: immigrant fiction in contemporary America

Introduction : the new immigrant writing

Slavs of New York : Being there, Mr. Sammler's planet

Immigration and primal scene : Alvarez's How the García girls lost their accents

Survival on the tangled bank : Hegi's The vision of Emma Blau and Mukherjee's Jasmine

Language, dreams, and art in Cristina Garcia's Dreaming in Cuban

Korean connection : Chang-rae Lee and company

Haitian Persephone : Danticat's Breath, eyes, memory

Assimilation and adolescence : Jamaica Kincaid's Lucy and Lan Cao's Monkey bridge

Ethnicity as pentimento : Mylène Dressler's The deadwood beetle

Immigration as Bardo : Wendy Law-Yone's The coffin tree

Closet and mask : Junot Díaz's Drown

Conclusion : we, them, us.