The essays in this volume and its companion volume, Memory and Cultural Politics, focus on the different ways in which writers of ethnic American literatures use memory as a subversive device to redefine the dominant history and culture, to validate a personal and collective identity, and to shape narrative. The contributors articulate how the works of diverse American writers of African, Mexican, Irish, Chinese, South Asian, Jewish, and Native American descent reclaim suppressed pasts, facilitating the emergence of newly empowering ethnic identities.